Great Salt Lake Project
Great Salt Lake Project
Great Salt Lake Project
Great Salt Lake Project
Great Salt Lake Project
Legal and policy solutions for a healthy Great Salt Lake
The Great Salt Lake Project at the Wallace Stegner Center develops legally sound policy solutions to bring water back to Great Salt Lake and secure a resilient future for Utah.
Many in Utah are asking an important question: How can we save Great Salt Lake? The S.J. Quinney College of Law and its Wallace Stegner Center have launched the Great Salt Lake Project to provide legal analysis to answer this monumental question. By highlighting the legal pathways to restoring the lake, the Great Salt Lake Project provides timely advice to policymakers and stakeholders dedicated to saving the lake.
Programs & Initiatives Links
Why the Lake Matters
Great Salt Lake, the largest saline lake in the Western Hemisphere, is in crisis. Decades of unsustainable water consumption, accelerated by drought and climate change, have dramatically reduced water levels. With over 50% of the lakebed now exposed, Great Salt Lake is on a trajectory toward irreversible ecological collapse.
This isn’t just an environmental emergency—the future of the lake is inseparable from the future of the Wasatch Front. More than 80% of Utah’s population lives in this region, and the stakes are existential. A declining lake means hazardous dust pollution, ecosystem breakdown, and a significant threat to public health, economic stability, and the long-term livability of the region.
Globally, nearly all 120 major saline lakes are in decline, driven largely by excess diversions. Of these, none have been successfully restored. These collapses have already caused profound harm to nearby communities and environments.
This makes Utah’s challenge—and opportunity—extraordinary. Restoring Great Salt Lake would set a global precedent and mark the first successful reversal of this trend. Achieving this will require bold policy, shared resolved, and a sustained, all-in effort.
The key to saving the lake is simple. It is a one-ingredient recipe: just add water. How to do that, however, is politically, economically, and legally challenging.
Great Salt Lake Project
Great Salt Lake Project is a legal and policy center based at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law’s Wallace Stegner Center for Land, Resources & the Environment. We connect law, policy, science, and public engagement to develop actionable strategies to save Great Salt Lake. We work alongside state leaders, local governments, and state and national partners to ensure the future of Great Salt Lake and the region.
We translate legal research into policy. We bring together experts and stakeholders to vet and test lake rescue strategies. We build coalitions to protect not only Great Salt Lake, but saline lakes across the West. We help local leaders conserve water. We collaborate with state leaders on policy measures to save the lake. We don’t simply write reports—we help implement real solutions.
Read the Great Salt Lake Project's policy guide for the 2026 legislative session.
Get Involved
We invite you to join us in our lake rescue efforts. Whether you’re a policymaker, researcher, legal professional, journalist, student, business or non-profit leader, or concerned citizen, there is a role for you in protecting Great Salt Lake. We welcome questions, partnerships, and media inquiries.
Your donation will help us create practical, actionable, and legally-sound advice for policymakers who are working with us to save Great Salt Lake.
If you would like to stay informed about the work of Great Salt Lake Project, click the button below and we will add you to our email list.
LATEST GSL PROJECT NEWS
Environmental Policy Accelerator students write editorials with Professors Brigham Daniels and Beth Parker
Mar 07, 20263Ls Ben Kunz and Kyle Lowe, along with Associate Research Professor Beth Parker and Professor Brigham Daniels, co-authored editorials about what it will take to save the Great Salt Lake in The Hill and the Deseret News.
Great Salt Lake Project releases a policy guide for the 2026 legislative session
Feb 13, 2026The Stegner Center’s Great Salt Lake Project released a policy guide for the 2026 legislative session, which outlines the bills introduced this legislative session that could meaningfully accelerate the lake’s recovery before the 2034 Olympic Games.
Research Assistant Professor Beth Parker quoted in Washington Post article about Great Salt Lake
Aug 17, 2025Research Assistant Professor Beth Parker was quoted in a Washington Post article about the impact of dust from the Great Salt Lake.
Why the Great Salt Lake’s decline could force a financial reckoning
Apr 29, 2025What do stocks and bonds have to do with the shrinking Great Salt Lake? A lot more than you might think. In a new Environmental Law Reporter article, Great Salt Lake Project co-leads Elisabeth Parker and Brigham Daniels collaborate with coauthors Abigail Allen and Corinne Doerner to explore a consequential but often overlooked angle of the lake’s decline: securities liability.
Principal Sponsors
Richard and Suzanne Burbidge
The ESRR Endowment Fund for the Wallace Stegner Center
