Great Salt Lake Conservation Gains Momentum with $1 Billion Federal Push and Renewed State Commitment

As the crisis facing Great Salt Lake continues to garner ongoing local and national attention and concern, National Audubon Society welcomes the growing array of committed organizations and leaders advancing efforts to preserve Great Salt Lake through their leadership and financial support.  As participants in today’s roundtable hosted by Governor Spencer Cox, Audubon strongly supports federal investments to leverage the State of Utah’s ongoing investments and private sector contributions to a healthier Great Salt Lake. For more than three decades, Audubon has been a recognized leader committed to the long-term conservation and restoration of Great Salt Lake and its connected wetlands. 

"We are grateful for the leadership of Utah’s congressional delegation, Governor Cox, and other federal and state leaders in recognizing the importance of sustained federal investment as a key step toward addressing the challenges facing Great Salt Lake,” said Marshall Johnson, Chief Conservation Officer at the National Audubon Society. “Building on decades of conservation and restoration work at Great Salt Lake, Audubon is ready to help turn this commitment into lasting progress through science, partnerships, and on-the-ground action that benefits birds, communities, water resources, and Utah’s economy.”

As the largest saline lake in the Western Hemisphere, Great Salt Lake is a globally crucial stopover, hosting 12 million migratory birds annually—birds that depend on the lake and its wetlands for breeding and fueling habitat. This includes some of the largest congregations of species found anywhere in the world, like the Eared Grebe and Wilson's Phalarope. Protecting the lake is essential not only for migratory birds and wildlife at the hemispheric scale, but also for regional air quality, economic stability, public health, and the well-being of millions of people. 

Through science-based conservation, policy leadership, and collaborative partnerships, Audubon is advancing durable, watershed-scale solutions that improve water security, protect habitat, and strengthen the resilience of the lake and its wetlands. Working alongside federal, state, Tribal, local, agricultural, and community partners, we are implementing innovative and practical solutions that help stabilize and recover the Great Salt Lake ecosystem. Audubon and The Nature Conservancy lead the Great Salt Lake Watershed Enhancement Trust (the Trust), that has helped to secure new and existing water flows to Great Salt Lake through voluntary water transactions that benefit the lake and surrounding communities. The Trust has become a leading model for collaborative water stewardship and supporting restoration of the lake’s habitats. 

To build on this progress and meet the scale of the challenges facing the lake, Audubon strongly supports the request for $1 billion in federal funding dedicated to the protection and restoration of Great Salt Lake and its watershed. As discussed at today’s roundtable, this level of investment would help accelerate conservation strategies to bring more water to the lake including voluntary water transactions, natural infrastructure, habitat restoration, species and wetland protection, scientific monitoring, and community-based partnerships that are critical to securing the future of the lake, and integral to Audubon’s work at Great Salt Lake. 

Protecting Great Salt Lake is not only a regional priority, it is a hemispheric imperative. Bold federal action now can help secure a sustainable future for this irreplaceable ecosystem, especially as we rally around the goal of securing a healthy Great Salt Lake by the 2034 Winter Olympics.