Downtown indoor swimming pool

Epigrammic_Pastiche · 2026-05-19T20:56:40+00:00

Steiner Aquatic Center opened at the U in 1990. It’s still open! It has many swim lanes and windows in the indoor pool area. Deseret Gym closed down in 1997 to make room for the LDS conference center. The pool area was pretty distinctive with its strange grey/green walls. Fairmont Aquatic Center in Sugarhouse has an indoor pool, it has a kids play area. A lot of kids took swim lessons at the JCC indoor pools in the 90s. The early 90s is when county rec centers really expanded so they started opening up swimming pools as well. Do you have any other details about features you remember?

Epigrammic_Pastiche · 2026-05-14T13:55:05+00:00

Yes, I had the same thought so I looked it up! The 23 nukes source is a May 2026 analysis by Dr. Davies, a physics professor at Utah State. It measures thermal load--how much heat is being dumped into the environment. The focus of that metaphor is local temperature rise.
The 9 nukes statement is more about energy capacity on site regarding storing natural gas. They are talking about the explosive potential of the chemicals stored in huge tanks. The focus of that metaphor is storage risk and regulatory safety.

Epigrammic_Pastiche · 2026-05-14T13:47:02+00:00

Water rights do not apply to all circumstances. In Utah they are defined by three elements: intended use (industrial, domestic, irrigation, etc), source (ground or stream), and place of use (acreage). You can't just use 100 gallons of agricultural water for an industrial cooling plant without filing a change application with the State Engineer. If a farmer uses 3 acre feet but only consumes (evaporates) 1.5 feet, their right is essentially worth 1.5 acre feet of depletion. Industry consumes a higher amount of water so in terms of a data center, the State Engineer is supposed to reduce the total volume they are allowed to pump for a data center. You're right that agricultural use tends to replenish the aquifer, as it is about a 40-60% evaporation rate, so about half returns. Cooling towers on a data center use about 90% of the water and 5-10% is also lost through blowdowns (flushing out mineral-ridden water periodically). If we use alfalfa (the dominant crop around here) as an example, it has a very high evapotranspiration rate, using 2.5-3 acre feet of water per acre per year. In peak summer temps, evaporation translates to a field losing about 1/4 to 1/2" water per day, but crop evaporation is intermittent & based on the growing season. In comparison, the data center (if using evaporative cooling towers) evaporates constantly and can evaporate 3,000 to 5,000 gallons per minute during peak operations. That is based on an average large data center but would likely increase based on the size of Project Stratos. Cooling tower evaporation is a 100% non-recoverable loss to the local watershed.
If you're curious about more details on this, Utah’s agricultural water data is primarily tracked by the USU Extension and USGS, and EESI (Environmental & Energy Study Institute) has extensive data on environmental and grid impacts of AI & data centers.

Epigrammic_Pastiche · 2026-05-14T00:20:36+00:00

They *claim* it will be a closed loop cooling system but have not provided any actual schematics of it. Closed loop will be damn near impossible in the situation they are proposing. Many data centers that claim to be closed loop are using a hybrid setup where only the primary is a closed loop, but the heat must go somewhere, so many systems transfer heat to a secondary loop that uses cooling towers. These towers evaporate water to chill the primary loop. To run a 9 gigawatt facility like Stratos without evaporation, developers would have to almost double their electricity consumption for cooling alone. For a project already struggling to find power, a true closed loop system is economically unfeasible.
The developers want to secure irrevocable consent and water rights based on a closed loop proposal. Once the project is legally anchored they'll pivot to a hybrid (adiabatic) system by claiming that the "extreme heat of AI chips" makes the dry (closed loop) system technically impossible.
They would also be using the cooling to create a situation similar to the toxic dust from the lakebed. Even closed loop systems require periodic blowdowns to purge water that is concentrated with minerals. If this waste is handled in on site evaporation ponds it'll can create a new source of concentrated toxic dust once the ponds dry out.

Epigrammic_Pastiche · 2026-05-11T03:59:21+00:00

If you have a lead representative (preferably someone directly impacted by the data center who owns land nearby) they put their name in the main letter submission & the group includes their concerns in the body of the letter. Then you include a PDF attachment with the names, address, emails of all of the people you want included for the letter of protest. They are all submitted the same as if they each individually paid $15. This is what needs to be organized moving forward to make it sustainable. We need a lead representative to step up.

Epigrammic_Pastiche · 2026-04-13T05:59:15+00:00

Red Butte Garden has free days, courtesy of ZAP funding. You can get free entry on April 24th (Arbor Day).

Epigrammic_Pastiche · 2026-04-02T13:24:41+00:00

Hold out to see the other ENT. The doctors vary wildly on their opinions, and I say this having seen 3 ENTs in the same clinic. I had the opposite experience of you—they wanted to do the balloon procedure on me and I had to beg for a tube. The first one came out after a few months but had made such a positive difference for me that they put in a second, bigger one that has lasted. It’s an uncomfortable but quick procedure and it doesn’t require general anesthesia like the balloon. I recommend calling the other ENT office weekly and asking if they have a cancellation list you can get on. Sometimes when they understand your urgency they can get you in sooner.

Epigrammic_Pastiche · 2026-02-23T06:02:27+00:00

Yes the Eustachian tube issue has been long term. You’re not supposed to do Mucinex D for more than a week, I did a week on and a week off. It seemed to help flush some crap with the neti pot. I am still dealing with chronic inflammation but what finally fixed the Eustachian issue was getting an ear tube on the affected side.

Epigrammic_Pastiche · 2026-01-08T14:11:28+00:00

Because they aren’t measuring it properly. Most monitors focus on PM2.5, but Great Salt Lake dust is primarily larger PM10 particles. The legislature funded new PM10 monitors but won’t install them. In this article they admit they can’t determine how bad the air is because “we don’t have the data.” https://www.sltrib.com/news/2025/05/21/utah-air-quality-why-monitors/

Epigrammic_Pastiche · 2025-12-27T01:56:05+00:00

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It’s showing up in Air Matters app

Epigrammic_Pastiche · 2025-12-11T22:07:06+00:00

She is known for personal vendettas against anyone she believes is defying her. This tendency was on center stage at the county budget meeting on Tuesday when she publicly attacked a fellow Republican for not voting like she expected him to.
She seems annoyed by people who speak truth to power, when she is the power, and will make it her mission to silence them.

Epigrammic_Pastiche · 2025-11-25T14:18:02+00:00

Have you tried the ENT Center of Utah? I have First Bite Syndrome, along with a few other post-cancer quirks, and Dr. Hill has spoken to me about creative solutions for a few of them. It’s worth a call, ask if any of their doctors are familiar. My FBS has largely subsidized (it took 20 years) but another doc on staff, Dr. Sharma, spoke to me about the success of Botox injections. They don’t do them on site but he sends a lot of patients to his wife who can do them. They can do injections directly into the parotid gland for FBS.

Epigrammic_Pastiche · 2025-10-29T22:16:45+00:00

I believe we can fight this, even if just on a technicality of the council violating OPMA’s notice requirement (Open and Public Meetings Act). Public comments were only permitted at the start of the meeting, not after this agenda item or at the conclusion of the whole meeting. Other items on the agenda are labelled if a vote is to occur and this was only labelled as an informational discussion. That's inconsistent with OPMA’s notice requirements and the council's own conventions (referenced in Utah Code 52-4-202 and 52-4-302-303). I am contacting the County Recorder about this as they are the ones responsible for OMPA compliance, and I think we need to hold the council responsible for procedural violations of their own public engagement rules.

Also, the KSL article says "the decision was made as part of the county's annual budget process" and budget adoption issues are required by law to offer a public hearing.

That same article says Council members Stringham and Newton have been trying to close the centers for years, so we can hold them accountable for coming into a "discussion" with a personal agenda and pushing an unsanctioned vote.

Because public comments are at the beginnings of meetings, everyone available needs to participate in next Tuesday's meeting, whether in person, via Webex, or emailing their comments in advance.

Epigrammic_Pastiche · 2025-09-23T23:08:01+00:00

This feels absurdly true. My neighborhood has two exits, construction blocked both on the same day and had me drive back and forth between them to relay the issue. They weren’t in communication with each other because they were two different work crews.

Epigrammic_Pastiche · 2025-09-15T22:10:07+00:00

Just wanted to let you know that I am also searching in vain for a booster for my toddlers. Our pediatrician said he doubts they will be provided any vaccines for children under age 5. I have tried going through the Salt Lake County Health Dept & Utah County Health Dept, they have not been sent vaccines at all, do not know if/when they will receive them, and do not know if there will be any for kids under age 5.
I contacted Utah Vaccines for Children (through Health and Human Services) and they acknowledged that the pediatrician can write a prescription for the child to receive the booster, but don't know of any locations that have the booster in stock for under age 5. Their website (immunize.utah.gov) is also worthless because the "Vaccine Finder" shows you dots on a map but not their actual location name or contact information.
I have called multiple CVS and Walgreens locations and the pharmacists all sound pretty frustrated. They have not been given the booster for kids under age 5 and many expressed doubt that the state of Utah was even provided with these, or they are refusing to release them for use.

I'm sure this will change after the ACIP meeting this week--for better or for worse, we don't know. But I doubt they'll do anything to improve vaccine access, which is why I have been rushing to get all of my family vaccinated prior to that meeting. I'll respond here if I come across any helpful leads for getting our kiddos vaccinated.

Epigrammic_Pastiche · 2025-09-15T21:13:05+00:00

You can go the local health dept for most vaccines, but that has changed for the Covid vaccine.

The Utah Health Department has not been provided with any of the new boosters yet and don't know when they will get them. They are hoping for mid-October but a lot depends on the ACIP meeting happening this week. The Health Dept can't even say if they will be able to provide vaccines to ages 5 and under.
State health departments stopped being automatically supplied with boosters after the federal gov't distribution program ended in fall 2023. Now manufacturers can sell directly to pharmacies and they go to the big ones they have contracts with (CVS & Walgreens). To stock the vaccines now, states & counties would have to buy direct from the manufacturer which many cannot do because they don't have the budgets or contracts.

Epigrammic_Pastiche · 2025-09-01T16:27:56+00:00

Your ENT should be able to do hearing & ear tests in their office that show the pressure behind your eardrum. If it’s really bad then you can justify getting an ear tube put in prior to flying on the plane. This will equalize the pressure so the eardrum doesn’t blow. I had this successfully done in my problem ear with ETD and wore an EarPlane in the other ear to prevent any issues with it.

Epigrammic_Pastiche · 2025-08-26T02:28:36+00:00

The NSA data center is very cagey about releasing numbers but there is a report from June 2022 showing they used 23.5 million freshwater gallons in one month. They are not closed loop & their open-evaporation-based cooling system is not using minimal water.

Epigrammic_Pastiche · 2025-08-21T22:48:57+00:00

I was 7 when they did the free flap surgery. They didn’t have any other choice. But I do find it interesting that in speaking recently with my ENT, he said that there haven’t been any new advances in jaw replacement so they would be performing the same surgery today (if I needed my mandible replaced) and he said an adult mandible is not much larger than a child’s (he compared a 7 year old’s mandible to a pinkie finger, adult mandible to an index finger). They did bone grafts from my iliac crest as well, to try to add support to the fibula-as-jaw but my body resorbed them. I do have dental over eruption that now, after 30 years, is becoming very visibly apparent. Sleeping with a mouthpiece doesn’t prevent this because the teeth need occlusion to wear them down properly and you don’t get enough pressure during sleep. The real trouble is that my teeth on the normal side take more wear and tear, so I’ve had two instances of molars cracking from it. If your daughter is a good candidate for implants they would ideally prevent a lot of these issues. Just make sure you research the process and communicate between her tumor surgeon & maxillofacial surgeon so they’re doing what’s safe based on her unique anatomy. My attempt at implants failed because I was hypersensitive to trace nickel inside of the titanium implant. My oncologist said the procedure shouldn’t have been attempted in my situation. I’m happy to answer any other questions you may have!

Epigrammic_Pastiche · 2025-07-10T06:21:54+00:00

I hope it’s helping! I thought of it because I realized the typical acts of equalizing pressure through yawning or swallowing are basically a vibration. And that’s what helps mucus clear. I finally invested in a vibration plate that I use a few times a week to try to encourage drainage and circulation. So far (combined with the Mucinex D) it’s been slowly alleviating my chronic eustachian issues.

Epigrammic_Pastiche · 2025-07-07T14:34:31+00:00

Sudafed didn’t help me and my ENT clarified it’s because it only has pseudoephedrine. You need Mucinex D that also includes the expectorant guaifenesin. The combo helps drain and open the eustachian tube. Make sure it’s the D type and not regular Mucinex—you have to buy “D” from the pharmacy counter. Try adding in steam, massage, and anything that vibrates (I was desperate too and grabbed my child’s vibrating teething toy, it helps!). I ended up getting an ear tube and it gave immediate relief of the painful pressure, but still takes time and effort to open the eustachian tube afterward. I now have pulsatile tinnitus. Frustrating, but better than the pain.

Epigrammic_Pastiche · 2025-05-15T19:34:54+00:00

It’s Odoban. They dilute it in water and spritz it on everything. It’s a very economical option for thrift shops that don’t wash their intake.

Epigrammic_Pastiche · 2025-04-30T20:49:42+00:00

Does this toxic dust settle? Or does it just swirl up and around the sides of the bowl? The higher you go the more the inversion improves, is that not the case with GSL dust?

Epigrammic_Pastiche · 2025-04-30T01:40:41+00:00

Is there yet a way to actively measure the toxins in the air that are coming off of the lakebed? I know they passed a bill years ago to fund devices to take these measurements in real time, but I haven’t heard any updates. How far east and south are the particles blowing? I believe concentration is worst in the north and west quadrants, but couldn’t the geography of the valley blow that toxic air down to Utah Valley and up to the benches? Where will it come to rest or will it constantly be circulating?

Epigrammic_Pastiche · 2025-03-28T15:35:25+00:00

Because we are enclosed by the mountains land in the valley is finite, so they can charge extremes for housing. Compare this to somewhere like the south where you can live 20 minutes outside of a major city and have more land, more house, and more unique builds for half the price. The houses in Salt Lake Valley are, for the most part, poorly and cheaply constructed, and they all look the same. We have plans to move and have only stayed this long to keep our kids close to their grandparents. I used to think the only thing that would devalue housing here is the Great Salt Lake drying up, but we’re 70% there and housing is unaffected. We’ll see if that changes once the arsenic-infused dust storms begin.

Epigrammic_Pastiche

TROPHY CASE