THE GREAT SALT LAKE

Seeing the Whole Story, Building a Shared Future

by Jeff Mayfield

Composite Digital Illustration from Original Drawings by Jeff Mayfield

Link to the Message for the Image

 

What do we miss when we see The Great Salt Lake only as a beautiful landscape?

 

What changes when we begin to see its water, wildlife, people, health, economy and future as parts of one connected system?

 

WHERE THE JOURNEY BEGAN        

Light moved across the water, changing the colors of the lake, sky, shoreline and distant mountains. Small shapes moved on the vastness of the lake. What were they? What brought them here? What was happening in this immense landscape that I could not yet see?

 

 

I was struck by the calm and beauty around me. But the longer I looked, the more questions came. This was more than simply a lake. It felt like a great inland salt sea, quiet, immense and alive with something I did not yet understand.

 

That curiosity became the beginning of a journey. I began researching the lake: its history, ecological system, wildlife, tributaries, and the people and communities around it. The more I learned, the more the landscape changed for me. Water became more than water. The shoreline became more than an edge. Those distant shapes became part of a much larger story.

 

I also began to understand the lake’s vulnerability. Changes in one part of this system can reach far beyond the shoreline. They can affect wildlife that lives here year-round, the millions of birds that depend on the lake during migration, and the people who call this basin home.

 

As a retired businessman, author and artist, I felt increasingly compelled to look deeper and tell this story, not only the story of a beautiful landscape, but also the relationships hidden within it and the communities around it.

 

That journey became Brine, Bird and Basin: an effort to understand this remarkable inland sea and explore why its interconnected life matters for wildlife, the landscape, and the generations of people who will inherit its future.

 

WHY THIS PROJECT

The Great Salt Lake can stop us with light alone. Water and sky seem to merge. Birds gather, lift, turn and disappear across distances that make the landscape feel almost limitless. It is easy to be captivated by what we see.

 

But what lies beyond that first view? What sustains life moving across the water? What connects this lake to wetlands, farms, businesses, communities and people miles beyond its shoreline? 

 

Beneath that beauty is a network of relationships: water, salt, microscopic life, wetlands, brine shrimp and flies, migratory birds, farms, businesses, communities, and people who breathe the air along the lake’s shores.

 

That larger story is why I am developing Brine, Bird and Basin, a book and visual storytelling project about The Great Salt Lake. I want to explore how the lake works, why it matters to wildlife and people, what is changing, and how people with different interests can help shape practical solutions.

 

My hope is that readers come away seeing more than they saw before. A flock can become more than a beautiful pattern when we understand what sustains it. A shoreline can become more than a line across the landscape when we understand what determines where the water reaches. And The Great Salt Lake itself can become more than scenery when we recognize how many lives and livelihoods are connected to it.

 

Business leadership taught me that difficult problems are rarely solved by ignoring economic realities or asking one group to carry the burden. Progress begins with facts, listening, a common goal and realistic solutions. For my full biography and professional background, see the About section of this website.

 

That is the spirit of this project: look carefully, ask questions, understand what the facts tell us, and search for a future people can help build together.

 

SEEING THE GREAT SALT LAKE WHOLE

 

Where does the water go? That simple question begins to reveal why The Great Salt Lake is unlike most lakes people know. The Great Salt Lake is a terminal saline lake: water flows into it, but no river carries lake water to the sea. Its level reflects the balance between inflow and evaporation. Human water use within the basin also affects how much water reaches it.

 

Once we understand that, the lake begins to look different. The water flowing toward it matters. Evaporation matters. Human water use matters. Together, those conditions help shape the life that can exist here.

 

Thousands of miles away, another great inland lake offers a powerful demonstration of these relationships. The Aral Sea, situated between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in Central Asia, was once the world's fourth-largest lake. Like Great Salt Lake, it occupies a terminal basin, where water enters but has no natural surface outlet to the ocean. Historically sustained by the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers, the Aral Sea began declining dramatically after extensive Soviet-era irrigation projects diverted large volumes of river water for agriculture. NASA's satellite observations document how the lake gradually fragmented and much of its water disappeared.

 

By 2023, the Aral Sea had declined to approximately 10 percent of its former surface area. As water disappeared, dissolved salts became more concentrated, aquatic habitats changed, and extensive portions of the former lakebed became desert. What had once sustained fishing communities and aquatic life was transformed across much of the basin. NASA's documentation of the developing Aralkum Desert provides a striking record of that transformation.

 

The Aral Sea and Great Salt Lake are not identical. Their water chemistry, biological communities, geography and histories differ. The Aral Sea supported an extensive commercial fishery, while Great Salt Lake's hypersaline waters support a different ecosystem. Nevertheless, both demonstrate the fundamental importance of maintaining water inflows sufficient to sustain their ecological functions. The Aral Sea's history does not determine Great Salt Lake's future, but it shows how profoundly a terminal lake can change when its water balance is disrupted over many years.

 

Algae and other microscopic productivity support brine shrimp and brine flies. They, in turn, become food for migratory birds. Changes in lake level and salinity can therefore move through the food web in ways that are not obvious from shore.

 

Great Salt Lake's biological response also depends on where changes occur. A railroad causeway divides the lake into northern and southern arms with different salinity conditions. Historically, differences in freshwater inflows and movement of brine through the causeway have produced substantial variations in their water chemistry. United States Geological Survey research documents these relationships, underscoring why lake conditions must be studied with attention to geography rather than treating the entire lake as uniform.

 

A bird lifting from the lake may be what catches our eye, but behind that moment is another story: water, salt, microscopic life, food, habitat and migration. One relationship leads to another.

 

Seeing The Great Salt Lake whole means asking not only what is here, but what makes it possible and what happens when one part of the system changes.

 

WHY THE LAKE MATTERS TO WILDLIFE AND PEOPLE

 

Those small shapes moving across the lake begin to take on a different meaning once we understand how many lives pass through this place. The Great Salt Lake and its associated wetlands provide food and habitat for roughly 10 million migratory birds each year, representing about 330 species. The lake is part of migration systems that connect distant landscapes across the Western Hemisphere.

 

Ten million birds. The number is difficult to imagine, but each flock is part of a journey reaching far beyond Utah. Their movements cross state and national boundaries. That makes The Great Salt Lake part of a larger American and hemispheric wildlife story.

 

What happens here matters beyond Utah. Human connections are just as important. For families and communities along the Wasatch Front, what happens to the lake can also become an air-quality concern. As lake level falls, more lakebed can be exposed, and portions of that playa can generate windblown dust. Utah air-quality officials report that lakebed sediments hold metals including arsenic, cadmium, lead, mercury and others. The concentrations carried in airborne Great Salt Lake dust and the full health implications remain under study.

 

Recent Great Salt Lake-specific research has also identified playa contributions to northern Utah dust and possible health hazards under some exposure conditions, while emphasizing important uncertainties. That evidence deserves careful study, honest communication and practical action as knowledge improves.

 

The Aral Sea provides historical evidence of why exposed lakebed deserves such attention. As its waters retreated, enormous areas of previously submerged sediments became exposed. Wind carried salt and dust across surrounding landscapes, and the sediments included contaminants associated with decades of agricultural activity. NASA documents the resulting environmental changes, including damage to surrounding agricultural lands and communities.

 

The public health consequences require equally careful interpretation. A 2026 scientific review published in Ambio examined health conditions associated with the Aral Sea disaster and emphasized that adverse outcomes cannot all be attributed to dust alone. Historical pollution, social and economic conditions, nutrition, and access to medical care also influence community health. The study documents environmental improvements in the restored northern region while identifying continuing health concerns and important research gaps.

 

For Great Salt Lake, the comparison raises important questions rather than providing automatic answers. Which exposed sediments become airborne? What contaminants do they contain? Where do the particles travel? How much reaches populated communities, and what are the actual health consequences? Utah's monitoring and scientific studies are essential to answering those questions. We should neither dismiss potential risks nor present unproven outcomes as established facts.

 

The ecological differences matter just as much. Rising salinity contributed to the destruction of much of the Aral Sea's historical fishery. Great Salt Lake's naturally hypersaline ecosystem depends instead on organisms adapted to saline conditions. Its brine shrimp, brine flies, algae and associated food webs must be evaluated according to their own biological requirements. The scientific warning is not that identical species will suffer identical consequences. It is that persistent changes in water availability can alter the conditions upon which entire aquatic communities depend.

Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge

Dry Wetland Lake Beds 2026

 

Air quality belongs at the center of the human story because people live, work, raise families and exercise along the Wasatch Front. But concern for people must also include the livelihoods tied to this basin.

 

Agriculture produces significant food commodities and economic value within the basin while using substantial water in major tributary watersheds. Mineral production, brine-shrimp harvesting, recreation and other lake-connected industries also support Utah’s economy.

 

So where does that leave us? Not with two simple sides.

 

Farmers and businesses face real consequences from change. Conservationists respond to genuine ecological concerns. Physicians and public-health advocates ask legitimate questions about risk. Government leaders must balance human, economic and natural-resource responsibilities.

 

There is only one Great Salt Lake. Wildlife, air quality, water use, agriculture, industry, recreation, public health and community life are parts of the same story. If we look at only one piece, we risk missing the connections that matter most.

 

SHARED RESPONSIBILITY: A PRACTICAL PATH FORWARD

See my related Shared Responsibility article on jeffmayfield.org

Once we begin to see those connections, the question changes. Instead of asking only, “Who is to blame?” what happens if we ask, “What can each of us contribute to a workable solution?” No farmer, business, conservation organization, physician, scientist, legislator, agency, artist, photographer or family created this challenge alone. None can solve it alone either.

 

That does not mean we are powerless. It means the answer will require more than one voice, one profession, one industry or one point of view.

 

A durable approach should begin with the best available science. The realities of water, salinity, habitat, dust and health help establish the physical boundaries within which workable solutions must be developed. But science does not remove the need for practical leadership. People still must listen, weigh consequences, make decisions and act within those realities.

 

Utah’s Great Salt Lake Strategic Plan emphasizes coordination among agencies and stakeholders, public engagement, science, water conservation across sectors, protection of air and water quality, and action over short-, medium- and long-term periods. That is an important foundation. The challenge is turning shared concern into measurable progress.

 

The Aral Sea's history offers more than a warning. It also demonstrates that deliberate water-management decisions can produce measurable environmental recovery. In Kazakhstan, construction of the Kok-Aral Dam in 2005 helped retain freshwater in the North Aral Sea. Water levels increased, salinity declined, aquatic conditions improved, and commercial fishing began to recover. NASA documented the northern lake's recovery through satellite imagery, while subsequent scientific research has examined its ecological, economic and public health consequences.

 

The recovery was not complete. Much of the southern Aral Sea remained severely depleted, and the 2026 Ambio review identifies continuing environmental and social challenges. These contrasting outcomes are important. They demonstrate that restoration can succeed in specific locations while also revealing how difficult it can be to reverse environmental damage across an entire basin.

 

The North Aral Sea's experience does not provide a ready-made engineering solution for Great Salt Lake. Utah's geography, water chemistry, existing railroad causeway and ecological requirements are different. The more transferable lesson concerns the relationship between scientific understanding, deliberate intervention and measured results. Decisions should be evaluated not simply by the resources committed or projects announced, but by whether environmental conditions actually improve.

 

For Great Salt Lake, such evaluation should consider the water reaching the lake, changes in lake elevation and salinity, the condition of aquatic organisms and bird habitats, and the extent and behavior of exposed lakebed sediments. These are related indicators, but no single measurement can describe the health of the entire system. Each requires appropriate scientific methods, geographic distinctions, and an understanding of natural variability.

 

A solutions-based approach should set clear goals, understand the consequences for major stakeholders, evaluate alternatives, and build plans people can realistically carry out. Agriculture and industry may need time, investment, technology, incentives or new operating approaches to reduce impacts without destroying viable businesses and livelihoods.

 

Government leaders and agencies can help remove barriers, set priorities, support practical implementation and measure progress. Conservation and health organizations can keep consequences visible. Scientists can refine what is known and uncertain. Communities need honest information and a meaningful voice.

 

Reasonable transition time should not become indefinite delay. Urgency should not become a demand for changes so abrupt that they unnecessarily damage the people and businesses Utah depends upon.

 

The better goal is a shared destination with coordinated, phased solutions: set measurable goals, assign responsibility, implement practical steps, track results, learn and adjust.

 

People do not have to agree on every method to agree that Utah should pursue a healthy Great Salt Lake, cleaner air, viable agriculture, productive businesses, strong communities, and economic and environmental strength together.

 

That is a future worth working toward.

 

ARTISTIC INTERPRETATION AND MESSAGE-DRIVEN CREATIVE OPPORTUNITIES

 

As an artist and photographer, I keep returning to another question: what can art help us see that facts alone may not?

 

Artists and photographers have a significant role, but it can be larger than simply showing that The Great Salt Lake is beautiful. Creative work can help people feel and understand relationships that statistics and technical reports may struggle to communicate.

 

Salt Lake City’s Wake the Great Salt Lake initiative has used visual art, photography, film, sound, performance, education and community engagement to deepen public understanding of the lake and encourage thought about its future.

 

For an artist or photographer, scientific understanding can become the beginning of interpretation. A flock can be more than a beautiful pattern when the viewer understands the food web supporting it. A receding shoreline can become more than a line across a photograph when it suggests connections among water level, habitat, exposed playa, dust and communities.

 

The creative question changes from simply, “What is beautiful here?” to something more challenging: “What can this image help someone understand?”

 

Some work may communicate fragility. Other work may reveal migration, hidden food webs, human health, agriculture, industry, cooperation, restoration, stewardship or credible hope.

 

The goal is not to prescribe a message. It is to encourage informed creative choices: learn enough about what you are seeing to create art that helps someone else see more.

 

Art does not have to choose between beauty and meaning. It can carry both.

 

CONCLUSION

 

The more I study The Great Salt Lake, the harder it becomes to separate one part of its story from another. Water connects to salt. Salt connects to microscopic life. Microscopic life connects to birds. Lake level connects to habitat, economy, exposed lakebed, air quality and people.

 

What at first appears to be a collection of separate subjects begins to reveal one interconnected story. Once those relationships become visible, the lake can no longer be reduced to scenery, wildlife, industry or crisis alone. It is a shared living system, and its future will be shaped by decisions made across that system.

 

The opportunity is not to choose between a prosperous Utah and an environmentally responsible one. It is to do the harder work of building a future that respects both.

 

LOOKING FORWARD: FROM UNDERSTANDING TO ACTION

 

There is another reason this work matters now. Salt Lake City-Utah has been awarded the 2034 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. In 2034, athletes, visitors, journalists and audiences around the world will again turn their attention toward Utah.

 

What story will they see? I do not see 2034 as a deadline for perfection. I see it as an opportunity and a shared milestone.

 

The years before 2034 give Utah an opportunity to show that stewardship and prosperity do not have to be opponents. The goal is not a perfect lake by a fixed date. It is visible, measurable progress and a culture of cooperation strong enough to continue beyond the Games.

 

The Aral Sea's history suggests why the evidence of progress matters. Its long decline demonstrates that environmental consequences can accumulate over decades, while the recovery of its northern basin demonstrates that improvements can be observed and measured after management changes. Great Salt Lake's progress should likewise be evaluated against scientifically justified objectives, not merely the passage of time or the announcement of new initiatives.

 

By 2034, Utah could have an opportunity to demonstrate progress through documented changes in freshwater delivery, lake conditions, biological resources and environmental monitoring. The appropriate targets must be established through Great Salt Lake-specific science, with careful attention to seasonal variation, long-term trends and the different conditions across the lake and its wetlands.

 

These measurements would not replace the need to consider economic and community consequences. They would provide a factual foundation for assessing whether efforts are achieving their intended environmental objectives. Where results fall short, the evidence should help guide adjustments rather than become a reason to abandon cooperation.

 

Imagine the story Utah could tell. A state that protected an extraordinary lake while sustaining a strong economy. A state that listened to farmers and businesses without ignoring science. A state that took public health seriously without using fear as a substitute for evidence. A state where conservationists, physicians, researchers, elected leaders, industries, communities, artists and citizens worked together even when they did not agree on everything.

 

If Utah can do that well, it can offer the nation an example of constructive problem solving when environmental, economic, health and community interests all matter.

 

So, the question remains: what story do we want Utah to tell when the world arrives?

 

Brine, Bird and Basin will follow these connections: how the basin formed, how water and salt shape life, why birds gather here, how the lake affects people, what is changing, and where practical solutions may be found.

 

The purpose is not simply to describe what could be lost. It is to understand enough to take part intelligently and constructively in what comes next.

 

STEWARDSHIP REFLECTION

 

For me, there is also a deeper foundation for that responsibility.

Genesis 2:15 describes humanity’s responsibility in the garden as “to cultivate it and tend it,” while Psalm 24:1 reminds us, “The earth is the Lord’s, and all it contains” (NASB 2020).

 

Stewardship does not mean refusing to use resources. It means using what has been entrusted to us wisely while considering the consequences of our choices for creation and for our neighbors.

 

The Great Salt Lake asks something of all of us: to learn, to listen, to act responsibly, and to work with people whose perspectives may differ from our own.

 

What will we leave behind? The legacy we leave will not be measured only by what we protected or what we produced. It will also be measured by whether we found a way to do both responsibly and leave those who follow us a healthier lake, stronger communities, and an example of stewardship worth receiving.

 

AUTHOR BIO

Jeff Mayfield has more than 31 years of business and financial experience, including audit and consulting in public accounting and more than 24 years in executive leadership as a Chief Financial Officer and Chief Executive Officer. He is an author, artist, and ordained deacon at First Presbyterian Church in Salt Lake City.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

Heaton Jolley, Faith. “Gov. Cox Declares 2021 as Year of the Shorebird at Great Salt Lake.” Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, May 12, 2021. https://wildlife.utah.gov/news/2021/05/12/cox-declares-2021-as-year-of-the-shorebird-at-great-salt-lake

 

International Olympic Committee. “IOC Elects French Alps 2030 and Salt Lake City-Utah 2034 as Future Hosts for Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.” IOC Newsroom, July 24, 2024. https://newsroom.olympics.com/record/1621

 

Madison, R. J. Effects of a Causeway on the Chemistry of the Brine in Great Salt Lake, Utah. Utah Geological and Mineralogical Survey Water-Resources Bulletin 14. Utah Geological and Mineralogical Survey, 1970. https://www.usgs.gov/publications/effects-a-causeway-chemistry-brine-great-salt-lake-utah

 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration. “Dunes and Desert Replace the Aral Sea.” NASA Earth Observatory, June 2, 2024. https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/dunes-and-desert-replace-the-aral-sea-152887/

 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration. “North Aral Sea Recovery.” NASA Earth Observatory, May 4, 2007. https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/north-aral-sea-recovery-7645/

 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration. “World of Change: Shrinking Aral Sea.” NASA Earth Observatory. Accessed October 10, 2026. https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/world-of-change/aral-sea/

 

Office of the Great Salt Lake Commissioner. “Great Salt Lake Strategic Plan.” Last modified June 17, 2026. https://greatsaltlake.utah.gov/strategic-plan/

 

Office of the Great Salt Lake Commissioner. “Industry and Recreation.” Accessed October 10, 2026. https://greatsaltlake.utah.gov/industry-recreation/

 

Putman, Annie L., Molly Blakowski, Destry DiViesti, Diego Fernandez, Morgan McDonnell, Patrick Longley, and Daniel K. Jones. “Contributions of Great Salt Lake Playa- and Industrially Sourced Priority Pollutant Metals in Dust Contribute to Possible Health Hazards in the Communities of Northern Utah.” GeoHealth 9, no. 8 (2025): e2025GH001462. https://doi.org/10.1029/2025GH001462

 

Rzymski, Piotr, Włodzimierz Marszelewski, Michał Rybak, and Piotr Klimaszyk. “Health Impacts of the Aral Sea Disaster: Current State, Research Gaps, and Mitigation Perspectives in the North Aral Sea Region.” Ambio, published online April 4, 2026. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-026-02385-z

 

Salt Lake City. “Salt Lake City Announces Artists Selected to Participate in Citywide Public Art Project, ‘Wake the Great Salt Lake.’” July 16, 2024. https://www.slc.gov/blog/2024/07/16/salt-lake-city-announces-artists-selected-to-participate-in-citywide-public-art-project-wake-the-great-salt-lake/

 

Salt Lake City Arts Council. “2025 WakeGSL Recap.” December 23, 2025. https://saltlakearts.org/news/wakegsl-2025

 

Utah Department of Environmental Quality, Division of Air Quality. “Great Salt Lake Dust Information and Frequently Asked Questions.” Last modified April 3, 2026. https://deq.utah.gov/air-quality/great-salt-lake-dust-information-and-frequently-asked-questions

 

Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. “About the Great Salt Lake.” Great Salt Lake Ecosystem Program. Last updated July 31, 2026. https://wildlife.utah.gov/gslep/about

 

Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. “Algae and Algal Blooms.” Great Salt Lake Ecosystem Program. Last updated July 31, 2026. https://wildlife.utah.gov/gslep/wildlife/algae

 

Zesiger, Cody, Burdette Barker, Sarah Null, Earl Creech, Matt Yost, Ryan Larsen, and Josh Dallin. Agriculture Water Use and Economic Value in the Great Salt Lake Basin. Utah State University Extension, January 2023. https://extension.usu.edu/irrigation/research/agricultural-water-use-salt-lake-basin