Proposed MLB stadium: More than baseball?

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Baseball stadiums aren’t just for baseball anymore.

From San Diego to Atlanta, these spaces are being used for events from rodeos to ski and snowboard big air contests, and Salt Lake City may be poised to join the excitement.

Backers of an effort to bring a Major League Baseball team to Salt Lake City envision a stadium hosting much more than 81 regular-season home games. A new ballpark would be a year-round, multiuse venue for all kinds of events from sports to concerts to community celebrations.

“Utah attracts a wide variety of sports and entertainment events throughout the year. The addition of a world-class MLB stadium would enhance our ability to attract more key events to the state,” said Jeff Robbins, Utah Sports Commission president and CEO.

With the amenities that a major league baseball stadium offers, it could be used as a venue for the Olympics, ceremonies, rodeos, special events and other sports such as football and even hockey.

Construction of a major league park and entertainment district would almost certainly include some public investment for what could be a billion-dollar project. Utah government leaders are averse to diverting taxpayer dollars directly but have acknowledged that tax increment financing or a public-private partnership could be options.

Like Utah, California has had pipeline dreams to save its drying Salton Sea

California’s largest lake — the Salton Sea — was once a recreation destination, filled with fish and migratory birds, that supported the surrounding agricultural communities throughout the Imperial and Coachella valleys.

However, the lake's environment has changed dramatically in the past decade, according to Patrick O’Dowd, the executive director of the Salton Sea Authority.

“The types of birds that frequent the sea have changed," Dowd said. "The water level has changed. The water quality has changed.”

The Salton Sea and Utah’s Great Salt Lake share some commonalities. Both are drying terminal lakes hurt by the West’s drought and where water is siphoned off for human needs before water levels can replenish. In both places, dust is a consequence of the exposed lakebeds — and both have a pungent aroma. The ecological, environmental, and in Utah’s case, economic, impacts of the lakes’ declines have pushed both states into varying degrees of action to save them.

Tom Sephton, president of Sephton Water Technology, said the difference between the Salton Sea and Great Salt Lake is there is “much greater political will in Utah” to address the shrinking lake.

“(The) Great Salt Lake is part of the cultural history and definition of the state,” Sephton said.

Read moreabout plans to save the Salton Sea and Great Salt Lake and the potential impact their demises would have on local environments.

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