Feds unfreeze $50M grant for Great Salt Lake projects ahead of uncertain runoff

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

Lake managers expects the spring runoff will help the Great Salt Lake gain more water, but it's unclear how much it will gain.
The federal government has released a $50 million grant for Great Salt Lake projects, previously frozen by review.
Most of that money will go toward improving lake habitats.

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.

SALT LAKE CITY — Water levels at the Great Salt Lake's southern arm remain a foot below where they were this time last year as the gap between it and its northern arm shrinks.

The state agency tasked with managing the massive body of water is hopeful for a good spring runoff from a "remarkably average" snowpack collection season that's nearing an end.

"We are sitting ... better than I would have expected (with) where we were a month ago," Great Salt Lake Commissioner Brian Steed said as he provided an update on lake conditions to reporters on Tuesday. "We've just had ... a 'miracle' March, and we're happy to have that 'miracle March' and get water levels back up where they need to be."

The Great Salt Lake's southern arm is now up to 4,193.3 feet in elevation, per U.S. Geological Survey data; its northern arm is at 4,192.4 feet in elevation. While the southern arm is a foot below its level this time last year, the northern arm is up about 1½ feet because more water has flowed into it since last year.

It's expected to receive a boost from the basin's snowpack, which is up to 18.6 inches of snow-water equivalent, about 95% of its annual median average, according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service. At least one more storm is projected later this week, while long-range outlooks also favor a wet start to April, which could elevate the basin to its third straight above-normal season.

This graph shows snowpack levels within the Great Salt Lake basin as of Tuesday. This season's collection is currently 111% of normal for this point in the season and 95% of the median average over the past 30 years. (Photo: Natural Resources Conservation Service)

The conservation service estimates the lake will rise another 0.5 to 1.5 feet this spring, but several variables could factor into how much.

Drought or "abnormally dry" conditions remain in place throughout most of the basin, which could mean more of the spring snowmelt ends up recharging dry soil moisture instead of in creeks, streams and rivers that flow into the Great Salt Lake. Warmer conditions in the valleys this spring could also launch the irrigation season early, leading to more consumption before water ends up at the lake.

Lower increases are also possible in the southern arm if more of the water ends up in the northern arm, as was the case last year.

On the other hand, the lake could also receive another boost from controlled releases. Utah's reservoir system remains 82% full — about a percentage point higher than last year and well above normal before the spring snowmelt — which means there's less water needed from spring runoff to refill the system.

Central Utah Water Conservancy District officials announced last month they expected to send about 70,000 acre-feet of Utah Lake water to the Great Salt Lake this spring to avoid flooding risks. Other water managers in the basin said they are waiting to see how the snowpack season plays out before releasing water to the lake.

"We expect to have a pretty significant runoff into the Great Salt Lake, which gives us all a lot of cause for hope," Steed said.

His office will be "quite carefully" tracking the lake's water intake over the next few weeks. It also plans to bring back a contest in which Utahns can guess how much the lake will rise this spring.

Major grant 'unfrozen'

What is finally certain is that Utah will receive the $50 million grant for Great Salt Lake projects the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation allocated in December.

The federal agency dedicated the funding using Inflation Reduction Act money, but it was held up when the Trump administration suspended funding from the 2022 legislation. Steed said state officials were notified Thursday the funding has been "unfrozen," allowing the Utah Department of Natural Resources to plan how to distribute it.

One-fifth of the money is still slated for bolstering leasing efforts that send more water to the lake. Steed said the remaining $40 million will be distributed to projects that improve the lake's habitats, which are vital for the millions of migratory birds that stop at the lake every year.

"That's something we look forward to rolling out in the not-so-distant future," he said. It comes after what he calls a quiet but "relatively successful" legislative session for the lake.

During the session, state lawmakers made some small tweaks tied to the lake and allocated $1 million in appropriations for water leasing. They also settled on $150,000 in ongoing funds for dust monitors, which is still less than what the commissioner's office requested but enough to start gathering baseline dust information.

Local researchers had advocated for the $650,000 request so they could study more about the health impacts and other issues tied to dust coming off the dry lake bed.

"The first step to solve a problem is understanding how big it is," said Ben Abbott, an associate professor of environmental science at BYU.

Steed said nonprofits and other groups have expressed interest in sponsoring a program, which could also help the Utah Department of Environmental Quality acquire as many monitors as it needs.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.