Wallace Stegner Center 28th Annual Symposium
The Future of the Great Salt Lake | March 16-17, 2023 The Stegner Center’s 28th annual symposium on March 16-17, 2023, will focus on the Great Salt Lake. One of the world’s largest hypersaline lakes, the Great Salt Lake is on the verge of collapse due to climate change, drought, and population pressures that have reduced inflows and shrunk the lake by more than two-thirds. The Great Salt Lake has been in the media lately, not only locally, but nationally and internationally given the unique nature of the lake and the grave risks to human health—referred to by the New York Timesas “Utah’s environmental nuclear bomb”—that would result from the toxic dust of a desiccated lakebed. Day one will consider the state of the lake and factors leading to its decline. We will then consider the risks to human health and the millions of migratory birds dependent on the lake, along with economic impacts, if this ecosystem collapses. Day two will focus on solutions to preserve the lake with presentations by scientists, water policy experts, politicians, community leaders, and others. The symposium will be hybrid, with speakers in person and attendees joining in person and online.