I like this subject. Refilling Pleistocene Lake Lahontan has a number of physical and financial upsides, starting with water supply and real estate, moving onto general rainfall for the Great Basin. The lake effect thunderstorms would provide water for the rest of the state, including the mountains and distant valleys, all the way through Utah and Colorado. Its a civil engineering project worth doing. Nevada won't do it, but it is worth doing. If done right, including engineered outlet into California and eventually down to the Feather River, all that salt can be drained out too. I like that sort of solution. You do want MOST of the water to stay in Nevada, even as evaporation, but having an outlet is important too.Also remember that this lake has around 3000 miles of shoreline, all of which will get top dollar as real estate, dock space, resorts. The varying depth of the water also means excellent fishing, water skiing and boating. This is worth around $2 Trillion in real estate and annual billions in tourism, particularly in a state where both gambling and brothels are legal. All that water also benefits the cattle industry, since the rain will provide lots more pasture, and the tourists will buy steaks and beef after getting bored of fish in thousands of shoreline restaurants. There's also all those building contracts, roads, trains, and fancy decorative bridges crossing the many narrows and inlets. So much money. You'd really think the Nevada Mafia would be really into this, and pressuring the Federal government to get this going. Right now most of that area is empty desert, struggling cattle ranches, and dry lakes. The lake would also refill fossil water reservoirs and provide a source for irrigation of other areas.
Utah really should refill Lake Bonneville, around ten times the size of Great Salt Lake. That would turn Utah from a dry place to a wetter place, right up the western slope of the Rockies and associated mountains. Lakes make rain, and the humidity is better for plants. It stabilizes temperatures too. That's the secret of lakes, and why big lakes have huge advantages to the places that have them. Lake Mead has tourism and water supply for Las Vegas, which has made enormous advantage from this. If Utah fills the lake they'll need to either put levees around the city or relocate buildings upslope. Lake Bonneville spilled out NORTH into the Snake River, through a tiny Red Rock Pass that's got a road on it now.
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I can’t believe I stumbled onto this, but it literally sounds exactly like what I’ve been thinking lately!! Like, I had this idea last year and have been looking into it ever since that we should refill lake Bonneville and lake lahontan, and the reasons why have been almost exactly what you’ve listed hear! Also, think about how both of these lakes will provide a relief on water crises in all the western United States and Mexico. Also, one thing I haven’t been able to find answers to yet, but I speculate that this would allow for the rebirth of many glaciers in the Rockies and the Sierra Nevadas as the lake effect snow would pile deeper than without it, allowing slower melt times in the summer, and therefore packing more long term. This could end up also providing spaces for wind energy farms over expanses of the lakes that would now have greater reliability of sustained winds. Another thing I believe it could help with, but again, haven’t been able to find hard evidence yet, is sea level. Not by much, but I believe that if we pulled water out of the ocean to fill up these lakes it would slow the rise in global sea levels.
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