How Trump can make a deal to save the Great Salt Lake

To cheers in Utah, President Trump just committed to help save the collapsing Great Salt Lake and “Make the Lake Great Again.” If the administration intends to play a meaningful role in defusing a crisis deemed an “environmental nuclear bomb,” the president should use his business sense and focus on returns, risks and measurable outcomes. 

Investing in saving the Great Salt Lake takes water, and getting water requires — cue the theme song from “The Apprentice” — “money, money, money.” Restoring the lake will cost somewhere between $2 billion and $10 billion — an amount difficult for Utah to carry alone, even with major state investments and private commitments. 

The crisis warrants presidential attention: The lake affects air quality for millions of Americans, sustains major Western industries, and supports a multibillion-dollar regional economy. The return on investment practically sells itself.

The Great Salt Lake is the largest saline lake in the Western Hemisphere and contributes roughly half of the region’s precipitation. More than 12 million migratory birds depend on the lake. Mining companies extract more than 2 million tons of critical minerals from it each year, powering everything from fighter jets to supercomputers. Its potash fertilizer supports the nation’s food security, and its brine shrimp harvests support 10 million metric tons of global seafood production annually. The lake has hemispheric importance. 

And it is disappearing. 

Decades of overconsumption of water — for green lawns in the desert and high-altitude alfalfa farms — have driven the lake into decline. In 2022, the lake dropped to the lowest level on record, exposing nearly 1,000 square miles of lakebed. Winds now sweep dust, laced with heavy metals, into communities of downwinders in Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Nevada and beyond — affecting millions of people. 

A collapsing Great Salt Lake poses a test case for the world. The Great Salt Lake is one of more than 120 saline lakes worldwide. From Iran to Argentina, nearly all are in a state of collapse. No state — no country — has ever successfully restored a saline lake once it has slipped into decline. If the U.S. can rescue this lake, it would set an international precedent. This is precisely the kind of legacy a president should want. 

So how should Trump structure the deal? The ideas for saving the lake range from the ordinary — market-based water transfers and conservation — to pipe dreams, such as desalinating water from the Pacific Ocean and pumping it hundreds of miles and thousands of feet uphill. Different schemes come with vastly different price tags. 

Pipelines and other engineering fixes would not only cost at least an order of magnitude more than the cheaper options, they are also legally and politically fraught. They involve rights-of-way battles with individual property owners, multi-agency permitting, environmental review, delays and predictable litigation. Such fixes would take years — probably decades. 

Measured against return on the investment, the choice is clear. It will cost billions more to fix the lake’s troubles if we do not invest in voluntary, market-based water transactions — willing sellers, fair prices and enforceable contracts — paired with common-sense regulations. 

Unfortunately, time is not on our side. The lake teeters just above its all-time low. Making matters worse, this winter’s snowpack — which provides 95 percent of Utah’s water — is the driest on record. 

Fortunately, Utah has already built the framework for success. The state has modernized its water law to allow voluntary leasing and sales of water rights to benefit the lake. Philanthropic organizations such as Great Salt Lake Rising and Ducks Unlimited have pledged hundreds of millions of dollars to support these market-based solutions. Major water rights holders, such as the Mormon Church, have donated tens of thousands of acre-feet of water in perpetuity. 

The architecture to deliver major wins for the lake exists. Washington can capitalize on it. 

Federal investment could accelerate water leasing, stabilize lake levels and prevent much more costly consequences — damaged infrastructure, falling property values, emergency dust mitigation, and escalating public health costs. 

This is risk management: Invest early in proven returns or pay exponentially more later. Los Angeles learned this lesson the hard way. The city has spent more than $2.5 billion on dust mitigation for Owens Lake, a saline lake that is only 6.5 percent the size of Great Salt Lake. 

These federal funds could extend to buying water from water rights holders in neighboring states — Idaho, Wyoming and Nevada — where roughly one-third of the water is used from the rivers that feed into the lake. 

In 2034, the world will turn its eyes to Salt Lake City for the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games. If Trump delivers much needed funding to save the lake, the world can expect clean air, world-class snow, and a healthy Great Salt Lake.

Saving this lake would be a historical first. It would spare the West a host of problems. It would protect a national treasure. That legacy is worth claiming. 

Brigham Daniels and Elisabeth Parker are professors of law at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law and co-directors of the Great Salt Lake Project. Ben Kunz is a law student at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney School of Law. Samantha Hawkins is a communications strategist for Grow the Flow, a Great Salt Lake nonprofit.

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