Wetlands in northern Salt Lake Valley, Salt Lake County, Utah

Wetlands in Northern Salt Lake Valley, Salt Lake County, Utah—an evaluation of the threats posed by ground-water developement and drought 9(modified from Lambert and others, 1995).Figure 6. Recharge and discharge areas, Salt Lake Valley (modified from Anderson and others, 1994).ited Use ground water, and 12% is classified as Saline groundwater (Wallace and Lowe, 2009) (figure 8). Ground water inthe principal aquifer generally has lower TDS concentrationsthan water in the shallow unconfined aquifer (Hely and others,1971).Total-dissolved-solids concentrations for ground water in theshallow unconfined aquifer range from 331 mg/L in the easternportion to 20,900 mg/L for the western portion of the valley(Thiros, 1995). The proximity to land surface, evapotranspiration,dissolution of minerals, and recharge from water divertedfrom the Jordan River create more localized variationsand higher dissolved-solids concentrations in water from theshallow unconfined aquifer (Hely and others, 1971; Thiros,1995). Chloride concentrations have steadily increased in theprincipal aquifer, probably from salt used for de-icing roads(Thiros, 1995).Ground water between the mouth of Bingham Canyon andthe Jordan River has been contaminated by seepage fromevaporation ponds associated with mining activities (Helyand others, 1971). The contaminated ground water is acidic