Utah is a state blessed with more than its share of natural wonders and beauty, and residents and visitors are never far from one of its five stunning national parks—third most in the country.
The reports have sent the state’s mostly GOP lawmakers scrambling to find solutions to save the lake before it’s too late. Governor Spencer Cox; Brad Wilson, the influential House Speaker, and many members of the legislature are backing a new budget that will earmark roughly $500 million to update the lake’s management plan which—in part—will incentivize farmers, developers, and others to allow more water to flow into the lake.
“The Utah legislature has the chance to save Great Salt Lake and we need to act while we still can to reverse the lake’s decline,” says Joel Ferry, legislator and fifth generation farmer and rancher. “If we don’t solve this crisis, our way of life will be imperiled.”... [+]Since Brigham Young and early Latter-day Saint pioneers first arrived at Great Salt Lake, the natural wonder that now spans 1,700-square miles has dropped by roughly 50 percent.
Over the course of more than a century of documentation, researchers have been able to account for an 11-foot drop in lake levels mostly due to urban development, much of which has occurred in recent decades as Utah’s growth rates have dramatically accelerated. While that may not sound significant when compared to many other lakes, the Great Salt Lake is shallow, averaging just 15-feet, with a maximum depth of only 33-feet. Roughly half the vast lakebed is now exposed.
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