For decades, Utah Lake was seen as dirty and a place to avoid. And that reputation colored Utahns' perceptions about the state’s largest freshwater lake for generations.
“When I was a kid, the only marketing around Utah Lake was ‘ski the scum.’ That's what the t-shirt said,” said Brigham Young University professor of plant & wildlife sciences Ben Abbott, who grew up not far from the lake. “That was because in the 90s the algal blooms were thick and heavy and extensive.”
There was a time when that reputation was deserved. Raw sewage was dumped into the lake as late as 1967, and algal blooms often clogged the water. After years of conservation and habitat restoration, the lake is ready for a new chapter.
“I think that a lot of people still have that 1990s Utah Lake in their mind,” Abbott said. “All it takes is a single visit to the Provo River Delta, to the north shore of Utah Lake, to Sandy Beach down on the south end of the lake, to completely overturn that view.”
To help push back against its bad rap, the Utah Lake Authority is launching a new campaign called “Utah Lake is my Lake.” It features a pair of faux-German tourists who discover all the lake has to offer to encourage Utahns to see the progress for themselves.
The motivation is simple. In the words of Executive Director Luke Peterson, “people don't have a really positive view of Utah Lake.”
“We did a study this past summer, and we asked people about their opinions of the lake and there were two big takeaways from that,” he said. “One was that people indicated that they thought it was more important to conserve Great Salt Lake than Utah Lake … And second, it seems that there is a disconnect where people are not aware of the fact that we have to preserve Utah Lake in order to preserve Great Salt Lake.”
Peterson said up to one-third of the water that eventually ends up in Great Salt Lake must first go through Utah Lake before it is carried north by the Jordan River.
One of the projects the authority and the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources have focused on is the rehabilitation of the Provo River Delta and the critical habitat it contains. That includes everything from migratory birds to the native June Sucker, which was on the endangered species list as recently as 2021.
“It's established and brought back that native breeding ground for a lot of the native fish species,” said Michael Packer, the division’s conservation outreach manager. “Improvements to this new delta are intended to bring back these breeding grounds and allow this fish to come back from the brink of extinction, which is pretty impressive, pretty awesome to see.”
Despite the work and efforts to bring back visitors, conservation biologists like Addie Valdez still have their work cut out for them. The lake’s unique topography makes water quality and vegetation work very difficult. At 95,000 acres, the average depth of Utah Lake is only about 9 feet.
“That leads to things like extra water column churning, so it keeps those sediments active in the water column at all times,” she said. “That makes it more murky and leads to vegetation growth not being able to happen as easily, and it creates a lot of wave action. So a lot of plants are pulled from the bottom or on the shoreline.”
That shallow, warm water in the summer means algal blooms still occur, but at a much less frequent rate than in years past. When there is a bloom, they are tracked by the Utah Department of Environmental Quality.
“As long as we're knowledgeable and understand what it is and that it's short-lived, it's something that we don't have to be overly concerned with,” Packer said.
Beyond managing such a vast ecosystem, Abbott said the biggest challenge the lake faces in the future is climate change. There’s also the increased pressure that fast-growing Utah County puts on the watershed.
“This is a time of uncertainty,” he said. “Thankfully, the support for Utah Lake comes from multiple places, but we do need to think long term, and we need to make sure that we can maintain the research and restoration around the lake.”
Money is another challenge. According to the lake authority, none of their funding comes directly from the federal government. However, the organization is seeking federal funds to help pay for future projects around the lake, which could be affected by changes in Washington, D.C.
