Salt Lake City, UT — Businesses and local governments across Utah could soon be legally required to disclose financial risks tied to the ecological collapse of Great Salt Lake, according to a new legal analysis published in the Environmental Law Reporter. Authored by legal and business experts from the University of Utah and Brigham Young University, the paper argues that fallout from toxic dust, declining snowpack, and property devaluation could ripple across Utah’s economy, drawing scrutiny to sectors far beyond those directly tied to the lake.
The article, Great Salt Lake, Environmental Crises, and Securities Liability, explains how worsening environmental conditions could rise to the level of “material risks” under U.S. securities laws—requiring affected entities, like publicly traded companies and municipal bond issuers, to disclose these risks to investors.
While some sectors—such as mineral extraction, brine shrimp harvesting, and ski resorts—already face economic consequences from the lake’s decline, the authors contend that “virtually every business” that has a footprint in the area could be subject to disclosure requirements if the crisis continues. Broader impacts include falling property values, disruptions to real estate markets, challenges in workforce retention, and diminished appeal to new businesses and investors.
“Corporations have an affirmative duty to educate their shareholders about the risks that they’re taking,” said Brigham Daniels, a Professor of Law at the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law and co-author of the paper. “While corporations need to understand that they have skin in the game, the most important actions corporations can take go well beyond just disclosing risks that the law requires.”
Recognizing the economic ripple effects of ecological collapse, they argue, adds an urgent new rationale for restoring the lake before those liabilities become systemic and unavoidable.
“Problems the lake is facing are caused by people, that is good news because that means that people can be part of the solution,” said Ben Abbott, a BYU ecologist and executive director of Grow the Flow.
“We didn’t write the paper to say business as usual is doomed, or the lake is doomed—not at all,” said Elisabeth Parker, a senior attorney and senior fellow at the Stegner Center and co-author of the paper. “In fact, we’re hoping that the more people realize that they will be affected by the lake’s continued decline, that they will up their game and be part of the movement to make real change.”