Utah Wants To Refill The Great Salt Lake In Just Eight Years

Utah is mounting an ambitious — and some say near-impossible — campaign to refill the Great Salt Lake by 2034, when Salt Lake City is set to host the Winter Olympic Games. The effort has drawn an unlikely coalition of Republican lawmakers, environmental groups, business leaders, and even President Donald Trump.

The lake has been shrinking for decades. When it hit its record low in 2022, its water level sat nearly 10 feet below the threshold considered healthy, its volume down about 67% since pioneers settled the valley. Scientists warned of ecological collapse, and one Utah official called it an "environmental nuclear bomb."

Spencer Cox, Utah's governor, announced last fall that the state would restore the lake to a healthy level by 2034. Shortly after, Josh Romney, son of former Sen. Mitt Romney, launched a $100 million philanthropic campaign to help fund the effort. Then, last month, President Trump added his voice.

"We're not going to let it go. That's what I call a real environmental problem," President Trump said at the annual Governors Dinner. "Saving the Great Salt Lake, that's what we're going to be doing."

Days later, Cox said Utah planned to request roughly $1 billion in federal support for the project.

The math, however, is daunting. To reach the lake's target level by 2034, Utah would need to add the equivalent of 400,000 Olympic swimming pools' worth of water every year for the next eight years. A January task force report found that the water secured for the lake last year was still only about one-fifth of what's needed annually.

Agriculture accounts for 65% of the water diverted from the lake, making it the largest single factor in the lake's decline. About 75% of the lake's overall depletion is human-caused, according to research published in 2022. Residential water use in Utah has climbed about 75% since the mid-1990s as the state's population has surged.

Rather than restricting water use outright, Utah has pursued a mix of policy changes and purchases. In January, the state bought the bankrupt U.S. Magnesium mining company for $30 million, securing between 65,000 and 80,000 acre-feet of water annually for the lake. The state is also paying farmers to leave fields unplanted, improving irrigation efficiency, and working to remove phragmites, a nonnative reed that consumes twice as much water as native plants and has covered as much as 55,000 acres of the lake surface.

Romney said he has raised about 30% of his $100 million goal and estimates it could ultimately take $500 million to stabilize lake levels. Conservation group Ducks Unlimited has pledged another $100 million for wetland habitat restoration.

Young Utahns are pushing lawmakers to go further. Autumn Featherstone, a 20-year-old University of Utah student, told the Utah News Dispatch that the time for small steps has passed. "We need real, tangible action," she said. A student-backed bill that would set aside $200 million in public funds for the lake stalled in committee last month, with lawmakers saying it needed more work.

Romney framed the stakes plainly. By 2034, he said, "The story is either going to be, 'This is the first saline lake in modern history that's been restored, or in the process of being restored.' Or, 'Look at this desert landscape. Look what's happening to Utah. Look at the ecological disaster.'"

Scientists warn that losing the lake entirely would cut snowfall in the Wasatch mountains, where Olympic athletes will compete, by as much as half. This winter has brought dismal snowpack, raising fears the lake could fall to near-record lows again by fall.