Representatives from Maverik, The Larry H. & Gail Miller Family Foundation and J. Willard and Alice S. Marriott Foundation announced $10 million donations each to Great Salt Lake Rising on Monday, in an effort to stop the lake from further decline.
The donations follow President Donald Trump’s $1 billion funding request to Congress to aid the lake on April 3.
More than 53% of the Great Salt Lake’s lake bed is exposed, and to pull it out of its currently-labeled “serious adverse effects” status, it needs an additional 261 billion gallons of water (800,000 acre-feet).
Josh Romney, the son of former Utah Sen. Mitt Romney and the founder of Great Salt Lake Rising, opened the event — held at the Eccles Wildlife Education Center in Farmington — by explaining the lake’s current levels, which have fallen significantly since the high water year of 1983.
Without intervention, “we could see dramatic, irreversible effects of the Great Salt Lake,” Romney said. “The good news is 80% of the cause of decline is human caused. The reason that’s good news is because we can fix that.”
The Great Salt Lake is one of more than 100 terminal, saline lakes around the world facing decline.
Karen Marriott, representing the J. Willard and Alice S. Marriott Foundation, posed the lake’s decline as an opportunity to do something unprecedented.
“We have the opportunity to become the first place in the world to reverse the decline of an inland sea, to restore it, and in doing so, protect our health, our snow, our water, our wildlife and our economy.”
Is the lake’s dust a public health risk?
Drew Maggelet, the son of Maverik’s chairman, announced the Salt Lake City-based gas station’s donation, describing it as “the most important investment any business in the state of Utah can make right now.”
“More water in the lake means fewer employees’ sick days from dust, retained property values and a Wasatch Front that not only keeps the best talent home, but attracts the best and brightest from beyond our mountains,” he said.
Many Utahns worry that harmful materials like arsenic in the Great Salt Lake’s bed will pose a health threat if exposed.
However, the current dust monitoring stations have not provided direct evidence that arsenic from the lake is increasing the arsenic concentrations in the surrounding communities, as the Deseret News previously reported.
To better assess the risk, the state has approved funding to expand its monitoring infrastructure to include 23 stations.
What can be done?
“One of the biggest and most pernicious myths that’s out there is that the lake is beyond our control. We’re just at the mercy of Mother Nature, and the lake will come and go,” said Tim Hawkes, the board chairman of Great Salt Lake Brine Shrimp Cooperative.
He continued, “The reality is this, that 80% of lake declines are driven by human use. It’s driven by the way that we all collectively use water. Each one of us has an impact on the lake.”
As the state’s recent legislative session directed its attention, the nonprofit organization focused its conservation suggestions on outdoor water use.
Since in Utah, 65% of residential water use is expended outdoors, Great Salt Lake Rising suggested the following actions to conserve water.
- Water your yard less — but better. Keep grass at 3-4 inches to retain moisture and skip watering when temperatures are below 65 degrees.
- Reduce lawn where you don’t use it.
- Upgrade to smart irrigation. Make sure you’re not irrigating sidewalk.
- Fix leaks immediately.
- Choose plants designed for Utah.
- Use water when it matters most. Let non-essential turf go dormant during peak heat.
Joel Ferry, the Utah Department of Natural Resources’ executive director, said the state needs to learn how to live within its water budget.
“We need to live within our means, and we need to use the water that’s available in an appropriate manner,” he said. “There is sufficient water if we’re smart about how we use it.”
Ferry also thanked Maverik, the Larry H. Miller Foundation and the Marriott Foundation for their donations.
The combined $30 million in investments “help us significantly because they allow us to go out and do some things that we couldn’t do otherwise,” he said.