Major names in Utah’s business community announced they are donating big bucks to solve a seemingly insurmountable problem — refilling the Great Salt Lake.
The Larry H. and Gail Miller Family Foundation, Maverik, which owns gas stations and convenience stores across the West, and the J. Willard and Alice S. Marriott Foundation said Monday they’re committing $10 million each to Great Salt Lake Rising. That initiative, launched last year and led by developer Josh Romney, wants to bring the lake back to a sustainable elevation in time for Utah to host the 2034 Olympic Winter Games.
“The impact of a low lake in terms of [public] health, the economy, the environment, it really resonates,” Romney said in an interview near the lake’s shore at the Eccles Wildlife Education Center. “People want to get involved.”
The $30 million will go toward a $100 million goal that Great Salt Lake Rising announced alongside Gov. Spencer Cox last September. Ducks Unlimited has set a similar $100 million fundraising goal.
Utah’s salty inland sea has lost about half its volume over the past 30 years, a long-term state of decline that shows no sign of reversing. The issue is almost entirely human-caused, with farms, cities and industries using more water from the lake’s tributary streams and rivers than the lake’s ecosystem can sustain. But business leaders say Utahns are waking up to the importance of the Great Salt Lake and its role in sustaining healthy communities on the Wasatch Front.
The lakebed, laden with toxic metals, is quickly drying to dust and posing a threat to lives and livelihoods downwind.
Read Leia Larsen's full story at sltrib.com.
This article is published through the Utah News Collaborative, a partnership of news organizations in Utah that aims to inform readers across the state.