MAKE IT GREAT: The audacious plan to refill the Great Salt Lake

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From NBC News: The Great Salt Lake has been shriveling up for decades. At its record low about four years ago, the exposed lake bed became a source of toxic dust, with scientists warning of imminent ecological collapse. A Utah official called the lake an “environmental nuclear bomb.”

But a monumental, perhaps impossible, plan to save it has gained significant traction in recent months. The goal: refill the Great Salt Lake in just eight years.

Once a niche cause for environmental advocacy groups, the task of replenishing the lake has won support from many strange bedfellows. Republican state lawmakers in Utah have been working in close partnership with environmental organizations on restoration plans. Those efforts were already underway when Utah Gov. Spencer Cox announced last fall that the state would refill the Great Salt Lake by 2034, when Salt Lake City plans to host the Olympic Games. Josh Romney — son of former Sen. Mitt Romney — launched a $100 million philanthropic campaign in tandem with Cox’s announcement.

President Donald J. Trump has publicly supported the effort.

“MAKE ‘THE LAKE’ GREAT AGAIN!” Trump, who is not friendly with the Romney family, wrote on social media.

“Everybody’s on board,” said Tim Hawkes, a former Utah state representative and interim director of Romney’s fundraising project. “You’ve got the president of the United States tweeting about it. So that’s a lot of momentum.”

It is no small undertaking, however, and it will be extremely expensive. Sure are some of the challenges:

  • The goal is to restore the Great Salt Lake to its target level by 2034, but that will require a significant reduction in water usage and an increase in water flow into the lake.
  • The lake’s water has been overallocated, and the pace of progress towards restoration is insufficient, requiring a herculean effort to achieve the goal.
  • Securing funding is crucial for restoring the lake, with estimates ranging from $100 million to $500 million, and the state and philanthropic groups are actively working to raise the necessary funds.
  • The future of the Great Salt Lake is linked to two scenarios: restoration or ecological disaster.
  • Lake-effect snow from the lake contributes to snowfall in the Wasatch range, crucial for Olympic athletes.
  • Loss of the lake would lead to reduced precipitation, economic hardship, and health threats from dust pollution.

Romney said his concerns center on the future for his own children, and for his real estate portfolio.

“Big real estate developers were like, ‘Wow, this could really impact our business and our livelihood if even just a small percent of Utahns begin to worry about the health impact of the lakes and move elsewhere,’” he said.

NBC Reports:

One way to preserve the water would be to restrict development. Residential water use in Utah has risen about 75% since the mid-1990s as the population has soared, the report says. But the state has been reluctant to hinder growth. It has also thus far not pursued what’s known as a “buy and dry strategy,” which would strip farmland of water rights. (Agriculture accounted for 65% of the lake’s depletion between 2020 and 2024, according to the report).

Instead, state agencies, nonprofit trusts and philanthropies have invested in a patchwork of solutions: subsidizing farmers to make irrigation systems more efficient, implementing more water metering to better track usage, and restructuring state water law to facilitate transfers for the lake’s benefit.

In January, Utah also bought U.S. Magnesium, a bankrupt mining company, for $30 million. The company had been using between 65,000 and 80,000 acre-feet of water in recent years and had rights to more, according to Ferry. The state will get that water for the lake, Ferry said, but it’s also on the hook to remediate a former mining area now considered a Superfund site, which will likely cost between $100 million and $200 million.

Utah is removing also working to remove phragmites, a nonnative reed consuming excessive water from the lake, and considering redirecting water to the lake from the Newfoundland Evaporation Basin, an isolated body of water in the desert that could yield another 30,000 acre-feet annually.

Read more at NBC News
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