First, the good news. Despite the runoff you are hearing horror stories about, Great Salt Lake is not going to flood you out this year.
Groundwater might. The nearest stream or river might. A soaked hillside under your house could collapse.
But the lake? No, and it's very unlikely in future years, but see below.
A caller in western Davis County was worried. He has heard about 1983. "Where did the lake reach?" he said.
In 1983, the lake did rise. The causeway to Antelope Island was inundated. One of our photographers got a great shot of kids wading on it.
But the big flood -- which wiped out the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, swamped Interstate 15 near Grantsville, drowned duck clubs, wetlands and Saltaire and salted up fields in western Weber County -- happened from 1984 through 1986. Those years saw a lot more snow than 1983.
Even at the lake's highest, 4,212 feet above sea level, western Davis County was, mostly, high and dry. Water was near I-15 around Farmington. Farmington Bay disappeared. But farm areas that are now residential, such as Syracuse, were not harmed.
Weber County flooded around the mouth of the Weber River and several miles inland, in Ogden Bay and Howard Slough.
Much of the central western part of Weber County is a low plain, silt deposited by the Weber River. Weber planners discourage building homes in areas the lake could rise to cover. People who do have to put their homes on mounds.
The causeway to Antelope Island won't flood this year because the lake is a lot lower now than it was in 1982. On Thursday, the lake surface was 4,197 feet above sea level, 2 feet above its historic low. In 1983, it was at 4,203.
The new causeway was built 5 feet higher than the old one. The lake would have to hit 4,208 feet to go over the causeway. It takes a lot of water to raise the lake 11 feet.
How much? From its current level, about 12 million acre-feet, or 110 Pineview reservoirs.
Many people who live around the lake ignore it, but the state does not.
Utah has a Great Salt Lake management master plan under consideration, a 223-page tome with much of the detail I am giving you here, and more.
It's at www.gslplanning.utah.gov, the website of the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands. Public meetings to discuss the plan are set for Tuesday at the Weber Center, 2380 Washington Blvd., Room 312, in Ogden, and Wednesday at the Davis County Courthouse, 28 E. State St., Room 230, in Farmington. Meetings both nights are to run from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
The plan has detailed information on what the lake does to tourism, industry and other things, the many uses of the lake and proposals to change those uses. It discusses what happens to those uses as the lake rises and falls.
Here's a nugget: Remember the $70 million pumps we built out west? We used them for two years and they lowered the lake 14 inches, but they're still there and are regularly maintained.
To crank them up, the lake would have to be at least 10 feet higher than it is now. Plus, Utah would have to file an environmental impact statement with the Air Force, on whose western range the pumps would pour millions of gallons of salty water.
Will the lake go that high again? Nobody knew in 1983. Nobody knows now. Mom Nature decides.
Meanwhile, if your home was built by someone who studied the lake's history over the last 100 years or so, you should be safe.
Wasatch Rambler is the opinion of Charles Trentelman. You can call him at 801-625-4232 or email him at ctrentelman@standard.net. He also blogs at www.standard.net.
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