Man hopes to strike gold with barge on Great Salt Lake

John Hollenhorst reportingIf you've driven I-80 near the Great Salt Lake in the last few days, you may have seen a huge barge on the horizon. It's the biggest vessel most Utahns have ever seen on the lake. it's a unique money-making scheme no one has ever tried before.

The barge is 165 feet long and 48 feet wide. It's flying the American flag and a flag with a kangaroo.

Fred Cannon, Co-owner Cannon Structures/Trestlewood, said, "It's certainly the biggest vessel that's on the lake." His company owns the salvage barge. It's been used for many years at the remote north end of the Great Salt Lake, where few people saw it.

Now the barge is in the south end, visible from I-80. Cannon's company leased it to Russian emigrant Viktor Volkov. He's lived in Australia for years and now he's in Utah with a plan unlike any ever tried before. State officials approved it.

Dave Grierson, Utah Sovereign lands coordinator, says, "He is looking primarily for palladium, and he is also going to be looking at extracting gold."

Volkov also hopes to recover platinum, selenium and mercury by sucking lake water through a nano-technology filtering system.

Grierson says, "And he's just pumping the water out, filtering it, and then pumping it back into the water."

The state's allowing the project to go on for as much as a year. If Volkov strikes it rich, the state will get a 4 percent royalty.

"At this point, he's just got a pilot program to see what kind of profitability there might be in it," Grierson said.

We can't verify what financing is behind the project, but renting the barge isn't cheap. So far the owner says Volkov has paid his bills on time.

Several other companies extract salts from the lake by evaporating lake water, but Volkov is believed to be the first to try mineral recovery with filters.

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