Sacrificing the north arm could slow further environmental implosion, but it comes with its own consequences.

 By Leia Larsen | Feb. 3, 2023, 3:54 p.m. | Updated: Feb. 6, 2023, 1:37 p.m.

Click here to read the full article on the Salt Lake Tribune website.

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox issued an executive order Friday that will once again raise the causeway bisecting the Great Salt Lake in an effort to slow its ecological collapse.

The move essentially creates two lakes, one dead and one on life support. The Great Salt Lake bottomed out at a record-low elevation of 4,188.5 feet on Nov. 3. Unprecedented low water levels have concentrated the lake’s salts, nearly wiping out its brine flies and threatening the health of brine shrimp, while also putting at risk the millions of migrating birds that depend on those two food sources.

“The Great Salt Lake is crucial to our environment, ecology and economy,” Cox said in a news release,” and we must do everything we can to protect it.”

The rock-filled Union Pacific railroad causeway runs from the Promontory Point peninsula to the west desert, sectioning off Gunnison Bay from the lake’s tributaries, which include the Bear, Weber and Jordan rivers.

As the causeway slowly sank into the lakebed over time, there was virtually no fresh water reaching the north arm. Viewed from above, the north arm appears purple-pink due to halophiles that live in its hypersaline water. It has become so salty that brine flies, brine shrimp and the microbialite structures that support them have long since died off. The only birds that actively use the north arm are American white pelicans, who raise their chicks on Gunnison Island because of its seclusion.

Concerned about the lake’s ecosystem, as well as how to send rescue boats to the north arm, state regulators had Union Pacific build a new breach through the causeway in 2016.

But the lake has dramatically declined in the years since, and now state regulators are sealing up that opening once again to keep the south arm from becoming too salty. The Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands first raised it to 4,187 feet last July. Under Cox’s order, it will get filled in another five feet.

Utah has seen a remarkable amount of snowstorms this winter so far, which already helped boost the lake’s elevation by several inches. Still, it’s almost a foot lower than it was at this time last year. The south arm’s salinity sits at 17.5%, when the optimal level is 12%-16%, according to the Division. (The ocean, by comparison, is about 3.5% salt.)

“We’ve been blessed with significant snowpack so far this winter,” Cox said, “and this executive order will allow the state to move quickly to increase the lake level in the South Arm by capturing spring runoff. We don’t want to miss this opportunity to safeguard the lake.”

But an emergency briefing issued by several scientists and conservationists last month warns state leaders not to “cut our losses” and divide the lake in two. Sealing off the causeway could wipe out the pelican colony on Gunnison Island, as land bridges create access for predators and people. It could put Compass Minerals out of business, which turns the lake’s salts into fertilizer used to grow many of the world’s fruits and nuts. And it means the salt crust covering the north arm’s massive exposed lakebed will continue to erode away by the day, potentially becoming a toxic source of dust.

“Some solutions are more extreme than others,” said Bonnie Baxter, director of Westminster College’s Great Salt Lake Institute, and a co-author of the emergency briefing. “This one we see as a temporary measure to protect the ecosystem in the south arm.”

Baxter also sits on the state’s Great Salt Lake Salinity Advisory Committee, which recommended further raising the causeway berm on Jan. 23. A memo outlining the committee’s position noted salinity is so high in the south arm that it’s killing off microbialites and brine flies, which are important foundations of the lake’s food web.

“The cool thing about the berm at the breach in the causeway is that it’s relatively easy engineering to raise it and lower it,” Baxter explained. “It’s just filling it in with a backhoe.”

Click here to continue reading this article on the Salt Lake Tribune website.

Weber State University invites you to participate in a research study of the effect of social media messages on attitudes towards electric vehicles (EVs).

The study is being conducted by McKenna Pace, Master’s candidate and Dr. Aaron Atkins, Department of Communication at Weber State University.

Your participation in this survey will help communicators, scientists, journalists, policy makers, and everyday citizens better understand how to garner support for climate change mitigation strategies such as electric vehicles.

Taking the survey should take up no more than 10 minutes of your time and can be accessed here: https://weber.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_8Brsin50l3uyXLU

All questions or concerns can be directed to McKenna Pace at mckennapace@weber.edu

Advocates for the lake said they were deeply disappointed.

By Emma Keddington | Great Salt Lake Collaborative | Feb. 2, 2023, 9:42 a.m | Updated: 1:16 p.m.

Click here to read the full story on the Salt Lake Tribune website.

A resolution to create a target level for the Great Salt Lake was voted down by a Senate committee despite widespread public support.

SCR006, sponsored by Nate Blouin, D- Salt Lake City, aimed to create a lake level goal of 4,198 feet, which, according to Blouin, is the lowest level the lake can possibly be to maintain a healthy ecosystem. Today, the lake sits at 4,190 feet. According to Blouin, the resolution would not be binding. However it would establish the Great Salt Lake water level as a government priority.

Just last week, the resolution was touted in a news conference as a piece of “historic” legislation.

Many members of the public testified in favor of the resolution Wednesday, Feb. 1, including lobbyists, activists, and concerned citizens. But the Senate Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment committee voted it down 4-2, with all Republican members voting against and the two Democrats voting for it.

During public comment, Lynn de Freitas, executive director of Friends of the Great Salt Lake, said that when it comes to the Great Salt Lake, it’s impossible to be satisfied with short term goals.

She expressed strong support for the bill, saying that “setting this elevation will help us achieve this goal.”

”There are some who think this goal is too lofty, too out of reach,” she said, “but I would disagree it’s not lofty enough.”

But Sen. Scott Sandall, R-Tremonton, said he worried the resolution would divert all government attention to the lake.

“We shouldn’t place one [issue] above another,” he said. “I’m really worried that setting a number on a terminal saline lake like this will put a stake in the sand. It will do it in a way that’s not as holistic as we need to.”

Click here to read the full story on the Salt Lake Tribune website.

Advocates for the lake were deeply disappointed.

Senate President Stuart Adams and House Speaker Brad Wilson say Utah will lean into incentives to address the state’s years-long water troubles.

By Carlene Coombs  | Jan. 30, 2023, 4:30 p.m. | Updated: 4:38 p.m.

Click here to read the full story on the Salt Lake Tribune website.

As the Great Salt Lake has hit record-low elevations during the last two years, the Utah legislature will focus on incentivizing Utahns to conserve water rather than approaching the drought and water conservations with “sticks.”

“I’m confident through the approaches that we’ve been using that we don’t need sticks,” said House Speaker Brad Wilson during a news conference on Monday. “People will continue to do the right thing for the right reasons.”

According to Wilson, Utahns on the Wasatch Front have already conserved nearly 10 billion gallons of water through voluntary measures.

At this time, lawmakers are not discussing limiting Utah’s growth or reducing development, Wilson said. Utah is the fastest-growing state in the country while also being the second-driest.

Senate President Stuart Adams announced he has introduced a bill to collaborate with Western states on water development, while Wilson announced legislation to create a unified authority overseeing the management of the Great Salt Lake.

There will also be increased funding for already existing initiatives, said lawmakers, such as turf buyback programs and agricultural water optimization.

Click here to read the full story on the Salt Lake Tribune website.

Read the Second Edition of Commonly Asked Questions About Utah’s
Great Salt Lake and Ancient Lake Bonneville.

By Jim Davis, J. Wallace Gwynn, and Andrew Rupke
Utah Geological Survey, Salt Lake City, Utah

Published 2022

Preface to the Second Edition

This second edition of Commonly Asked Questions about Great Salt Lake and Ancient Lake Bonneville follows more than a quarter-century after the first edition. When the original was published in 1996, Great Salt Lake was at levels above the historical average. The disruptions and memories of the floods of the 1980s were fresh in people’s minds. Since then, much of the character of the lake has changed. In October 2021, the lake reached its lowest surface elevation since records began in 1847. This 2021 low level record was broken less than a year later in early July 2022. As the lake has contracted through the 21st century drought in the American Southwest, Great Salt Lake’s islands have connected to the mainland, bioherms—living rocks critical to the lake ecosystem—have become exposed and desiccated, marinas have been dredged and vacated, and extractive industries have had to move pumps. Hundreds of square miles of lakebed have been exposed to the atmosphere. The Spiral Jetty emerged as the lake receded, becoming a new state symbol. With lower lake levels a corresponding increase in the salinity of the water has turned the now saltsaturated north arm of the lake into a rosy-pink color. In the south arm a record harvest of brine shrimp cysts occurred in the 2019–20 season. Two culverts sinking into the lake floor since 1959 were replaced with a new breach towards the center of the rock-fill railroad causeway with a control berm, allowing enhanced and measured water exchange between the south arm and north arm. Millions of board-feet of salt-pickled wood from the original 1904 Lucin Cutoff trestle has been salvaged and repurposed for its fine timbers. The lake’s surrounding environs have changed, too. A million more people live in the lake’s basin. Visitation to the lake increases year after year. This second edition updates information on many of the answers to the commonly asked questions and presents a few new questions that were not pertinent to the lake decades ago but are asked today.

Darren Parry, former chairman and current councilman of the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation, is the Spring ‘23 Practitioner-in-Residence for the University of Utah's Environmental Humanities Program. He will give a talk titled History, Healing, and Re-story-ation on Wednesday, January 18 at 7 pm in Crimson View (fourth floor of the Union Building).

Watch the recording of this talk here.

Darren will discuss how the Shoshone people are reclaiming their land, culture, and stories as we approach the 160th anniversary of the Bear River Massacre. Darren is the author of TheBear River Massacre: A Shoshone History and played a critical role in helping his Tribe buy back land at the site of the massacre in 2018. Now, the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation are restoring the land with native and culturally important plants and building a cultural center to tell their story.

“Telling the story of people is important but telling the story of the land is just as critical,” Darren says. “We can only heal as a community when we do both.”

The Bear River is Great Salt Lake’s major tributary, so Darren will also emphasize how healing and restoration at the site of the Bear River Massacre is a critical part of addressing the crisis at Great Salt Lake.

Salt Lake City is considering zoning changes to allow extensive warehouse development in the Northpoint community (northeast of the airport), similar to the inland port warehouse development occurring west of the airport.

This proposal would degrade critical habitat for vulnerable migratory birds, contribute to air pollution that disproportionately affects Westside communities, and displace current residents.

At the Salt Lake City Planning Commission meeting on January 11, many community members and conservation leaders spoke in opposition of this zoning change. The Commission voted to table the upzoning proposal until the Salt Lake City Council votes on the new Northpoint Small Area Master Plan. This City Council meeting will be the next opportunity for community members to comment, and we'll share more details as they become available.

Click here to read the comment submitted by our Executive Director, Lynn de Freitas.

You can also sign this petition opposing the upzoning.

Learn more about the Northpoint Warehouse District proposal here.

BYU's Abbott Lab of Ecosystem Ecology worked with a team of 32 researchers and managers to put together an emergency briefing on Great Salt Lake. The briefing provides an overview of the lake's ongoing collapse and call for the establishment of a minimum flow requirement to restore the lake.

View or download the full report as a PDF.

Great Salt Lake is facing unprecedented danger. Without a dramatic increase in water flow to the lake in 2023 and 2024, its disappearance could cause immense damage to Utah’s public health, environment, and economy. This briefing provides background and recommends emergency measures. The choices we make over the next few months will affect our state and ecosystems throughout the West for decades to come. We thank all those already working on solutions, and we thank you for considering this information.

Authors: Benjamin W. Abbott1, Bonnie K. Baxter2, Karoline Busche1, Lynn de Freitas3, Rebecca Frei4, Teresa Gomez1, Mary Anne Karren3, Rachel L. Buck1, Joseph Price1, Sara Frutos1, Robert B. Sowby1, Janice Brahney5, Bryan G. Hopkins1, Matthew F. Bekker1, Jeremy S. Bekker1, Russell Rader1, Brian Brown1, Mary Proteau1, Gregory T. Carling1, Lafe Conner6, Paul Alan Cox7, Ethan McQuhae1, Christopher Oscarson1, Daren T. Nelson8, R. Jeffrey Davis9, Daniel Horns8, Heather Dove10, Tara Bishop11, Adam Johnson12, Kaye Nelson12, John Bennion12, Patrick Belmont5

1Brigham Young University, 2Westminster College, 3Friends of Great Salt Lake, 4University of Alberta, 5Utah State University, 6Wasatch High School, 7Brain Chemistry Labs, Jackson Hole, 8Utah Valley University, 9Integral Consulting, 10Great Salt Lake Audubon, 11Ph.D. Research Ecologist, 12Conserve Utah Valley

Executive summary

1. Great Salt Lake is a keystone ecosystem in the Western Hemisphere. The lake and its wetlands provide minerals for Utah’s industries, thousands of local jobs, and habitat for 10 million migratory birds1–4. Fertilizer and brine shrimp from the lake feed millions of people worldwide5,6. The lake provides $2.5 billion in direct economic activity yearly7–10, as well as increasing precipitation, suppressing toxic dust, and supporting 80% of Utah’s wetlands11–17.
2. Excessive water use is destroying Great Salt Lake. At 19 feet below its average natural level since 1850, the lake is in uncharted territory18–22. It has lost 73% of its water and 60% of its surface area23–26. Our unsustainable water use is desiccating habitat, exposing toxic dust, and driving salinity to levels incompatible with the lake’s food webs1,24,27–29. The lake’s drop has accelerated since 2020, with an average deficit of 1.2 million acre-feet per year. If this loss rate continues, the lake as we know it is on track to disappear in five years.
3. We are underestimating the consequences of losing the lake. Despite encouraging growth in legislative action and public awareness, most Utahns do not realize the urgency of this crisis. Examples from around the world show that saline lake loss triggers a long-term cycle of environmental, health, and economic suffering30–35. Without a coordinated rescue, we can expect widespread air and water pollution, numerous Endangered Species Act listings, and declines in agriculture, industry, and overall quality of life1–4,36.
4. The lake needs an additional million acre-feet per year to reverse its decline. This would increase average streamflow to ~2.5 million acre-feet per year, beginning a gradual refilling. Depending on future weather conditions, achieving this level of flow will require cutting consumptive water use in the Great Salt Lake watershed by a third to a half. Recent efforts have returned less than 0.1 million acre-feet per year to the lake37, with most conserved water held in reservoirs or delivered to other users rather than released to the lake.  
5. Water conservation is the way. While water augmentation is often discussed (pipelines, cloud seeding, new reservoirs, and groundwater extraction, etc.), conservation is the only way to provide adequate water in time to save Great Salt Lake33,38–41. Conservation is also the most cost effective and resilient response42,43, and there are successful examples throughout the region44–48. Ensuring financial, legislative, and technical support for conservation will pay huge dividends during this crisis and for decades to come1,38,46,49.
6. We need to increase trust and coordination. New legislation allows users to return water to the lake while retaining rights50. However, lack of trust and cooperation between farmers, cities, managers, and policymakers is hobbling our response33,38. Users often have financial disincentives to conserve, and farmers often lack legal counsel to navigate policy changes.
7. We call on the governor’s office to implement a watershed-wide emergency rescue. We recommend setting an emergency streamflow requirement of at least 2.5 million acre-feet per year until the lake reaches its minimum healthy elevation of 4,198 feet51. Executive leadership is needed for water leasing, farmer compensation, water donations, and conveyance52. Every major water user needs to be educated, empowered, and assured that their conserved water will be shepherded to Great Salt Lake. We need clear thresholds that trigger binding emergency conservation measures to stop the lake’s collapse.
8. We call on the legislature to fund and facilitate the rescue. Recent bills have laid the groundwork, and a surge of funding is now needed to lease or purchase water and support farmers and cities to dramatically reduce consumption. Likewise, legislation is needed to put in place the policies, accounting, and monitoring for water shepherding to the lake and long-term sustainable water use52.
9. We call on every water user and manager to conserve water and support state efforts. We are in an all-hands-on-deck emergency, and we need farmers, counties, cities, businesses, churches, universities, and other organizations to do everything in their power to reduce outdoor water use. We believe that our community is uniquely suited to face this challenge, but only if we implement a unified and pioneering rescue. By taking a “lake first” approach to water use, we can leave a legacy of wise stewardship for generations to come.

 Click here to read the full report.

By: Ben Winslow

Posted at 12:00 AM, Jan 05, 2023 and last updated 11:30 AM, Jan 05, 2023

Click here to read the full article on the Fox 13 News website.

SALT LAKE CITY — A group of researchers and environmentalists are calling for an "emergency rescue" by policymakers to save the Great Salt Lake.

In a new report issued Thursday, 31 different conservationists and researchers from 11 academic institutions declared that Utahns are "underestimating the severity of consequences if the lake's decline isn't reversed." It warned that the Great Salt Lake could vanish within five years if no action is taken and called for emergency measures by the Utah State Legislature and Governor Spencer Cox.

Among the action items, a minimum of 2.5 million acre-feet of water going into the Great Salt Lake to reverse its collapse. That would require at least 30-50% reductions in water consumption in the Great Salt Lake watershed, from agriculture to residential.

But the report cautions that you cannot blame any single group (agriculture is a favorite target as it is the state's largest water user). Instead, the authors urge solidarity among all water users to save the Great Salt Lake. The lake has declined as a result of water diversion and a changing climate to its lowest levels in recorded history. A declining lake presents an existential threat to Utah. There's toxic dust storms, decreased snowpack, billions in economic losses and the loss of habitat for millions of migratory birds and other wildlife.

"It is really encouraging to see the level of community involvement and leadership around Great Salt Lake. State leaders, farmers, and so many others are working on exactly the kind of long-term solutions we need," said Dr. Ben Abbott, a professor of aquatic ecology at Brigham Young University and one of the authors of the report. "However, the lake is really close to the edge, and the decisions we make in the coming few months will affect our community and ecosystems across the hemisphere. This winter’s above-average snowfall gives us a chance to give the lake a much- needed infusion of freshwater, but that’s only going to happen if we come together and put an emergency rescue into place. We need bold leadership and support from every water user and organization in the watershed."

Click here to continue reading this article on the Fox 13 News website.

Utah has months to reverse the lake’s decline before it’s too late, according to a dire report.

By Leia Larsen  | Jan. 5, 2023, 6:00 a.m. | Updated: 8:26 a.m.

Click here to read the full article on the Salt Lake Tribune website.

Days before Utah lawmakers are set to convene, dozens of researchers are calling on them to take bold action and save the Great Salt Lake before it withers away.

An emergency briefing released Thursday warns of “unprecedented” danger to Utah’s public health, environment and economy if the lake does not receive a “dramatic” influx of water by 2024. The lake has already hit record-low elevations for two years in a row, exposing 60% of its lakebed which continues to dry into a toxic source of dust pollution. Excessive water use in the Great Salt Lake’s basin means the lake is set to disappear in the next five years, the report warns.

“The decisions we make in the coming few months will affect our community and ecosystems across the hemisphere,” said Ben Abbott, a professor of Aquatic Ecology at Brigham Young University and lead author of the briefing, in a news release.

Scientists and conservationists with Westminster College, Friends of Great Salt Lake, the University of Alberta, Utah State University, Wasatch High School, Utah Valley University, Great Salt Lake Audubon and more co-authored the study.

The Utah Legislature took some of its biggest conservation measures to date last session in an effort to save the Great Salt Lake. They took a helicopter tour of its massive exposed lakebed and approved a $40 million trust to secure water rights and improve habitat for the lake. They funneled millions toward mandatory secondary water metering. They revised the state’s pioneer-era water laws to allow farmers to lease their water rights and use them to benefit environmental interests like the Great Salt Lake.

In recent months, Gov. Spencer Cox closed the lake’s watershed to new water rights. His latest budget proposal calls for $132.9 million to help the lake specifically, along with another $217.9 million for statewide water conservation.

But lake researchers and advocates say it’s not enough.

The briefing calls on the governor to take emergency action to save the Great Salt Lake, including a requirement that 2.5 million acre-feet reach it each year until waters rise to a sustainable elevation.

Lawmakers also need to set aside a significant amount of money to ensure all the recent policies they’ve adopted lead to water making it all the way to the lake, according to the report. The agriculture industry has so far expressed reluctance about fallowing fields and leasing water, even as state leaders constantly tout those measures as winning solutions for the Great Salt Lake.

And, the briefing adds, conservation efforts need to be far more aggressive by every water user in the Great Salt Lake’s watershed. Attempts to date have delivered just a drop of what it needs to recover.

Click here to continue reading this article on the Salt Lake Tribune website.