The Great Salt Lake’s water levels fell to an all-time record low for the second consecutive time a year ago this week. One year later, the lake is starting to decline again — but it’s undoubtedly in a much-better place than it was those 12 months ago.
The Great Salt Lake shows signs of improvement on Wednesday, April 12, 2023, near the outflow of the Weber River where areas that used to be bone-dry just weeks before have been covered with a few inches of water improving bird habitat and reducing dust.
“I think we are getting close, if we already haven’t gotten to that point where runoff into the lake has started to slow down and evaporation has started to pick up,” said David Parrott, a microbiology professor at Westminster University and assistant director of the school’s. “I would say that we’re close to max, maybe starting to go down just a little bit ... on sort of that downward slope.”
The record snowpack also helped salinity levels within the Great Salt Lake’s southern arm drop to about 13.2% at nearby Gilbert Bay in June. It had climbed to nearly 19% at both the bay and the marina as the lake levels dropped, posing Cranes lowering boats into the water at Great Salt Lake Marina State Park, on Tuesday, June 6, 2023.
While this year’s water surge was extremely beneficial for the lake, Parrott points out that the current lake levels are about 4 feet below. It’s also 6 feet below its historic average of about 4,200 feet, which Parrott refers to as the “sweet spot” when it comes to a healthy lake ecosystem. “ is good news, but we’re not out of the woods, at all,” he said. “We still need to be thinking about the lake. ... It would be a mistake for all of us to think ‘everything’s great now.’”The Great Salt Lake’s levels, as of Monday, are significantly better than they were at the same point the last two years — they’re closer to the average of the past decade; however, the levels are nearly 4 feet below the average since 1990.
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