As Western Drought Recedes, the Great Salt Lake Is the Biggest It’s Been in Years

“Though both are responsible, the biggest problem with water levels in Great Salt Lake is withdrawals from the lake’s tributaries, not ‘drought’.

NOTE: this article was originally published to WSJ.com on May 15, 2024. It was written by By Jim Carlton.

Reservoirs are rising across the region, boosting water businesses. But conservation efforts continue amid fears the rain won’t last.

SALT LAKE CITY—Darin Christensen was working on his boat docked in the Great Salt Lake, preparing for something he hadn’t been able to do the past two years: take it out in the water.

“ You can sail 40 miles without hitting anything,” a grinning Christensen, 62, said in April as a ceaseless wind rocked his 25-footer, the Abraxas.

After two decades of drought, the Great Salt Lake in 2022 fell to its lowest level on record, 4,188.5 feet, leaving some marina docks in the mud. About 200 boats, including the Abraxas, were hauled onto dry land. Researchers at Brigham Young University warned in January 2023 that “the lake as we know it” was on track to disappear in five years, putting $2.5 billion of economic activity from skiing to mineral extraction to brine-shrimp fishing at risk.

Then came an unexpected deluge of rain and snow in the winters of 2023 and 2024. The amount of land covered by the Great Salt Lake has since grown about 150 square miles—an area the size of Denver—and the overall water level has risen 6 feet.

Similar aquatic comebacks are occurring across the West. The mountain snowpack that feeds the Colorado River, which provides water to 40 million people, is 107% of average this winter after hitting 153% in 2023, marking the wettest two-year period in more than a decade.

Lake Mead, the Colorado River’s largest reservoir, has risen 30 feet from a record low. Lake Powell, the second biggest reservoir, has grown by 40 feet.

Two wet winters

Last year, the West was hit with an unusually large number of so-called atmospheric rivers, which dump prodigious amounts of rain. In December 2022 and January 2023, California experienced nine back-to-back atmospheric rivers—the most during such a short period in 70 years of records, according to an analysis by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Then this past winter, heavy rain was driven by an El Niño climate pattern, which scientists say was turbocharged by the overall warming climate.

Water-dependent businesses across the West are celebrating. Visitors to the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, which includes Lake Powell, doubled last year from 2022 to a record 5.2 million visitors.

“We knew, and prayed, that the lake was going to go back up,” said Gregg Martinez, director of economic development for nearby Page, Ariz.

One exception to the trend has been the Pacific Northwest, where rain has been lighter and drought has persisted in places.

But across the West, water researchers caution that due to climate change, they still expect the long-term trend will be more frequent droughts and shrinking snowpacks. They have urged local officials to continue conservation efforts that began during the drought.

“We don’t know at all whether this will be a 20-year reprieve or a two-year reprieve,” said Bruce Babcock, professor of public policy at the University of California, Riverside.

In Utah, lawmakers in 2022 and 2023 passed conservation measures with a total cost of nearly $1 billion that included rebates for replacement of grass and paying farmers to idle crops to save water. Now, state officials are scrambling to capture as much of the unexpected precipitation as they can.

“ We need to take advantage of these wet years to get the lake as high as we can,” said Tim Davis, Utah’s deputy Great Salt Lake commissioner. “These two years have bought us time.”

Valjay Rigby, a farmer in Cache County, Utah, said he is getting enough water to restore his alfalfa and other crops to normal production this year, up from 25% of normal in 2022. At the same time, like many local farmers, he is installing more efficient sprinklers and looking at a drip-irrigation system under a new state program that matches farmers’ costs.

Boats back in the water

At the Great Salt Lake, the higher water has enabled marina officials to put 85 boats back in the water, including the Abraxas, after the last ones were taken out in 2021. Another 100 likely will follow suit this summer, the most in four years, said park manager Dave Shearer. That helps the local economy, he said, because boat slips rent for between $125 and $240 a month. Recreation spending at the lake totals about $44.5 million a year.

Also benefiting are businesses that harvest brine shrimp eggs, which are sold overseas as a feed for farmed shrimp and fish in a business that brings in as much as $60 million a year, said Timothy Hawkes, chairman of the Great Salt Lake Brine Shrimp Cooperative.

Shrinking waters in the Great Salt Lake in 2022 caused salinity levels to rise higher than the shrimp are accustomed to, which damaged their eggs. That hurt not only the industry, but millions of migratory birds that feed in the lake.

W ith more water, the salinity has dropped back to a safer level, prompting a revival in the ecosystem.

Hawkes said it was important to get a pair of wet winters, because much of the runoff from melting snow last year went to refilling reservoirs and replenishing dry soil, rather than into the Great Salt Lake.

“Having the two back to back has been an absolute godsend,” he said.