| OCR Text |
Show Waterfowl and small wildlife nesting and breeding areas along the Jordan River and elsewhere which are fed by artesian springs and seeps could be adversely affected as their water supplies were diminished by increased well development. Most of the new well development would be in areas that have been or would soon be urbanized. To minimize the adverse impact to these areas, extreme care would be required to provide well houses and other facilities compatible with the surrounding residential areas. The removal of a few hemes might be required to provide sites for some of the new wells. Land subsidence is a real hazard that may accompany dewatering of an aquifer. In areas such as Phoenix, Arizona, aquifers have been partially dewatered, with an accompanying land subsidence of as much as 1C feet. When this occurs in agricultural areas the subsidence is not critical; in highly urbanized areas such as the east side of Salt Lake County, this could be serious. The Great Salt Lake would also be adversely affected. Water levels would be reduced to the extent that groundwater inflow to the lake would be diminished, and the lake would probably lose several thousand acre- feet annually in the form of recharge to the groundwater system. Utah County One of the major problems associated with groundwater development in Utah County concerns Utah Lake. The confined system presently contributes about 55> 000 acre- feet annually to the lake. Any significant well development would reduce inflow to and the yield of the lake. Such reductions would probably not be tolerated by present users. Flowing wells are also a problem. Three to four thousand flowing wells would be affected by large- scale development. Even with the present level of development, the flow from many of these wells is drastically reduced during periods of heavy withdrawals. Tentative results of Bureau of Reclamation analog model studies of the groundwater system in the Provo delta area indicate that a 25 percent increase in well pumping would cause about 20- foot 497 |
