Water Quantity

Great Salt Lake Resolution (HCR-10) Steering Group

Recommendations to Ensure Adequate Water Flows to Great Salt Lake and Its Wetlands

In response to the decrease in Great Salt Lake levels, the Utah Legislature passed “Concurrent Resolution to Address Declining Water Level of Great Salt Lake” (HCR-10) in 2019. The resolution recognizes “the critical importance of ensuring adequate water flows to Great Salt Lake and its wetlands to maintain a healthy and sustainable ecosystem.” To avoid adverse impacts to Utah’s economy, environment, and the public health of its citizens, long-term watershed planning is required. HCR-10 recommended that a diverse group of stakeholders convene to make recommendations on how to ensure adequate water flows to Great Salt Lake. Their report was completed in December 2020.

• Executive Summary
• Full Report

Conservation Impacts Study

To inform future water resource planning decisions that may affect Great Salt Lake, the Conservation Impact Study examines the potential impacts of water conservation on water resource planning and develops an action plan of additional studies needed to assist policy makers in more completely understanding the role of conservation in future water resource planning. This evaluation focuses on four primary water providers in northern Utah: Bear River Water Conservancy District (WCD), Cache Water District, Jordan Valley WCD, and Weber Basin WCD. The Study finds that if additional water conservation efforts can significantly decrease water use, there is the potential to further delay, reduce the magnitude, or perhaps even eliminate the need for future large water development projects, such as the currently defined Bear River Development project.

• Conservation Impacts Study (6.4 MB)
• Executive Summary (2 MB)
• Press Release (128 KB)
• Presentation from Bowen and Collins (GSLAC 9/9/2020)

Water Strategies for Great Salt Lake

Building upon the work completed in 2017 to compile potential strategies to address declining lake levels, GSLAC commission Clyde Snow & Sessions and Jacobs Engineering, Inc. to evaluate priority strategies thought to have a high potential to improve water management and increase water deliveries to Great Salt Lake. GSLAC identified 12 priority strategies are organized as Foundational, Operational, and Tactical in nature. Foundational Strategies are intended to remove legal constraints to delivering water to Great Salt Lake. The Operational Strategies serve to inform decision and policy makers, water users, and managers. Tactical Strategies serve to incentivize water users to protect, conserve, and make available water that could be used for deliveries to Great Salt Lake. The Report is intended to provide specific useful information on each strategy so the water user community can choose where to spend their resources in achieving the overarching goal of maintaining or increasing Great Salt Lake levels.

• Final Report (8 MB)
• Executive Summary (2 MB)
• Strategy Fact Sheets (5 MB)
• Presentation from Emily Lewis to the July 8th, 2020 GSLAC

Consequences of Declining Water Levels

To better understand the implications that could result from continued declining water levels at Great Salt Lake, the Great Salt Lake Advisory Council commissioned two reports:

The first report, “Consequences of Drying Lakes Around the World,” examines eight lakes with similar characteristics to Great Salt Lake. It found that drying lakes result in billions of dollars of economic losses, require extensive mitigation efforts and pose severe threats to human health and the environment.

• Consequences of Drying Lakes Around the World,” February 15, 2019, prepared by AECOM Final Report (2 MB)
• Summary Report (3 MB)

The second report “Assessment of Potential Costs of Declining Water Levels in Great Salt Lake,” synthesizes information from scientific literature, agency reports, informational interviews, and other sources to detail how and to what extent costs could occur at sustained lower lake levels.

• Assessment of Potential Costs of Declining Water Levels in Great Salt Lake
• Executive Summary

Water for Great Salt Lake

In response to an observed long-term decline in Great Salt Lake water levels, in 2017, GSLAC, in cooperation with SWCA Environmental Consultants, compiled a list of potential strategies to increase or maintain water delivery to Great Salt Lake. Strategies were solicited and submitted anonymously or without attribution. This document is intended to facilitate a discussion of potential strategies to maintain or increase the surface elevation of Great Salt Lake. The list is not exhaustive, but reflects an attempt to compile a wide range of strategic options. No ranking or prioritization was completed as part of the compilation process. Inclusion in this document does not constitute an endorsement of any individual strategy by GSLAC or its members. These strategies are ongoing topics of discussion for GSLAC.

• Water for GSL Report

Great Salt Lake Health and Economic Significance

During 2011, the Great Salt Lake Advisory Council commissioned two reports to provide information that will aide the council in advising the Utah administrative and legislative bodies on the sustainable use, protection, and development of the Great Salt Lake.

The two major reports and the name of the contractor that led the effort were:

1. Definition and Assessment of Great Salt Lake Health led by SWCA Environmental Consultants and Applied Conservation
2. Economic Significance of the Great Salt Lake to the State of Utah led by Bioeconomics Inc.

Final Reports were submitted to the Council at the January, 2012 Work Meetings. Please click on the links below to view the fact sheets and final reports:

• Definition and Assessment of Great Salt Lake Health: Fact Sheet, Final Report
• Economic Significance of the Great Salt Lake to the State of Utah: Fact Sheet, Final Report

July 2017 Recommended State Water Strategy

July 2017 Recommended State Water Strategy

“We’re talking about the need to be nimble and adaptive, practical and proactive in our approach. We need to evaluate the future of water planning and its relevance to land use and economic planning so that it’s cohesive and resilient in the scheme of sustainability thinking for Utah’s population and our precious natural systems that includes Great Salt Lake.” -- Joanna Endter-Wada, USU and Advisory Team cohort.

With an eye on the projected doubling of Utah’s population by 2060 and how to reconcile this with managing the state’s water resources, in 2013 Governor Herbert initiated a 50-Year State Water Strategy. The strategy is supposed to “define priorities, inform water policy, and chart a path to maintaining and constructing needed infrastructure without breaking the bank or drying up our streams.”

Forty one of members of the Advisory Team, including FRIENDS of Great Salt Lake Executive Director Lynn DeFreitas, were tasked by the Governor to “(1) solicit and evaluate potential water management strategies; (2) frame various water management options and implications of those options for public feedback; and (3) based on broad input develop a set of recommended strategies and ideas to be considered a part of the 50-yr water plan.”

The Recommended State Water Strategy is the result of respectful and robust debate among team members working in small groups to identify the issues and recommendations that support the policy questions in the strategy.

The Recommended State Water Strategy focuses on 12 key policy questions and you can read the July 2017 Recommended State Water Strategy Here.

Photo: FRIENDS of Great Salt Lake Executive Director, Lynn de Freitas and the State Water Strategy Team after presenting the Strategy to Governor Herbert, July 2017.

Rep. Tim Hawkes' presentation to American Water Resources Association

In January of 2018, Utah House of Representatives member, Tim Hawkes, offered a presentation, "Meeting Utah's Environmental Water Needs," to the American Water Resources Association. To view his presentation, click here.

Report to Utah Legislature - A Performance Audit of Projections of Utah's Water Needs May 2015

2015 Utah Water Audit

A Legislative Audit to determine the reliability of the Utah Division of Water Resources data and assess the accuracy of its projections of water demand and supply to address projected water needs of Utah’s growing population by 2060 was released in May 2015. The audit lists a passel of things that need to be addressed to provide a more accurate picture of Utah’s water supply and needs. It also indicates that any shortfall in the water supply by 2060 could be filled from current sources with agricultural water conversions and more efficient water use without the need to develop 200,000 acre feet/annually of Bear River water.

You can read the entire audit here.

You can read the entire audit here