SALT LAKE CITY — The Great Salt Lake experienced a welcome rebound in recent years and could stand to benefit again with another normal snowpack collection.
However, with its arms between 4,191.8 feet elevation to 4,192.6 feet elevation, it likely won't reach its minimum healthy level of 4,198 feet elevation or its average level of about 4,200 feet elevation anytime soon. Its decline in recent decades has opened up all sorts of environmental impacts.
A Utah conservation group is hoping to change its fate by joining a global network of grassroots organizers who advocate for water quality improvements. The Utah Rivers Council announced Thursday that it is partnering with the Waterkeeper Alliance to form the Great Salt Lake Waterkeeper.
The group aims to highlight not just the importance that the lake has in Utah but throughout the Americas.
"We might be scattered across the Western Hemisphere, but we're all connected. The migratory birds of the Great Salt Lake are also their birds," said Amy Wicks, Utah Rivers Council's northern Utah program manager, during a briefing with reporters.
Members of the organization gathered virtually Thursday to highlight the Great Salt Lake's local and global reach. Marc Yaggi, CEO of the U.S. Waterkeeper Alliance, described it as a "vital" system that also serves as a major area for research, industry and recreation.
It also provides an important habitat for about 10 million migratory birds, especially the declining Wilson's phalarope species. Ana Chambers, representing the Guayllabamba Waterkeeper in Ecuador, said it's an "essential stop" for many of the migratory species that end up in Central and South America during the winter.
"It would be pretty interesting to have a study to know which birds or which species we share from Utah, from the Great Salt Lake and in our site," added Héctor Trinidad Mélendez, La Paz Waterkeeper in Baja California, Mexico.
However, the lake's decline in recent decades, fueled by overconsumption of its tributaries and prolonged drought, has put the health of migratory birds in question, as well as other environmental factors like health problems from dust coming off its dried lakebed.
"Birds can be an early indicator of potential danger and failure," Wicks said. "Will we listen?"
Utah leaders said earlier this month that they've been able to secure 288,000 acre-feet for the lake, but a Great Salt Lake Strike Team report estimates that it would need 770,000 acre-feet every year just to regularly reach its minimum healthy level by the 2050s.
Zachary Frankel, director of the Utah Rivers Council, argues that its gains in 2023 and 2024 had more to do with above-average snowpack over both years and less to do with state intervention. He said the organization will have more about its plans in the "coming days and months," but that the organization supports policies that cut water consumption.
"The Great Salt Lake is a real treasure that deserves our attention," Yaggi added.
