If you name a state, you might also conjure a specific mental image — if you think Texas, you might think barbecue, if you think Wisconsin, you might think cheese. If you are from Utah, you know there are many uniquely Utah places and things to think about, one of which is Great Salt Lake.
Great Salt Lake has been experiencing alarmingly low lake levels over the past several decades due increased urbanization, warmer winters, and the introduction of invasive plants.
In response to decreasing lake levels, Gov. Spencer Cox recently issued the Great Salt Lake 2034 charter, or GSL 2034, which looks to target invasive plant removal to help raise lake levels. It’s a massive effort backed by $200 million dollars of private funding. Specifically, Cox seeks to focus efforts on phragmites, or the common reed, which he calls a “water hungry invasive plant.”
Rachel Wood, assistant professor at Brigham Young University, said if you are from Utah, you’ve likely seen phragmites, as it is a distinctive plant you can identify even as you speed by on the highway.
“It's tall, it has this really noticeable seed head at the top that turns a nice golden brown,” Wood said.
Keith Hambrecht, restoration program manager for state lands with the Division of Forestry, Fire, and State Lands explained how the tall, picturesque invasive plant impacts lake levels.
"Phragmites is a plant that will reduce water to Great Salt Lake, and it does that by two ways," he said. "One is through additional evapotranspiration, and then the other way would be just physically blocking water from getting to the lake.”
Invasive plant removal is a logical step towards creating a healthier lake, but the connection to lake levels might not be intuitive.
“Our current estimate is that if we were to convert all of the invasive phragmites into an appropriate native species of inland salt grass,we could save approximately 80,000 acre-feet of water per season,” Hambrecht said.
However both Hambrecht and Wood cautioned that lake restoration is not as straightforward as it may sound.
“It can take many years to effectively remove phragmites," Hambrecht said. "It typically takes us three to five years to remove any given patch of phragmites.”
But there are ways the public can help protect Great Salt Lake from invasive plants.
“If you are traveling somewhere where there's phragmites before going somewhere else, making sure that you are cleaning your equipment, cleaning your shoes, so you're not accidentally transporting seeds from one location to another,” Wood said.
The road to a healthier lake, and higher water levels, is long and winding, not unlike the water’s own journey from mountain tops, down creeks, through stands of phragmites, and into Great Salt Lake. It’s a road worth taking, so that when people picture Utah, they continue to picture Great Salt Lake.