There is no getting around this: Utah Lake is a sewer sink hole, with 214 tons of phosphorus pollution draining in every year that never leaves.

State scientists have determined that 76.5 percent of that phosphorus comes from sewer treatment plants, a revelation with long-reaching implications. High levels of phosphorus can lead to dead zones in a lake, harming fish and plant life. Ultimately, the phosphorus problem could mean higher sewer rates in Utah County and perhaps much higher impact fees for those looking to build new houses.

The state has spent years studying phosphorus pollution in Utah Lake, trying to determine whether to force pollution controls on local sewer districts, and if so, at what levels. Now cities in north Utah County have decided, seeing the writing on the wall, to begin voluntary phosphorus removal.

"We had to redesign our [sewer plant] expansion for phosphorus removal," said Garland Mayne, manager of the north county sewer district.

This year will go into the history books as a watershed year for phosphorus, no pun intended. A 400-plus page state phosphorus pollution report on Utah Lake is expected to be finalized within weeks. And a week ago, Governor Jon Huntsman Jr. signed a bill "prohibiting the sale of household dishwashing detergent that contains 0.5 percent or more phosphorus by weight," beginning in 2010, making Utah one of a handful of states to move toward cleaning up lakes and streams.

Virginia, concerned about the damage phosphorus has done to the Chesapeake Bay, passed the same ban last month. Dishwashing detergents now contain up to 9 percent phosphorus, according to the Organic Consumers Association.

The statewide ban is expected to help, but not cure Utah Lake's phosphorus sink, said Dave Wham of the Utah Division of Water Quality. That is because while phosphorus can be removed from dishwashing soap, and has already been removed from laundry detergent by federal law, it is a nutrient, meaning it occurs naturally in food, and by extension, in sewage.

Since Utah Valley residents are unlikely to give up eating any time soon, the Utah Lake phosphorus sink will continue to grow until local cities pay up to remove phosphorus from the sewage water that drains into Utah Lake day after day.

In interviews with representatives from all of the local sewer authorities that drain into Utah Lake, the Daily Herald learned that while many cities believe some kind of state mandate to remove phosphorus is likely, many are not planning voluntary removal as the north county has done, preferring instead to wait to find out exactly what that mandate will be before taking action.

The north county sewer district was already planning an $80 million expansion to deal with population growth, to be completed in two years, making now the ideal time to add phosphorus removal technology. Using microbes to eat the phosphorus, the technology can only reduce the pollutant by about two-thirds, which would seem to be a victory until residents realize that even the remaining third is potentially more than enough to damage the lake, according to Reed Price, director of the new Utah Lake Commission, a quasi-governmental body only recently approved by the Legislature and Governor Jon Huntsman Jr.

The commission has passed a resolution in support of the Utah Lake pollution study but has not encouraged its member cities to voluntarily begin removing phosphorus because no one knows how stringent state requirements could be if required at all, Price said.

The cost of removing phosphorus

When it comes to wondering what phosphorus removal could cost Utah County taxpayers, local authorities point repeatedly, and with trepidation, to the experience with the East Canyon water treatment plant in neighboring Summit and Morgan counties.

East Canyon went through a nearly identical phosphorus pollution study that ended with a stringent mandate in 2000, requiring them to eventually reduce their phosphorus from 3 parts per million to 50 parts per billion. The sewer district there initially spent $8 million to build new facilities that have not been able to get the phosphorus levels to the legal limit imposed on East Canyon Reservoir, and the district is now spending more than $74 million to basically tear that plant and a second one down, rebuilding them with better technology to meet the state phosphorus requirement while expanding them to meet growth demands, said Micheal Luers, who runs the Snyderville Basin Water Reclamation District, which oversees both plants.

Calculating a total cost so far of $82 million for those two plants, local authorities point out that in Utah Valley, seven sewer treatment plants drain into Utah Lake, covering almost every city.

The good news is that residential rates in the areas served by East Canyon have only had to be raised 15 to 20 percent because of the new expenses. That is because impact fees charged to those building new houses will pay the rest of the cost.

"We charge $2,000 per bedroom," Luers said. "That is $6,000 for a three-bedroom home."

Expensive changes are already looming in Utah Valley.

Just this week, south county cities agreed to spend $5 million to buy 240 lakeside acres in Palmyra to build a new $300 million sewer treatment plant that would, in about 15 years, remove phosphorus from sewer water. The agreement, more than a decade in the making, comes at least partly because city authorities expect some kind of phosphorus removal mandate as a result of the Utah Lake pollution study, said Spanish Fork Councilman Wayne Andersen, who chairs the organization of cities planning the plant.

North county sewer authorities said their plan to remove up to two-thirds of the phosphorus from sewer water will cost no more than $100,000, but acknowledge there is no way to know if that removal will meet any future state mandate. Removing most of the remaining third would be much more expensive.

Bruce Chesnut, public works director for Orem, said that city has begun testing its phosphorus levels, but will not voluntarily remove phosphorus because it is impossible to guess what level of removal the state might require, if it is required.

In Provo, public works director Merril Bingham said that unlike the north county facility, Provo does not need to rebuild now, and so will also wait for state mandates make phosphorus illegal before moving to rid it from the sewer water drained into the lake.

Is the lake poisoning itself?

While it may seem counter-intuitive, it is possible, because of Utah Lake's unique hydrology, that being a phosphorus sink may not be a problem at all -- at least for cities.

Just over 23 percent of the phosphorus coming into the lake is naturally present in streams and springs, the state points out.

Common sense would dictate that adding more phosphorus to the Utah Lake sink would be a bad idea, but local authorities repeatedly pointed out that the real question is whether reducing the amount of phosphorus draining into the lake can be beneficial.

Yes, you read that right. The real question is whether there is any point in trying.

The question is not just an exercise in politics and money, while they do inform the debate. There are many unanswered questions that state scientists are continuing to tackle. Because 23 percent of the source of the sink is natural and will continue to flow no matter what, would reducing or even removing the rest do any good? And even though no one disputes that human settlement has increased phosphorus flowing into the lake, unknown tons of phosphorus have been trapped in the lakebed over thousands of years -- would reducing the flow now have any affect on the lake's health?

And while there is no question that the ecology of the lake has changed over time, causing many native species to die out, threatening those that are left, and allowing introduced species like carp to thrive, is human-caused phosphorus pollution now hurting fish? What will the long-term effect of the human-added phosphorus be?

There are signs that human sewage pollution may have tipped the balance. Once in the lake, phosphorus is either trapped in lakebottom mud, or suspended in the water, where it fertilizes "massive open-water cyanobacteria blooms in the late summer and fall," according to state scientists.

Normally such blooms could cause a mass die-off of fish, but that has not happened in Utah Lake because wind and carp stir up the lake bottom mud, making the water cloudy enough to prevent sunlight filtration, thus keeping blooms from growing to lethal proportions. Ironically, carp could be protecting Utah Lake from human pollution, even as they push native fish toward extinction. A project to rid the lake of carp is expected to begin this summer, and authorities admit the effort could backfire, allowing algae to grow out of control if phosphorus is not reduced.

And there is evidence that even the spawning of non-native species that have taken over the lake is being hurt by temperature changes and lake conditions, according to state scientists.

As a result of these questions, several more years of study will be needed before the state can determine whether phosphorus restrictions will be mandated, and how stringent that mandate could be, Wham said.

To read the evaluation and draft pollution report on Utah Lake, visit www.waterquality.utah.gov/TMDL/ and scroll down to the Utah Lake section of "In-Progress TMDL Water Quality Studies."