Watershed Symposium 2022

In this workshop we showcase the tools available to residents of the Great Salt Lake watershed to stabilize plummeting levels of the American West’s largest lake. The Great Salt Lake Open Toolbox is a collection of immediately implementable strategies and policies which offer us a suite of solutions to save the Lake.

Public concern about the ailing Great Salt Lake has reached new heights as the Lake dropped to a record low level for the second year in a row as a function of climate change and its shrinking of our snowpacks. News outlets around the globe reported on the crisis, garnering international attention for our capital city’s namesake. The silver lining of this unfolding environmental crisis at the Great Salt Lake is that Utahns from all walks of life are eager to learn about what can be done to save the Great Salt Lake in the face of climate change. A range of stakeholders and members of the public have used public forums, op-eds, official meetings, social media and a litany of other avenues to plead with others to solve the problem. This echo chamber has created momentum, and millions of Utahns are eager to get involved and be part of the solution to protect the American West’s largest lake from shrinking further. While nearly everybody agrees that we need to save the Lake, there isn’t much consensus on the best way to achieve that. What is the best way to keep water in the Great Salt Lake?

In this presentation, we open and unpack the tools available to save the Great Salt Lake and showcase which options have the potential to truly stabilize the water levels of the American West’s largest lake. We will explore which tools are ready to be implemented, what barriers there are to using other tools and how much water the Great Salt Lake really needs to sustain our people, our wildlife and our economy. The Great Salt Lake Open Toolbox has been assembled by studying the lessons learned from other western cities and states that have managed to protect their local aquatic landscapes. While no one tool may be a silver bullet for all the Lake’s problems, smart implementation of several tools at once could be a ‘silver buckshot’ to restore this vital aquatic ecosystem and the economy it supports.

This workshop explores what it means to save the Great Salt Lake by utilizing a collection of strategies and policies to get more water to the lake. We will unpack how each tool can contribute toward a sustainable paradigm for the Lake and its needed water budget. This workshop is jam-packed with solutions to save the Great Salt Lake and participants will leave inspired in the knowledge that there are tools to ensure we scan ustain the Lake for generations to come.