The Daily Spectrum from Saint George, Utah • 20

B6 Spectrum Wednesday, May 9. 1984 Resort plagued by fire, rot, and now floods by Paul Roily sium manufacturing operation. "I think we're okay. We figured the lake would go to 4,209. And it's there.

We built our dikes several feet above that." Other, smaller minerals companies near Amax have already lost their ponds to the floods and are leasing Amax facilities. merged along with the sandy beaches that made the lake 20 miles west of Salt Lake City one of Utah's main tourist attractions. This year, the lake has risen to nearly 4,209 feet above sea level and is crashing against the building. On a windy day, waves smash through the walls and wash across the dance floor. I "It has ruined the dance floor," Silver said.

"The floor looks like a roller coaster now." The developers' $2 million worth of flood insurance ran out March 29. Eleven days later, the lake began to take a heavy toll. "It looks like we've lost out on the insurance coverage," Silver said. "It looks like we're stuck." Great Salt Lake Minerals, which employs 240 and produces 45 percent of the nation's sulfate of potash fertilizer, has plant facilities on the south shore. But it draws valuable minerals from the lake's north side, which is protected from dilution with fresh water by an earthen railroad causeway that acts like a dam.

The company has filed a federal lawsuit attempting to block the state's plan to punch a 300-foot-long hole in the causeway to lower the lake's south end and prevent the flooding of Interstate 80. Great Salt Lake Minerals said in the suit that allowing fresh runoff water to flow to the north end would destroy its mineral-extracting operation and kill its business. Aside from devastating private industries, Great Salt Lake flooding has caused about $20 million in damages to federal and state highways and several million dollars to park facilities and wildlife habitats, state officials said. Saltair was not the only lakeside business? feeling the effects of heavy runoff. Several businesses at the south shore allow the lake's mineral-rich water to flow into their solar ponds, where the water is evaporated and the minerals diverted to plants for the production of magnesium, salt and fertilizers.

"We've spent millions of dollars building up the dikes to protect our ponds," said Robert Toomey, president of Amax a firm employing several hundred people in its magne SALT LAKE CITY (UPI) John Silver's boyhood dream of owning a resort on the shore of the nation's only inland body of salt water was finally realized last year only to be dashed by the cruel waves of the Great Salt Lake. Saltair Resort, first built in 1893, has been destroyed and rebuilt several times. It has been bought and resold and ravaged by fire, neglect and rot. Now the completely rebuilt recreation mecca is awash in the swelling lake, rising with each day's mountain snowmelt. "We're trying to get a dike around it, but we don't have the money," said Silver, 74, who has made recreation on the lake's south shore his life's venture.

"We've had an awful lot of damage. The storm we had April 9 Cunched holes in the back of the uilding and damaged three of the shops. Another storm April 24 took the partitions out of the walls. "We're hoping we can still save the structure and renovate it for future use, but the interior facilities are pretty much destroyed." Silver, who has always wanted to own Saltair, began putting together a plan to rebuild it when the last Saltair, abandoned for several years, burned to the ground in 1957. In the late 1970s, he entered into partnership with developer Wally Wright.

The two, sharing the wish to realize the same dream, obtained a $2.5 million industrial revenue bond. They leased the land from the state and then built a Disney-like three-story building on the lake's south shore, with its spires, like those of the Taj Mahal, towering above the salt flats. Inside, they built a massive dance hall, several novelty shops and a snack bar. Next door was a spiraling water slide. Their intent was to lure business by merging the entertainment of Saltair once a popular setting for the country's best-known big-band entertainers with the recreation of Silver's lakeside marina and sailboat concession.

"We opened early last year," Silver said. "High schools and colleges began renting our dance hall for school activities. We were beginning to attract good business. Then the floods came and we never could get off the ground." Last year's heavy runoff from the snow-packed Wasatch Mountains pushed the lake to its highest level in years a peak of 4,205 feet above sea level. Saltair's parking lot was sub- SALT LAKE CITY Saltair lies awash in the swelling crash through the walls of the building and wash Great Salt Lake April 19 as workmen attempt to across the dance floor.

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Pulsar Quartz BULOVA ssr9 seiko wnwA0 Minimum 25 discount Crime cost Americans $40.9 billion during 1981 WASHINGTON (UPI) Personal and household crime cost Americans $10.9 billion in 1981, almost double the cost estimated by the government in 1975, the Justice Department said. In a report released Sunday, the department said 75 percent of the cost of crime $8.1 billion stemmed from household crime. The median loss was $80 for a violent crime victim and $40 for a personal theft victim. "The resulting estimates of economic cost to victims may seem low," said Steven Schlesinger, head of the department's Bureau of Justice Statistics. "In presenting these numbers, however, we do not wish to minimize or overshadow victims' pain, suffering or emotional trauma, be calculated in monetary terms." The median economic loss for black victims of personal crimes was $58, significantly higher than for whites $43.

Black heads of households also suffered a higher median economic loss, $90, than whites, $60. The total economic loss from household burglary was $4.1 billion; motor vehicle theft $2.8 billion; personal larceny without contact $2.1 billion and robbery $421 million the highest among violent crimes. The report found that medical expenses were $233 million about 2 percent of the total. About 65 percent of the medical costs resulted from assault. In 1980, Americans lost $10.1 billion from personal and household crimes, and in 1975, the loss was $5.6 billion, the report said.

The study calculated the victims' total loss by considering theft of property and cash, damage to property and medical expenses based on a survey of 60,000 households involving 132,000 people. "The total cost of crime to society is extremely difficult to measure and, in all likelihood, can never be fully determined," Schlesinger said. In other findings, the study said: More than 93 percent of the losses in 1981 occurred as a result of crimes in which there was no victim-offender contact. Damage to property accounted for $601 million in losses 6 percent of the total. Burglary-related property damage was $176 million and personal larceny without contact was $169 million.

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