NOTE: This article was published by the Great Salt Lake Collaborative, a solutions-focused journalism initiative that brings together news, education and media organizations to inform people about the Great Salt Lake’s plight – and what can be done to make a change before it’s too late. Read all of our stories at www.greatsaltlakenews.org.

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SALT LAKE CITY — It’s safe to say that the brutal start to this summer along the Wasatch Front has hit the Great Salt Lake particularly hard.

Great Salt Lake Deputy Superintendent Tim Davis said the lake typically loses 2 to 2.5 feet of water each summer through evaporation and upstream diversions. He said that happens from spring through November.

This year, however, the level of the South Arm, which is also the main part of the Great Salt Lake, has already dropped by 60 cm, and it will take about three months for the lake to fill up again.

Davis told KSL NewsRadio he expects the lake’s water level to drop another half-foot, which would be the average annual summer decline of 2.5 feet. But he also said there’s a chance the Great Salt Lake could lose another foot, which would be a loss of three feet since its spring peak.

If the level were to drop another foot, the South Arm would fall back to 4,192 feet, the elevation this location stood at a year ago before the lake received another heavy, much-needed snowpack.

Changed water levels

This spring, the Great Salt Lake reached an elevation of 4,195 feet above sea level, its highest since 2017. At the time of publication, the lake was two feet lower, at 4,193 feet.

However, in the fall of 2023, the lake’s water level was 4,192 feet, following a record-breaking winter and a blanket of snow that helped keep the lake’s ecosystem from collapsing.

The Great Salt Lake level fell to a record low of 4,188.5 feet in November 2022, but rose about 5.5 feet in the record winter that followed.

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During this period, the northern arm of the lake, which is separated from the rest of the lake by a railroad embankment, did not rise significantly from the depths seen in 2022.

Davis said state officials have ordered the dam that allows water to flow between the north and south arms to be modified to direct as much water as possible from the record melt in spring 2023 into the south arm of the lake, where the lake’s entire ecosystem is located.

So while the South Branch grew by 5.5 feet, the North Branch rose by only about 1.3 feet, from 4,188.5 to just under 4,189.8 feet.

Today, the North Branch is at an elevation of 4,191.6 feet, only about 1.4 feet lower than the South Branch.

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Davis explained that water is now flowing back and forth between the North and South branches, helping the two flow together and is one reason why the South Branch has dropped 2 feet since its peak in the spring.

However, another decisive factor in the decline in lake levels since spring was ultimately the brutally hot and dry July in northern Utah.

“The good rain last week may have helped stabilize it a little bit. But the reality is that July has taken its toll,” Davis said.

The need to preserve

Despite the possibility of the South Arm falling back to last year’s levels, Davis said it is still much better than when it reached its record low in 2022.

Even if the South Arm falls another foot, it would still be 3.5 feet higher than the record low.

However, the Great Salt Lake is still far from its target level of 4,198, which has not been reached since spring 2012.

Davis said they are seeing an improvement in the lake’s health, in part because Utahns have been conserving water during two good winters in a row. But there is still a lot of work to be done to get the Great Salt Lake back to its healthy state.

“We cannot rely on Mother Nature to give us enough water again. She has bought us time, but now it is up to us to make sure we save enough water, return it to the lake and give it enough water.”