Shrinking lake levels are impacting ecology, industry and recreation

The Great Salt Lake just ain’t what it used to be.

In fact, the lake is near its all-time low-water mark. And that’s raising questions about potential impacts on everything from bird populations to lakeshore industrial operations.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, which has tracked the lake’s level since 1875, the historic surface elevation average is 4,200 feet. The lake’s lowest recorded elevation was 4,191 feet in 1963. Now, it’s just three feet above that at 4,194.

Because the lake is so shallow — with a maximum depth of 35 feet — even slight changes in elevation can drastically alter the lake’s spread and shoreline.

“A broad range of folks are impacted when the lake is in distress,” said Don Leonard, president of the Utah Artemia Association, a coalition of Utah companies that harvest excess brine shrimp eggs from the lake, and a member of Gov. Jon Huntsman’s recently created Great Salt Lake Advisory Council.

Dropping lake levels have surprised Leonard and other observers, who had anticipated levels to rise following a wet winter and spring.

“I assume it didn’t rise because the water was captured upstream for the reservoirs or other uses,” he said.

John Luft, Great Salt Lake Ecosystem Program manager — a part of the state’s Division of Wildlife Resources — said the lake’s low level is likely due to a combination of factors.

“One of the reasons is we’ve been in a drought over the last seven to eight years or so, and a lot of the reservoirs have gone down in that time,” said Luft. “Although we had a higher snowfall and higher snowpack this last winter, a lot of those reservoirs needed the water so they didn’t let as much out as they normally would’ve if we would have had a series of normal years.”

He added the lake fairly consistently drops two to three feet each year, but will typically come up a couple of feet from runoff. That didn’t happen this year. He said as the population on the Wasatch Front continues to grow, a lot of the water the lake usually receives is going to lawns and irrigation.

The Great Salt Lake provides important habitat for millions of shorebirds, and is a vital migratory stopover for many species traveling the Pacific Flyway between Alaska and Canada to Mexico and South America. Luft said birds also often use the lake as a refuge from hunters in waterfowl marshes during the hunting season.

“If those lake areas dry up, it’s harder for them to find a place to rest and they’ll just move on south if they get too much pressure,” he said.

However, the lack of water also expands emergent marshes along the shoreline, which creates additional habitat. Luft said vegetation in those areas soaks up a lot of water, though, which further reduces the amount of water reaching the lake.

While most bird activity is on the east side because of the more productive wetlands, Luft said the southern shoreline of the lake is more specific to shorebirds, like snowy plovers, and the receding water creates more nesting habitat for them.

The lake’s low level is also impacting boaters at the Great Salt Lake Marina, according to harbormaster Dave Shearer, who said another bad water year could put the marina itself in jeopardy.

“Luckily, we were able to dredge the mouth of the marina this year, so it’s a little deeper,” he said. “It’s impacted the larger boats that are getting in. If we have another bad year we could lose the marina to most recreational boaters.”

He said there are slips in the marina that are in shallow water, so larger boats have had to be pulled out. And the number of available slips, which is usually 320, has decreased because of the shallow water.

Shearer said the marina is getting by financially, but it’s difficult. If boats were unable to get out, Shearer said it would be a major hit.

“We’re pretty close to breaking even right now,” he said. “If we can’t rent the slips, then obviously that has a financial impact on us.”

Shearer said 2008 was a devastating year for the lake.

“All spring what was happening is a dry front would suck moisture from the lake and dump it on the mountains. That was just really local water. When that water came down, it came down late and got caught up in the reservoirs.”

The marina, which serves 300 regular sailors plus weekend visitors, could be lost unless the lake rises or the Legislature kicks in more money for dredging deeper, according to Shearer.

Besides the impact on recreation and ecology, sinking lake levels are also affecting lakeshore industries like brine shrimp, salt, magnesium and other mineral extraction companies.

Leonard said brine shrimp companies, for instance, need to be able to access the lake via a harbors. But when the lake level declines as it has, dredging is required.

“There’s several hundreds of thousands of dollars spent,” he said. “And a lot of it unanticipated.”

In addition, as the lake shrinks, its salinity increases.

“The brine shrimp thrive in a specific range of salinity and we’re approaching the upper end of that range,” he said. “For this year we don’t anticipate a huge problem, but if the decline continues as it has for a long period of time, it could threaten the health of the brine shrimp, and that would be a major concern to us.”

While most brine shrimp operations are centered around Promontory Point near the railroad causeway, several operate from the southern end of the lake.

Tom Tripp, technical services manager at US Magnesium, which produces magnesium near the southwestern edge of the Great Salt Lake, said lower lake levels bring positives and negatives.

“We have a pump station that pumps water in the solar evaporation ponds, and it’s been low for a while,” he said. “The pump can only lift water so far, so if it goes down much lower we may have to lower the pump.”

Don Silva, solar pond supervisor at US Magnesium, said because the water level is so low, only one of three pumps is currently operational. Lowering the pumps would be a time-consuming and expensive process, which he said would include probably two to three months of work and a quarter of a million dollars.

However, on the other side of things, Tripp said lower lake elevations generally have higher concentrations of magnesium.

“We like to be able to get it easily, but our evaporative capacity improves some because of higher concentrations of lower elevations,” he said.

Luft suspects the long-term trend in the future will be more toward a decrease in lake elevation rather than an increase.

“Obviously our population isn’t going to get smaller, it’ll only get bigger,” he said. “Rather than an increase like we had back in the ’80s, I don’t foresee us getting to the point of needing to use the pumps like we did then. Unfortunately, it’ll probably be more of the bathtub-will-be-shrinking, so to speak.”

Sarah Miley: swest@tooeletranscript.com