Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
- The Great Salt Lake remains over 5 feet below its healthy level.
- A new billboard along I-15 will provide live updates on the lake's conditions.
- Efforts aim to raise awareness and encourage water conservation for lake restoration.
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 remains over 5 feet below its minimum healthy level, and a water conservation group hopes that a billboard they've added along I-15 in Salt Lake County will help drive home that the lake still has a long way to go before it's out of danger.
A new digital billboard message popped out last week in Millcreek, offering southbound drivers a "live feed" of lake conditions, according to Grow The Flow, a Great Salt Lake-focused initiative led by the nonprofit Conserve Utah Valley, which is behind the project.
A spokesperson for the group told KSL.com last week it is still working with a billboard company to move the message closer to Salt Lake City after a "mix-up." They said the plan is to have the digital billboards in multiple locations along the I-15 corridor in Salt Lake County, rotating through updates and other messages about the lake.
Ben Abbott, an associate professor of environmental science at BYU and the group's director, said the effort aims to bring awareness to the Great Salt Lake's low levels.
"No billboard can capture all of the details of the health of the lake, but just seeing the current lake volume gives Utahns a way to access the situation," he said in a statement. "Israel did this with the Sea of Galilee, and it really helped the whole community get on board."
The Great Salt Lake's southern arm rose back up to 4,192.8 feet elevation to start the week, according to U.S. Geological Survey data. Its northern arm is up to 4,192 feet elevation, as the gap between the two continues to shrink.
This data will be included on billboards, updating as soon as U.S. Geological Survey and the Utah Division of Water Resources release new numbers. It will also feature other statistics such as capacity.
The Great Salt Lake is often tracked by its water level elevation and not its natural capacity, as Utah's reservoirs are. Grow The Flow says this data will also be included by taking active measurements and dividing that by the lake's "natural volume," which isn't 4,198 or 4,200, but 4,207 feet elevation. Right now, the lake stands about 38% of that number.
All of this will be boiled down into an "easy-to-read graphic" for motorists driving by.
"We believe more transparency and visibility will empower Utahns to advocate for practical solutions and encourage our state leaders to take the necessary next steps to ensure the lake's rapid restoration," added Jake Dreyfous, managing director of Grow the Flow.
The lake has benefitted from recent storms, which have favored the Great Salt Lake Basin over many other regions in the state. Both its southern and northern arms have gained close to a foot of water since the end of last year's evaporation period. The southern arm peaked at 4,195.2 feet elevation — its highest point in five years — before losing about 3 feet during a hot and dry summer.
More water is possible with a good snowpack. With recent storms, Great Salt Lake Basin's snowpack jumped back to 99% of its median average for this point in the season to start this week. It's higher than the statewide average of 89%.
State officials say they're still working on solutions to get water to the lake. Yet, despite the lake's gains over the past two years, Grow The Flow leaders say its current levels are similar to 2021, the year before the lake reached its record low, which highlights how close it still is to repeating history.
"Great Salt Lake is at a critical tipping point," Dreyfous said. "While we've seen positive momentum in recent years, the work is far from over."
