Metrics used to explain the health and future of the Great Salt Lake — salinity levels, acre-feet of water and square miles of dried lakebed — are often hard to understand. While these measurements help describe elements of the crisis we face, they can distract us from the most fundamental point.
The only true metric that will determine the lake’s future is our collective motivation to save it. The Great Salt Lake’s decline is not an issue that can solve itself. We have caused the problem, and we have the power to reverse it. But will we?
Our motivation is rooted in fundamental questions. How much do we love the place we call home? The future of the Great Salt Lake is inseparable from the future of our region. Its health is directly tied to Utah’s viability as a place to live and thrive.
Especially important is another set of questions: How much are we willing to do to protect those we share this home with, particularly our children? It is easy to claim we care, but are we willing to prove it through action? Whether we recognize it or not, the crisis of the Great Salt Lake is challenging us to examine our priorities and values.
This simple truth is hard to face, but ignoring it doesn’t make the problem disappear: the Wasatch Front faces an existential threat. The lake’s demise will have severe consequences for Utahns from Logan to Payson. How we respond to this threat will be the legacy we leave Utah’s children. Failing to act will interfere with their future.
Many Utahns may not realize it, but a few good winters with above-average snowpacks have lulled us into a false state of complacency. While we should celebrate the blessing of good snow years, saving the Great Salt Lake will require much more than a few good winters.
Consider a sobering technical point, one that has troubling implications for assessing whether we are doing enough. Scientists across the state (known collectively as the Great Salt Lake Strike Team) recently told state leaders that if we add 770,000 acre-feet of water to the lake every year, we would only have a coin flip’s chance of saving the lake by 2054. The state’s goal is just 250,000 acre-feet a year — less than a third of what is needed for even this fifty-fifty shot — and we are nowhere close to achieving that goal. On our current path, we have no chance of saving the lake. For the sake of our home, our future and our children, we must change course.
The status quo is bleak. Beneath the lakebed, heavy metals and organic pollutants wait to be swept into the air and into our lungs. The list of toxins is long. Once inhaled, these pollutants can increase rates of chronic and acute diseases, including reproductive dysfunction, developmental defects, cognitive impairment, cardiovascular damage, cancer and more.
Moreover, to kick us while we’re down, if we let this toxic air get further out of control, who will want to live here? What will happen to property values and hard-earned home equity? It’s not just people who will be affected, but also businesses. Utah will struggle to recruit and retain businesses as the region becomes less desirable. Jobs will flee, leaving significant problems with our local economy. If we act decisively, we will not have to choose between a future with two dismal options: stay and suffer or leave the place we love.
This challenge may seem daunting, and that’s because it is. Nevertheless, we do not have to live with such a dreary outlook. We know what the problem is and we know what to do. Feasible solutions exist to bring water back to the lake. All that’s needed is political will.
No shrinking saline lake in the world has survived. If Utah can rise to the challenge — when Utah rises to the challenge — we will accomplish something that has never before been done. With the Olympics coming, the world is watching. The communal industry of the beehive that has created a proud and prospering state is needed now more than ever. Everyone has a role to play.
Conserve water within your stewardship. Contact your federal and state representatives, your mayor, your city council — let them know you care about the lake. Tell them why it matters for our home, our future and our children. Many good-hearted people do not understand the stakes of saving the lake. Start conversations with your neighbors, your friends and your family. Raise the issue in the institutions where you have influence, in your workplace, places of worship and other pillars of our community.
The Great Salt Lake is asking us all: What kind of future do we want for our children? What do we want our home to look like? The way we answer that question is not merely with our words but in the actions we take and the path we choose.