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Editor's note: This article is published through the Great Salt Lake Collaborative, a solutions journalism initiative that partners news, education and media organizations to help inform people about the plight of the Great Salt Lake.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — The Great Salt Lake has lost about 2 feet over the past few months, but it's about to get another boost from its southern neighbor.
The Jordan Valley Water Conservancy announced Monday that it plans to release about 10,000 acre-feet of water from Utah Lake over the next month, sending more water to the Great Salt Lake via the Jordan River, which connects the two bodies of water. It's part of an agreement with the Great Salt Lake Enhancement Trust.
"It's frankly remarkable," said Marcelle Schoop, executive director of the trust, as she stood near floodgates controlling the Jordan River's headwaters Monday morning. "We are all very excited."
The forthcoming water deliveries follow similar releases from Utah Lake earlier this year; however, the previous deliveries aimed to prevent flooding during the spring snowmelt period while the new releases are specific water donations.
In fact, most of the water headed toward the Great Salt Lake is an extension of Utah's 2023 snowpack.
About 5,300 acre-feet of the water to be released over the next month is a calculation of water saved by Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District water consumers last year, according to Alan Packard, the agency's assistant general manager.
"Based on that conversation, we made the commitment that once we got the water right approvals, we'd make a late-season release in 2024," he explained.
Another 3,000 acre-feet is being sent through a lease agreement between the Welby Jacob Water Users Company with the Great Salt Lake Enhancement Trust. The remaining 1,700 acre-feet comes from donated water shares from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The extra water will leave Utah Lake in spurts over the next month, which also happens to be a pivotal time for the Great Salt Lake and many of its feathered inhabitants.
Release benefits
Great Salt Lake levels tend to rise around October and November every year as the irrigation season ends and temperatures cool down. The 10,000 acre-feet addition will give the lake a jolt after its southern arm dropped by 2.6 feet since peaking at 4,195.2 feet elevation earlier this year because of irrigation season water diversions and summertime evaporation.
This past summer was Utah's second hottest over the past 130 years, while most of the drier summer conditions were recorded within the lake's basin. Packard said an increase in water consumption this summer likely tied to these trends, which might have contributed to the lake dropping as much as it did.
The additional water also comes during an important point of the year for many of the shorebirds that call the lake home. Shoop, also the Audubon Society's saline lakes program director, pointed out that many species — such as cinnamon teal, northern pintail and eared grebes — will begin their preparations for winter migration as the extra water enters the lake.
For these reasons, water managers and trust leaders agreed to release the water now as part of a trial run to see if it makes sense to make donated releases at this point of the season.
"It's a really good time to try this," she said.
The donation means that the Jordan River will also be higher than it normally is in late September and early October.
Soren Simonsen, director of the Jordan River Commission, said he believes the river will experience "positive benefits" from the extra water. These include a healthier riparian habitat for wildlife, better water quality and better recreation opportunities.
"This will be a significant and probably noticeable change in what is often a fairly low riverbed this time of year," he said.
More to come
The work to get water to the Great Salt Lake isn't finished, though.
Shoop said the trust is working on securing more donation agreements. The organization, which the Utah Legislature created last year to oversee efforts to get water to the lake, has a goal of landing at least 100,000 acre-feet in annual water donations within the next five years.
With the newest deal in place, the lake will have now received about 68,000 acre-feet from donated water this year. It also comes on the heels of a landmark agreement between the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands and Compass Minerals, which will direct over 200,000 acre-feet of water to the Great Salt Lake every year.
That would chip away at the lake's deficit. The Office of the Great Salt Lake Commissioner estimates that the lake needs 471,000 to 1.055 million additional acre-feet of water every year so that it can rise to the state's 4,198-foot elevation goal by the 2050s.
"These kinds of donations and leases are examples of the types of voluntary transactions that we need from water uses across the entire Great Salt Lake Basin to be able to get the lake back to a healthy level," said Tim Davis, the office's deputy director.
Packard says the Jordan Valley Water Conservancy would like to make late-season releases an annual tradition, but that will ultimately depend on water consumption habits and future weather conditions.
It helped this year that Utah Lake remains 87% full, 15 percentage points above its median average for the end of summer.
"We want everyone to realize that they can make a difference," he said. "If we have the combined efforts of all of our water users in our service area, it'll make us feel confident to make these sorts of releases in the future."
