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Samantha Hawkins
Press Release: New billboards provides live feed of Great Salt Lake status
Salt Lake City, UT— Feb. 10, 2025 – Grow the Flow, a water policy and advocacy non-profit, has launched a Great Salt Lake water level tracker on traffic routes in Salt Lake County to convey the status of the lake’s ongoing decline.
Great Salt Lake water levels are typically tracked using elevation (4,192.6 feet above sea level). The new tracker simplifies this data by converting water level to percentage full (volume) based on the lake’s long-term natural levels and displaying it alongside an easy-to-read graphic—making it more accessible to the general public.
“The first step toward solving a problem is awareness,” said Dr. Ben Abbott, executive director of Grow the Flow and BYU professor of ecology. “No billboard can capture all of the details of the health of the lake, but just seeing the current lake volume gives Utahns a way to access the situation. Israel did this with the Sea of Galilee, and it really helped the whole community get on board.”
Great Salt Lake is currently 37.5% full compared to its natural volume at 4,207’ and 5.6’ below its minimum healthy level of 4,198’. Its current elevation (4192.6ft) puts the lake at the same level it was a year before reaching its record low in 2022.
“Great Salt Lake is at a critical tipping point. While we’ve seen positive momentum in recent years, the work is far from over,” said Jake Dreyfous, managing director of Grow the Flow. “We believe more transparency and visibility will empower Utahns to advocate for practical solutions and encourage our state leaders to take the necessary next steps to ensure the lake’s rapid restoration.”
This billboard complements existing dashboards from the U.S. Geological Survey and the Utah Division of Water Resources, offering a more public-facing way to track the lake’s condition in real time. By contextualizing key data points, it helps Utahns understand how much lakebed is exposed, how full the lake is, and—eventually—how much additional water has reached the lake.
“The longer we study the lake, the more we realize its importance to our health, economy, and way of life,” Abbott said. “I believe that we are going to be the first community to save their saline lake, but that’s going to require a lot of creativity and investment.”
For more information about the lake level tracker and how you can help Grow the Flow’s efforts, visit GrowTheFlowUtah.org.