Utah News Dispatch reports on the lake’s level, the state’s plan and the 2034 goal, with quotes from Joel Ferry and Ben Abbott
The Great Salt Lake at 4,190.40 Feet: Above the 2021 Low, Below the Healthy Line, and a Painter Considers the Colour of Salt
Utah News Dispatch reports on the lake’s level, the state’s plan and the 2034 goal, with quotes from Joel Ferry and Ben Abbott
By Tinsel Vandergraph, reader and portrait painter, Salt Lake City
Tuesday, Window Open, Salt in the Air
Dear diary, I live near the Great Salt Lake and I paint babies, and the two do not seem to have much in common, except that both ask me to look at something small and slow. This week I read Utah News Dispatch on the lake and I have copied down the numbers. The article is from 2026, according to its headline, though I did not find a full date.
It says the current elevation is 4,190.40 feet above sea level, just above the 2021 low of 4,190.20 feet. The all-time record low is 4,188.5 feet, reached in November 2022, nearly two feet below the current level.
The Healthy Line
The minimum healthy level, the article says, is 4,198 feet, and the lake has not reached it since 2012. Current salinity is about 13 percent; it reached nearly 19 percent in 2022, when the lake nearly collapsed ecologically. Farmington Bay’s lakebed has been largely exposed since the early 2000s.
I am not a hydrologist. I am a person who looks at the lake from the freeway and feels something. The numbers give the feeling a shape.
The Forecast
Joel Ferry, the Utah Department of Natural Resources commissioner, does not expect a new record low in 2026, the article says. He says a winter like the record-dry 2025 to 2026 season would make a new record low in 2027 “unavoidable.” He is also quoted: “We are seeing the savings make a difference.”
That is a sentence with two halves, and the halves pull in different directions. I leave them as they are.
The State Plan
The state plans to close the railroad causeway berm at 4,190 feet, which would trap spring runoff in the southern arm, the article says. The state would also ramp up leasing of water for the lake, and mineral companies would be barred from taking new water until the lake rises above 4,190 feet the following spring.
I do not understand the berm. I understand that a gate can be a plan, and that a plan can be late.
The 2034 Goal
The state’s goal is to return the lake to 4,198 feet by the 2034 Winter Olympics, according to the article. Ben Abbott, a BYU ecology professor and executive director of Grow the Flow, says about 1 million acre-feet of water per year is needed, and that current conservation adds roughly 50,000 to 80,000 acre-feet, less than 10 percent of the target.
He is quoted: “When the lake level is low, we all need to tighten our belts and use less water.”
What I Do at Home
I water the garden less than I did. I wash my brushes in a jar, not under the tap. I tell my family that the babies’ portraits do not need a bath. These are small things, and Abbott’s figures say that small things are less than 10 percent of the target.
I do them anyway. My grandmother called it keeping faith with the ordinary.
A Painter’s Note on Salt
Salt is white, but only when it is dry. Wet, it is grey, then green, then the colour of a bruise. I have tried to paint the shore and have failed three times. The shore refuses to sit still.
I would like to paint it before it changes. I would like it to change back.
Bedtime
The window is closed. The jar is on the sill. The lake is where it is.
Goodnight, diary. Use less.
Questions From the Reading Circle
Friend one: will the lake come back? The article reports a state goal of 4,198 feet by 2034 and a conservation figure of roughly 50,000 to 80,000 acre-feet against a need of about 1 million. I do not predict. Friend two: should I stop watering the lawn? I said it was a family decision. Friend three: is it smelly? I said that is a question for the shore.
I referred them to the article and to the Department of Natural Resources.
Numbers I Cannot Check
I have no way to verify the figures independently, and I give them as the article gives them. If the level has changed since the article was written, I would like to know, and so would the pelicans.
Homework
Homework, friends: compare the three comic takes on the same overseas property story. Manila News, the London Prat (see https://prat.uk/cebu-estate-agents-demand-character-references/) and Bohiney each start from a recognisable market fact and wink at you through the exaggeration. Then find more at prat.uk and bohiney.com.
Note: Philippine authorities are examining unproven allegations about Thomas Markle Sr., who lived in Cebu until earlier this year, as GMA News and the Guardian have reported. No charges have been filed. Child protection is a serious matter; the jokes here are about a property market and the paperwork.
For the lighter side of the news, try NewsBiscuit, and the rest of the lot at NewsThump, NewsBiscuit and The Daily Squib.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/cebu-realtor-cant-sell-beachfront-listings/