Utah attempts massive Great Salt Lake rescue project ahead of 2034 Olympics

Long-term drought played a role in the lake’s decline, but about 75% of the problem was human-caused, according to a study published in 2022: People had simply been taking too much water from the lake for decades.

State officials have taken action seriously in 2022. Lawmakers created a $40 million water trust to improve water quality and quantity. They changed Utah’s water law to designate it a “beneficial use” allowing farmers to let their plots flow to the lake, thereby encouraging water donations and transfers. (Prior to the change, unused water rights could be lost.)

State officials also raised a berm along a causeway separating the north and south arms of the lake to allow them to control the flow of water and salt between the two. Then, by chance, that winter, twice as much snow fell as usual in the mountains.

Together, those two factors “basically saved the lake” by lowering its salinity, said Kevin Perry, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Utah who studies the Great Salt Lake and its toxic dust.

“They filled and diluted all the salt on the southern part of the lake with this huge snowpack,” he said.

Returned species.

“This year the flies were just robust,” Baxter said.

This was enough to avert the crisis – at least temporarily.

“We avoided this environmental nuclear bomb,” said Joel Ferry, director of the Utah Department of Natural Resources. “We put away the red button.”

But water levels have not returned to good health and this year’s dismal snowpack could renew the problems.