People who flew into Salt Lake City for the 2002 Winter Olympics were greeted by snow-capped mountains and a healthy Great Salt Lake.
“That period, just a little over 20 years ago, was the last time that the lake was at a sustainable elevation,” said Leia Larsen, a reporter for The Salt Lake Tribune. “It hasn't been in that happy zone since the last time we hosted the Olympics.”
Today, the state’s inland sea and capital city namesake is limping by on 2023’s record-setting winter. Otherwise, the challenges that have threatened to dry the lake up in five years still remain — the West’s ongoing drought, agricultural diversions and burgeoning urban and industrial growth around Salt Lake City.
“We're not anywhere at that sustainable elevation, and we would need to bring the lake up about 5.5 feet in the south and about 8 feet in the north to get it back to that happy zone.”
With Utah’s standing as the likely host of the 2034 Winter Games, more international attention could land on the challenges the lake faces like salinity and brine shrimp or the exposed lakebed.
“You know, the optics aren't going to be good if the Olympics are getting blasted with a lakebed dust storm,” Larsen noted. “A big problem with the lake bed dust is that it falls on the snow and makes it melt faster. In fact, in 2022, it was the dustiest year that scientists had ever measured, and the snow melted a full 17 days sooner than it normally would. That's not good for the Winter Games — neither is breathing the pollution that ensues from it.”
Larsen said that reality is not lost on the Great Salt Lake Strike Team, which floated the idea of replenishing the lake in time for the Olympics opening ceremony.
“At a strike team meeting that Brian Steed [the] Great Salt Lake Commissioner also co-chairs, they did mention that 10 years is possible. The next Olympics is a possibility but it would take a lot of conservation to get there.”
This interview has been edited for length and clarity
Pamela McCall: What would have to happen for the lake elevation to become sustainable in 10 years?
Leia Larsen: The strategic plan is that we're going to need to do about 1.3 million acre-feet of additional conservation each year in times of drought — and about 700,000 acre-feet of water a year in a normal period where we get normal snowpack and normal runoff. I know it's hard to wrap your mind around what an acre-foot is, but, to put that in context a little bit, 1.3 million acre-feet is water that all agriculture in the Great Salt Lake Basin uses each year in times of drought. That is the amount of water we would need to conserve each year to get the Great Salt Lake back to its minimum healthy elevation.
PM: How would that be achieved?
LL: Lawmakers in the last few years have passed a number of reforms to our water law. They’ve spent a lot of money on conservation, investing more than $250 million in both secondary metering for cities and municipalities. That’s so people will know how much water they're using outdoors. About the same amount of money’s been spent on agriculture water optimization. Those are two big programs that are likely to conserve a lot of water. The problem is, right now we don't know how much is being saved and where it's all going. We don't know if it's reaching the lake. So I think a big thing that you'll see lawmakers may be focusing on this session is equipment just to measure the water. Where is it in real time and how is it going to the lake? That will be a big part of the strategy.
I'm also curious where we had such a good snowpack last year — and we're having an average snowpack so far this year — whether that maybe will slow the discussion about the Great Salt Lake in the Legislature. I think maybe there's a bit of Great Salt Lake fatigue going around, even among Utahns. It's been a hard issue to confront over the last couple of years and it seems so difficult to solve.
PM: How realistic is it that the Great Salt Lake will be healthy again in 10 years?
LL: Part of it is going to depend on the weather and what kind of snow we get in the next ten years. And a big part of it's going to have to do with just how committed Utahns are to getting water to the lake and participating in these programs and doing their part. So it's really kind of — that fate is in our hands.
