# Official Website: Great Salt Lake

**Type:** source
**Status:** Useful
**Confidence:** High
**Source Type:** Official Website
**URL:** https://ffsl.utah.gov/public-lands/great-salt-lake/
**Publisher:** Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands
**Accessed:** 2026-06-19
**Updated:** 2026-06-19

## Summary

The Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands (FFSL) maintains the official state government page for the Great Salt Lake. The page provides authoritative information on the lake's current status, management context, and state programs related to its preservation. Supplementary authoritative sources include the Great Salt Lake Collaborative (greatsaltlakecollaborative.org), the Utah DNR, and the Gardner Policy Institute's Great Salt Lake Strike Team (gardner.utah.edu/great-salt-lake/).

## Useful Claims

- The Great Salt Lake has lost approximately 73% of its surface area since 1850, from roughly 3,300 square miles at high stand to approximately 950 square miles at the 2022 record low.
- The lake is the largest saline lake in the Western Hemisphere and the terminal lake of the Great Basin — it has no outlet, and all inflow concentrates until it evaporates.
- Exposed lakebed sediments contain arsenic, antimony, lanthanum, zirconium, and other heavy metals from industrial and mining runoff; these blow as dust into the Wasatch Front airshed serving approximately 2.5 million people.
- Primary cause of decline: agricultural water diversion from the Bear, Weber, and Jordan rivers — the lake's main tributaries.
- Brine shrimp, the base of the lake's food web, support an estimated 10 million migratory birds annually on the Pacific Flyway and a commercial brine shrimp industry.
- A 2023 BYU study warned the lake could fully desiccate within 5 years without major diversion reductions; wet winters in 2023 and 2024 provided temporary reprieve without reversing the underlying trend.
- Utah HB 453 (2024) bans evaporation-based mineral extraction from the lake, making direct lithium extraction (DLE) the only legal pathway for new mineral ventures.

## Reliability Notes

State government source. Reliable for policy context, official monitoring data, and lake management information. Scientific claims (surface area loss, brine shrimp status, dust composition) are corroborated by BYU and USU research programs. Commercial claims about mineral extraction companies (Lilac Solutions, US Magnesium) should be verified against those companies' own disclosures.

## Related Pages

- [Great Salt Lake](great-salt-lake.md)

## See Also

- [Great Salt Lake Collaborative](https://greatsaltlakecollaborative.org) — coalition of media and public organizations doing ongoing monitoring and advocacy
- [Gardner Policy Institute Strike Team](https://gardner.utah.gov/great-salt-lake/) — University of Utah policy analysis on water rights reform and recovery scenarios
- [BYU Great Salt Lake study (2023)](https://www.cpms.byu.edu/great-salt-lake) — the widely cited desiccation timeline analysis