KSL.com
New Great Salt Lake commissioner says he hopes Utah avoids 'Great Salt Lake fatigue'
May 25th 2023 by Carter Williams / KSL.com
SALT LAKE CITY — Brian Steed is still piecing together what his next job will entail, but he already has at least one goal in mind before becoming the state's first-ever Great Salt Lake commissioner...
'A statewide task': Utah's water future will require collaboration, House speaker says
May 18th 2023 by Carter Williams / KSL.com
SALT LAKE CITY — The future of the Great Salt Lake, and Utah's water security as a whole, is an issue that will require help from everyone living in the state. That's the message Utah House Speaker...
Former natural resources director tapped to be Utah's 1st Great Salt Lake commissioner
May 16th 2023 by Carter Williams / KSL.com
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Gov. Spencer Cox is backing the state's former natural resources director to oversee functions related to the Great Salt Lake, pending final approval from the Utah Legislature...
Record snowpack likely adds 2 years to Great Salt Lake's long-term outlook, experts say
May 5th 2023 by Carter Williams / KSL.com
SALT LAKE CITY — Kevin Perry isn't completely surprised by this year's record snowpack. Utah's snowpack, a measure of the water contained within the snow that falls in the mountains, reached 30 inch...
Utah launches statewide turf grass buyback program as it seeks water-use reformation
May 4th 2023 by Carter Williams / KSL.com
WEST JORDAN — This year's record snowpack has drastically reduced a drought that really began to impact Utah by the end of spring three years ago. The U.S. Drought Monitor currently lists about 20%...
Utah water district to redirect 50M gallons of water to Great Salt Lake every day
April 25th 2023 by Carter Williams / KSL.com
DRAPER — Gene Shawcroft pulled a walkie-talkie up to his mouth and called for his employees to open a spill gate located near the Point of the Mountain. "We'll get it going as fast as we can," one o...
Church of Jesus Christ donates 5.7K water shares to the Great Salt Lake
March 15th 2023 by Carter Williams / KSL.com
SALT LAKE CITY — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has agreed to donate 5,700 water shares that will send more than 20,000 acre-feet of water to the struggling Great Salt Lake every year...
New bill would create a Great Salt Lake commissioner — but some have concerns
February 24th 2023 by Carter Williams / KSL.com
SALT LAKE CITY — A commissioner could soon oversee the Great Salt Lake's water levels and Utah's efforts to get water back into the lake. HB491, sponsored by Rep. Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, was introdu...
There are benefits to thinning trees — but it can't solve the Great Salt Lake's water woes
February 9th 2023 by Carter Williams / KSL.com
SALT LAKE CITY — A new report compiled by dozens of Utah researchers suggests that thinning overgrown forests within the Great Salt Lake basin won't significantly impact the lake's water levels as muc...
Report outlines new policies, analyzes possible solutions to help the Great Salt Lake
February 8th 2023 by Carter Williams / KSL.com
SALT LAKE CITY — A team of Utah agencies and research institutions outlined six "major" recommendations for the state to consider when it comes to handling the drying Great Salt Lake. But failing to...
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Cox orders division to raise Great Salt Lake causeway berm another 5 feet
February 3rd 2023 by Carter Williams / KSL.com
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signed a new executive order Friday, calling on the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands to raise the Great Salt Lake causeway berm by 5 feet, in an e...
$40M Great Salt Lake trust beginning work with newly formed council
February 1st 2023 by Carter Williams / KSL.com
SALT LAKE CITY — Farmers, private landowners, mineral extraction specialists, hunters, anglers and water managers are among a group of people joining a trust to work on improving water flows to the Gr...
Utah, Salt Lake leaders unveil new plans to improve the struggling Great Salt Lake
January 25th 2023 by Carter Williams / KSL.com
SALT LAKE CITY — Rep. Joel Briscoe, D-Salt Lake City, admits he has a sentimental reason behind his desire to save the Great Salt Lake. He has fond memories of traveling across the causeway toward t...
_422x281.jpg "The Great Salt Lake wetlands near Corinne, Box Elder County, on July 13. Congress passed a bill Monday that helps fund studies of saline lakes in Great Basin states, like the Great Salt Lake, over the next five years. It's up to President Joe Biden to sign it. (Ben B. Braun, Deseret News)")
Bill that sets up federal funding for studies of the Great Salt Lake heads to Biden's desk
December 27th 2022 by Carter Williams / KSL.com
SALT LAKE CITY — A bill that sets up funding for studies of Great Basin saline lakes, such as the Great Salt Lake, cleared its last congressional hurdle Monday night and is now headed to President Joe...
What's the value in new funding for studies on the Great Salt Lake, other saline lakes?
December 19th 2022 by Carter Williams / KSL.com
SALT LAKE CITY — There are plenty of reasons why Utah politicians are worried about the future of the Great Salt Lake, says Utah Rep. Blake Moore. "Everything related to the Great Salt Lake is cruci...
Why Utah is updating its answers to common questions about the Great Salt Lake
December 7th 2022 by Carter Williams / KSL.com
SALT LAKE CITY — The Great Salt Lake attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors every year even if it's a shell of its old self. For instance, more than 115,000 people have already visited the Great...
New initiative aims to get people to 'fall in love' with the Great Salt Lake again
November 18th 2022 by Carter Williams / KSL.com
SOUTH JORDAN — The shrinking of the Great Salt Lake isn't only a Utah problem in Adam Putnam's eyes. It's an issue that may have serious implications across the U.S. and Western Hemisphere. While st...
Students get expansive Great Salt Lake experience
November 17th 2022 by Sydnee Gonzales / KSL.com
SYRACUSE — "How worried should we be?" "If people see that there's less water, why keep taking it?" "Will it get worse?" These were some of the questions high schoolers from Horizonte Instructio...
What role can history play in saving the Great Salt Lake, solving Utah's water woes?
November 16th 2022 by Carter Williams / KSL.com
PROVO — John Wesley Powell offered a poignant message for Western U.S. communities when he was the featured speaker in a room full of developers and government leaders at a major irrigation conference...
How did Utahns react when the Great Salt Lake hit its previous record low in 1963?
October 24th 2022 by Carter Williams / KSL.com
SALT LAKE CITY — Craig Miller was recently rifling through some old Utah water documents destined to be destroyed when he came across a peculiar set of drawings of the Great Salt Lake sketched nearly...
Utah raises Great Salt Lake berm in effort to stop salinity levels from harming ecosystem
September 23rd 2022 by Carter Williams / KSL.com
OGDEN — Utah land managers said Thursday they've recently raised a berm underneath the railroad causeway that stretches across the Great Salt Lake in an effort to thwart rising salinity levels that th...
Dust hot spots: Where is Great Salt Lake's toxic dust most likely to originate?
September 20th 2022 by Carter Williams / KSL.com
SALT LAKE CITY — Kevin Perry believes there are many "trigger points" that indicate when there is something wrong with the Great Salt Lake. For instance, anyone who has come to the lake for recreati...
'It's a battle': Why there's a growing fight to stop phragmites around the Great Salt Lake
September 20th 2022 by Carter Williams / KSL.com
FARMINGTON — The threat of the Great Salt Lake flooding is far from anyone's minds these days, especially after back-to-back years of record-setting low water levels. But it was a different story in...
Restoration of Idaho's Bear River Massacre site may benefit Great Salt Lake
September 12th 2022 by Mike Anderson / KSL.com
BEAR RIVER, Idaho — Current efforts to restore the site of the Bear River Massacre could benefit the whole Wasatch Front in a big way. Those efforts are sending water rights downstream, which will s...
New Jordan River 'blueprint' may have benefits for the Great Salt Lake
September 1st 2022 by Carter Williams / KSL.com
SALT LAKE CITY — West Jordan Mayor Dirk Burton reflects back to his childhood as he stands a few dozen feet from the banks of the Jordan River. There's one memory from decades ago that pops into his...
Why counting shorebirds may fill a missing piece in the Great Salt Lake conservation puzzle
August 18th 2022 by Jacob Klopfenstein / KSL.com
TIMPIE SPRINGS, Tooele County — Off of I-80 in Tooele County and past a mountain of salt from a nearby Cargill plant is Timpie Springs Waterfowl Management Area. It's here that Sageland Collaborativ...
Is the agriculture industry doing enough to conserve water during Utah's drought?
July 27th 2022 by Carter Williams / KSL.com
SALT LAKE CITY — Given Utah's ongoing drought and the two-decade-long "megadrought," Utah Gov. Spencer Cox believes that Utahns must view water differently than ever before, cutting back on water wast...
Sen. Mitt Romney: Saving Great Salt Lake will likely be a multibillion-dollar effort, but worth it
July 20th 2022 by Carter Williams / KSL.com
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Sen. Mitt Romney and Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, introduced a bill in the U.S Senate last year that aimed to study saline lakes. The bill struggled to garner attention because...
'Art is a good teacher': New public exhibit draws attention to the drying Great Salt Lake
July 6th 2022 by Carter Williams / KSL.com
SALT LAKE CITY — Jacob Brooks' latest painting is quite simple, so simple that his 3-year-old son can understand the message Brooks is trying to convey. It's a California gull with a sego lily on it...
Nature Conservancy, Audubon Society to head Utah's new $40M Great Salt Lake program
June 16th 2022 by Carter Williams / KSL.com
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah legislators approved an unprecedented $40 million that will go solely toward enhancing the Great Salt Lake watershed during the state's legislative session earlier this year. T...
Why Salt Lake City wants residents to 'adopt' a storm drain
June 14th 2022 by Carter Williams / KSL.com
SALT LAKE CITY — Chances are you've seen signs to adopt a highway at least once in your life. The first "Adopt a Highway" sign dates back to 1985. A Texas transportation engineer thought of having v...
'It matters ... when your water goes away': Reexamining the end of Utah's 'lost oasis'
May 5th 2022 by Carter Williams / KSL.com
SALT LAKE CITY — Daron Duke is captivated by an image he's projected on a screen he's shared with curious archaeologists and prehistoric aficionados. It's a pair of pictures in northwest Utah: Blue...
Why water experts want Utahns to be 'the lone weirdo' when it comes to xeriscaping
May 3rd 2022 by Carter Williams / KSL.com
SALT LAKE CITY — Cynthia Bee said it sometimes pays off to be "the lone weirdo" in a neighborhood who ditches the turf-based park strip, the patch of grass that typically exists between a street and s...
How Interior's $1M grant helps avoid 'catastrophic' Great Salt Lake wetlands issues
April 29th 2022 by Carter Williams / KSL.com
OGDEN — The dike system at Ogden Bay Waterfowl Management Area is vital for controlling the water that keeps it an important management area for the millions of birds that flock there — or other areas...
Why it matters that the Great Salt Lake will likely drop to a new historic low this year
April 26th 2022 by Carter Williams / KSL.com
SALT LAKE CITY — Laura Vernon was preparing for a news interview last summer when her mother asked what the interview was about. Vernon, the Great Salt Lake coordinator for the Utah Division of Fore...
Can this tweak to Utah vehicle law help reduce toxic Great Salt Lake dust?
April 21st 2022 by Carter Williams / KSL.com
SALT LAKE CITY — Motorized vehicles are banned from traveling on exposed lakebeds and navigable rivers in Utah, but a problem emerged in recent years with the way it's written in state law. It wasn'...
KSL.com teams up with other news media for coverage of Great Salt Lake
March 7th 2022 by Carter Williams / KSL.com
SALT LAKE CITY — In the days after arriving at what's now the Salt Lake Valley, Brigham Young and handful of other leaders from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ventured toward the Grea...
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