Editor's note: This article is published through the Great Salt Lake Collaborative, a solutions journalism initiative that partners news, education and media organizations to help inform people about the plight of the Great Salt Lake.

SALT LAKE CITY — The Great Salt Lake's southern arm reached its highest point in five years last year, while its northern arm also made significant gains as both sides inched closer to recovery.

However, a team of academic and state researchers says that addressing the lake's low levels "is not a short-term emergency response exercise" and will require "long-term intentional management," especially with the state's changing weather variables.

They believe, due to more detailed modeling, the lake needs an additional 770,000 acre-feet of water every year from its baseline average for the lake to regularly maintain its "healthy" level of 4,198 feet elevation by 2054.

That's one of the key points in the Great Salt Lake Strike Team's third-annual data and insights report published Tuesday. The team adds that doing nothing now could have costlier ramifications in the future.

"We need to make minor changes today that will make a huge difference in the long run," Joel Ferry, director of the Utah Department of Natural Resources, and one of the team's co-chairs, told KSL.com.

The report was composed by researchers and leaders at the University of Utah, Utah State University and various Utah agencies that formed in 2022 when the lake had dropped to its lowest point on record.

The team's first report, released in 2023, listed reasons for its decline in recent decades, as well as possible solutions to address it. Last year's report outlined the large amount of water that needed to be directed to the lake every year to help fix its woes but offered "hope" it could be done.

The newest report was released ahead of the 2025 legislative session, so it can give state lawmakers "essential data and insights" to make decisions about water management and other aspects tied to the lake.

State of the Great Salt Lake

Great Salt Lake levels are currently rebounding after a whirlwind 2024. Its southern arm is up to 4,192.6 feet in elevation, while its northern arm is listed at 4,191.8 feet, according to U.S. Geological Survey data.

Its southern arm peaked at 4,195.2 feet elevation in June 2024, its highest mark in five years, but it then lost a little over 3 feet during the next few months after its peak.

William Anderegg, director of the Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy at the University of Utah, said a few reasons factored into the lake's decrease. One is more water went to refilling reservoirs, which he notes is good for the region's water needs.

More water was also diverted during the irrigation season while mostly hot and dry conditions persisted throughout the summer and early fall.

Its drops were exacerbated by the breach separating the north and south arm. While it was closed for most of 2023, allowing the south arm to gain more water, the breach was open in 2024 to help get water back to the northern arm. It's a key reason why the northern arm's current level is about 2 feet higher than it was this time last year.

Near-term outlook

However, experts are unsure how the lake will fare this year and beyond.

2024 produced record-warm conditions in Salt Lake County, while it was within the top five for most of the rest of the lake's basin, according to federal climate data. Precipitation levels were closer to normal across the region overall, but drought returned to the basin after an abnormally dry second half.

Related:

Great Salt Lake makes new gains to start new year. What does it need in 2025?

The Great Salt Lake has already received a welcome boost since the end of the irrigation season, but experts hope that run will continue after recent storm activity within its basin.

Last year's report found a large portion of the previous year's record snowpack ended up recharging lesser-known groundwater reservoirs. Anderegg said that happened again after the report came out.

"We have this trend, or phenomenon, now that even in really big snowpack years, we don't get the huge runoff," he said.

It's why hydrology experts aren't sure how much of the basin's current snowpack — which entered the week at 102% of normal — may not be quite as beneficial as last year's above-normal collection.

An uncertain future

Yet, this year's report also builds on previous research by including more refined data, including results of lake-level simulations based on how much additional water is delivered to the lake.

The report notes that the lake's inflow is currently 2.4 million acre-feet of water. Boosting that by an additional 250,000 acre-feet would only help the lake remain at 4,194 feet elevation by 2054, while 770,00 acre-feet ended up being the likely number for 4,198 feet elevation.

Those estimates are based on hundreds of detailed simulations for what could happen with each additional acre-feet of water added to the baseline, explained David Tarboton, director of the Utah Water Research Laboratory at Utah State University.

About 288,000 acre-feet of water have been approved for the lake and its wetlands to date, per the report. While other studies have suggested certain cutbacks could help reduce water depletions and diversions, the strike team report doesn't suggest how the number could be reached.

Those behind the report say they'd still like to focus on collaboration between water users, but Ferry said the 770,000 acre-feet is more of a "perfect-world" scenario.

"It's just not feasible right now, so I think the goal of the strike team and of the state is to target that 250,000 that gets us to grow the lake," he told KSL NewsRadio on Tuesday, adding that reaching 250,000 acre-feet would stop the decline and keep the lake out of adverse effects experienced when the lake hit its lowest point.

The report found that municipal and industrial uses have remained stable over the past few decades despite the state's population doubling, indicating that conservation techniques are working.

Ben Stireman, sovereign lands program administrator for the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands, said the state also reached several major agreements with mineral extractors over the past year, which will help cut back water depletions.

Agriculture water was also discussed during a panel event, as it remains the top water consumer, However, experts point out the complicated nature of that side because they note that water is used to grow crops that meet food supply trends.

Meanwhile, expected long-term trends remain the lake's enemy in all efforts. Projected basin temperatures and evaporation levels are why getting water to the lake is expected to take as much as 770,000 acre-feet of additional water for Utah to reach its goal in 30 years.

Climate models included in the report find that average air temperatures remain on pace to increase by 5 degrees between 2000 and 2050 as climate norms change. While precipitation is expected to increase by 6%, evaporation is on pace to jump by 8% — taking away from gains.

The trend is on track to worsen later in the century, which the team said would create "further challenges for the lake" because of potential problems with snowpack collection and runoff efficiency.

Ferry said those "concerning trends" are why he believes it's important to make infrastructure investments and better prepare for population growth trends, so the state is prepared for what's on the horizon.

"We knew this was the direction things were probably going, and now it's starting to play out," he said. "It just means we've got to stay focused."

Contributing: Adam Small

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