THE GREAT SALT LAKE

The Great Salt Lake is at a historical low. It is in danger of drying up completely in the next decade or less! This area is valuable to our economy, wildlife, and public health. We need your help protecting it!

What's Going On?

The elevation of the Great Salt Lake has been incrementally lowering for years, reaching its all-time historical low in November 2022 (see the graph below). Human consumption of water for a variety of purposes and anthropogenic changes in the local water cycle are driving this crisis. Municipal and industrial uses of water contribute to this problem but water used for agriculture and mineral extraction are driving the decrease in water flowing into the lake. Anthropogenic climate change is creating hotter and drier conditions for the Great Salt Lake, which combined with decreased inflows of water is pushing the lake to the brink of ecological collapse.

Here are links to various sources that describe the factors behind the Great Salt Lake's decline in elevation:

Gross, M. (2023). When ecosystems collapse. Current Biology, 33(2), 41–44. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2023.01.001

Why Should We Care?

In the future increased temperature and evaporation will become a larger problem for the Great Salt Lake. This threatens local public health, critical habitat, and economic activity.

Public Health

The Great Salt Lake Lake has absorbed industrial waste, pesticides, and heavy metals for decades. These dried particles as exposed will become a toxic dust that will blow across the Wasatch Front. This is a public health threat to Utah as a whole

(https://www.saveourgreatsaltlake.org/)

Critical Habitat

The Great Salt Lake supports a rich biological system. Millions of migratory birds visit this area for breeding, staging, and feeding. The lake is a great source of food as it contains a large population of brine shrimp. Antelope Island is also home to 550 - 700 bison which are managed by the Utah Division of State Parks.

Economic Activity

The Great Salt Lake is a major source of income for Utah's economy. If it were to dry up, the potential cost would be $25 - $32 billion. Costs would include loss of lake recreation income, landscape mitigation costs, loss of brine shrimp industry output, and health costs.

The Lake Effect

The lake effect is a meteorological phenomenon where cool air blowing across warmer lake waters can cause high levels of snow on the downwind (leeward) shore. Since the Wasatch front and Salt Lake Valley is on the leeward shores of the Great Salt Lake the "greatest snow on Earth," that serves as the foundation of skiing in the Cottonwood Canyons, is partially the result of this increased snowfall. According to the geologist Mark Milligan who works for the Utah Geological Survey, "At least two major phenomena control lake-effect precipitation: added moisture to the air due to evaporation from the lake’s surface, and atmospheric instability caused by the temperature contrast between the air and lake water."

Lake effect snows are critical to Alta's skiing-based economy and the environment in Little Cottonwood Canyon, therefore it is pertinent to the environmental mission of Friends of Alta. LCC is not just a beautiful place to recreate in the outdoors, regardless of the season, but also a protected watershed that provides the Salt Lake metropolitan area, primarily Sandy and SLC, with drinking water. This is mostly why dogs and swimming in the pristine creek and lakes is prohibited, among other water quality protections, but it is also important to keep the aquatic environments clean and healthy because the water goes to the Great Salt Lake and back again as precipitation.

What can we do about it?

The Great Salt Lake Strike Team

This Strike team is composed of researchers from Utah's top universities and state agencies. Their purpose is to:

Serve as primary point of contact to tap into the expertise of Utah’ research universities
Provide urgent research support and synthesis that will enhance and strengthen Utah’s strategies to improve watershed management and increase water levels in Great Salt Lake "

They offer six recommendations to the government:

Leverage the wet years
Set a lake elevation range goal
Invest in conservation
Invest in water monitoring and modeling
Develop a holistic water management plan
Request an in-depth analysis of policy options

2023 Great Salt Lake Policy Assessment:

PDF Document

Potential Solutions

Conservation

Includes commiting conserved water to the GSL, optimizing use of agricultural water, and utilizing water banking and leasing, adopting an elevation range goal, and limiting municipal/industrial water use growth

Other Sources

For instance, tapping into groundwater sources for human uses and allowing more melted snow proceed to the Great Salt Lake through the Jordan and Bear Rivers

Engineering

Includes raising and lowering the causeway berm, and mitigating dust transmission hotspot

What Can you do to Help?

Here are a few ways you can help preserve the Great Salt Lake according to the State of Utah:

Conserve water in your daily life
Contact legislators to show support (support bills that protect GSL)
Volunteer at Antelope Island State Park and GSL State Park
- Great Salt Lake Audubon
- Adopt a park
Donate to organizations that support the Great Salt Lake

Protecting the watershed in Little Cottonwood Canyon also goes a long way towards protecting the Great Salt Lake

because the water and snowpack in LCC feeds not only into the valley's drinking water but also into the lake via the Jordan River.

This is part of why it is critical to protect Alta and LCC by abiding regulations and prohibitions on things such as dogs and swimming in the canyon's waters, and by supporting conservation oriented organizations such as Friends of Alta, Save Our Canyons, Alta Environmental Center, Cottonwood Canyon Foundations, etc.

Donate to Great Salt Lake