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—and what can be done to make a difference before it is too late. Read all of our stories at greatsaltlakenews.org.
Lingering heat could mean the Great Salt Lake loses more water than normal heading into the fall, a state official said.
The lake peaked this year at 4,195.2 feet in the south arm — just above an intermediate target that means fewer adverse effects on the ecosystem — and 4,192.3 in the north arm.
Since then, it’s fallen more than a foot to a little below 4,194 feet above sea level in the south arm, though the north arm has stayed steadier.
The lake typically falls around 2½ feet during the summer, said Great Salt Lake Deputy Commissioner Tim Davis, but July has been hotter and drier than normal.
“It could fall more than normal this year depending on what precipitation we get,” Davis said.
The state predicts the lake will fall to about 4,192 feet, he said — about the level it sat at in November.
South arm is dropping, north arm stabilizing
Great Salt Lake levels peaked on June 17 after more than a week of bursting tributaries. They’ve fallen steadily since, especially with little to no snowpack left to feed the rivers that flow to the lake.
As of Wednesday, lake levels had dropped 1.38 feet since the peak in the south arm and about a quarter of a foot in the north arm.
They dropped nearly a foot in the south arm between July 5 and 31, as highs reached and stayed above 90, but water levels barely fluctuated in the north arm.
Davis noted the north arm has stabilized a bit more because water is still flowing through a breach between in the railroad causeway that separates the two arms.
The state won’t close that breach unless the south arm drops to 4,190 feet, a level where salinity levels could harm the south arm’s ecosystem.
Officials are watching salinity levels, he said, and they’ve come up but are still in “a good place.”
‘Clearly’ not out of the woods
Current lake levels reinforce the message that people across the Great Salt Lake basin need to be part of efforts to save water and send it to the lake, Davis said.
“I think some people thought these last two water years got us out of the woods, and we’re clearly not,” he said.
Utah needs to work to get more water to the lake all the time, he said, including during big snow years and hot, dry summers.
Megan Banta is The Salt Lake Tribune’s data enterprise reporter, a philanthropically supported position. The Tribune retains control over all editorial decisions.
