Utah leaders should set long-term Great Salt Lake solutions ‘immediately,’ report says
-
- A boat goes by on the Great Salt Lake in Magna on Oct. 6, 2023. A group of state and education experts say Utah leaders will have to start taking steps soon to help the Great Salt Lake make new incremental gains in the future.
-
- This graph show how long it would take for the Great Salt Lake to reach 4,198 feet elevation with conservation goals in the next five, 10 and 30 years versus no conservation in regular or drought years.
-
- Great Salt Lake Collaborative
Editor’s note: This article is published through the Great Salt Lake Collaborative, a solutions journalism initiative that partners news, education and media organizations to help inform people about the plight of the Great Salt Lake — and what can be done to make a difference before it is too late. Read all of our stories at greatsaltlakenews.org.
SALT LAKE CITY — Last year’s record snowpack helped the Great Salt Lake’s southern arm gain a little more than 3 feet after the spring runoff and summer evaporation process; however, a group of state and education experts say Utah leaders will have to start taking steps soon to help the lake make new incremental gains in the future.
Members of the Great Salt Lake Strike Team released its second-annual data and insights report on Wednesday, which focuses on how the lake can continue to make gains over the next three decades. Any decision the state makes should be made relatively quickly though, members of the team say.
“Long-term solutions need to be addressed immediately to return the lake to healthy levels over time,” the report states.
That’s easier said than done. The group, composed of researchers at the University of Utah, Utah State University and the Utah Department of Natural Resources, adds that “no single solution” will fix the lake’s woes.
The Great Salt Lake reached an all-time low in 2022, but its southern arm is now back to 4,192.6 feet elevation, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It’s about 5½ feet below the lake’s minimum healthy level. Its northern arm remains about 8½ feet under that goal.
The new report comes a week before Utah is scheduled to release its proposed strategic plan for the lake.
“We are mindful of how much progress has been made and how much work remains,” the team’s leaders wrote in an adjoining letter. “Data and modeling investments will make a significant difference and ‘shepherding’ conserved water to the lake are all critical to Utah’s success.”
The team released its first report in February 2023, outlining possible solutions to help the lake. It pointed to agriculture optimization and water leasing as two of the more feasible options when considering impact and cost.
Of course, the 2023 water year helped before and after the report came out.
The lake’s southern arm had already gained about 1½ feet from its record low by the time the report was published. It rose another 4 feet by the end of the spring runoff before dropping back down another 2 feet to evaporation. Its northern arm, which didn’t receive as much water because of a berm at the causeway, experienced far less fluctuation over the past year.
This year’s report illustrates more about how much water needs to be saved to get the lake back to the minimum healthy range of 4,198 feet elevation over the next five, 10 and 30 years. “Significant water use reductions” would have to be enacted in all three scenarios.
Great Salt Lake Commissioner Brian Steed previously noted that it would take about 1.1 to 1.7 million acre-feet of additional water annually to reach the optimal range of 4,198 feet elevation over the next five years, depending on drought conditions. It would take an additional 471,000 to 1.06 acre-feet of water every year to reach the goal in 30 years.
The team members add that they don’t believe the lake will return to 4,198 feet elevation by 2054 without any sort of intervention, and the lake may continue to fall to even greater lows if drought conditions continue to ravage the region as they have over the past two decades.
That’s why they write that more water shepherding is likely needed in the future. This is when water rights holders within the Great Salt Lake Basin can temporarily or permanently donate their rights so water flows into the lake.
Members of the team say it will also be important for the state to have a better track of water usage to ensure any donated water reaches the lake. The same goes for any water optimization.