While the Great Salt Lake’s southern arm remains much higher than it was this time last year, as it neared its new all-time record low set in November, the same can’t be said about its northern arm
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 — and what can be done to make a difference before it is too late.
In fact, Great Salt Lake’s northern arm didn’t experience as many gains as the southern arm over the past few months. It only topped out at about 4,190 feet elevation in the spring, while the southern arm reached a little higher than 4,194 feet. Ben Stireman, deputy director at the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands, explained that salinity levels reached close to a “tipping point” for the lake ecosystem. Raising a berm at this breach ended up being one of the first projects to address this issue, as it essentially sealed off the two arms to prevent the situation from worsening.
Stireman adds that water is still flowing into the northern arm at a relatively strong rate, but the rate it flows into the lake is about the same rate as consumption and evaporation that are taking water away from this side of the lake. “The north arm is not something we’ve forgotten about nor have we decided to cut it off,” Stireman said, adding that more exposed lakebed by the northern arm is the top concern about that end of the lake right now.
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