Is it bad if the Great Salt Lake dries up?

However, the most deleterious effect of the Great Salt Lake drying up is that the air surrounding Salt Lake City could sporadically become poisonous. Since the bed of the Great Salt Lake holds high levels of dangerous particles like arsenic, antimony, copper, zirconium, and various heavy metals.



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The low lake level and increasing salinity threaten to disrupt economic mainstays like agriculture, tourism, mineral extraction and brine shrimp harvesting. Exposed sediments can also reduce air quality and so threaten public health.

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So just how bad is it, really? A new scientific report warns the lake is on track to disappear in the next five years, unless water use is cut by as much as 50% annually.

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Without a “dramatic increase” in inflow by 2024, experts warn the lake is set to disappear in the next five years. “Its disappearance could cause immense damage to Utah's public health, environment, and economy,” the authors wrote in the report.

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One of the world's largest hypersaline lakes, the Great Salt Lake is on the verge of collapse due to climate change, drought, and population pressures that have reduced inflows and shrunk the lake by more than two-thirds.

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Most recent data within water-surface elevations show a downward trend. With climate change and Utah's ever growing human population, we expect this negative trend to continue. In fact, it is estimated that the lake is 11 feet lower due to human diversions.

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Even in 'wet' years, conservation, policy changes are paramount to restore the lake
  1. Leverage the wet years.
  2. Set a lake elevation range goal.
  3. Invest in conservation.
  4. Invest in water monitoring and modeling.
  5. Develop a holistic water management plan.
  6. Request an in-depth analysis of policy options.


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Bacteria can decompose quickly, but it removes oxygen at a more rapid pace. This can also be a source of the rotten egg smell that the Great Salt Lake is known for.

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All of this winter's rain and snow that fell directly into the Great Salt Lake increased the water level there by three feet.

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Birds rely on the lake, a critical link in the Pacific Flyway between North and South America. Every year 12 million birds from 338 different species come to rest, eat and breed during migrations of a thousand miles or more. With the decline of other lakes, Great Salt Lake is increasingly important to these species.

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Recreation in, and around, the lake The best place to swim or float in the lake is at Antelope Island State Park, where white oolitic sand beaches provide easy access to the lake without the brine flies that are prevalent on other areas of the shoreline. The beach area also has showers to rinse off the salty water.

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The drying of lakes and reservoirs around the world is increasingly stressing water supplies for drinking and agriculture, endangering habitats for plants and fish, reducing the capacity to generate hydropower, and threatening marine recreation and tourism.

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At its largest extent, it spanned about 20,000 square miles of western Utah and parts of eastern Nevada and southern Idaho. Lake Bonneville was about 325 miles long, 135 miles wide, and had a maximum depth of over 1,000 feet. It contained many islands that are the present-day mountain ranges of western Utah.

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The lake, which spans around 75 miles long and 35 miles wide, remains salty because it has no outlet. Yes, the Great Salt Lake is obviously salty, but did you know some parts of the lake are saltier than others?

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