wilkes-news

Sister Cities Panel

August 2, 2023

Wilkes Center hosts climate change panel between Sister City leaders

Addressing climate change on the local level with two international leaders was the focus of a recent panel discussion between Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall and Matsumoto Mayor Yoshinao Gaun.

The discussion, hosted at the S.J. Quinney College of Law on July 23 by the Wilkes Center for Climate Science & Policy at the University of Utah and the Salt Lake City Department of Economic Development, was part of a weekend of events celebrating the 65th anniversary of the Sister City relationship between Matsumoto, Japan, and Salt Lake City.

Founded in the 1950s by President Dwight Eisenhower, Sister Cities International was formed with the goal of fostering global peace and stability by creating connections between people in different parts of the world. The conversation between the two mayors is an example of how Sister City relationships can provide opportunities for communities from different parts of the world to support each other in finding solutions to the problems they share.

“Rather than taking on this work of addressing climate change as individual cities, we can work together as Salt Lake City and Matsumoto city,” said Gaun through a translator during the panel.

As Salt Lake City experienced three consecutive days of temperatures over 100 degrees, Mendenhall noted it was a fitting time to discuss the efforts cities were making to address climate change.

“Perhaps there couldn’t be a better day for us to gather here and discuss what great work Salt Lake City is doing and how we can learn more from our Sister City, Matsumoto,” she said. “Because our nation does not have any national climate strategy with specific goals, unlike Japan, which does, our actions at the local level are mighty.”

Read the entire story by Matilyn Mortensen in @TheU.

Listen to National Science Foundation’s recent podcast with Bill Anderegg here.

William Anderegg Receives Blavatnik Award

July 26, 2023

William Anderegg RECEIVES Blavatnik Award

On July 26, the Blavatnik Family Foundation and the New York Academy of Sciences announced that Dr. William Anderegg is one of three national laureates to receive the 2023 Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists. A video announcing Anderegg’s selection for the Blavatnik Award  is available here.

Dr. Anderegg is an associate professor of Biological Sciences at the U and director of the Wilkes Center for Climate Science & Policy. As the 2023 Laureate in Life Sciences, he is being awarded $250,000 for his work on “revealing how trees absorb and release carbon dioxide amidst a changing climate.” This is the largest unrestricted scientific award for America’s most innovative, faculty-ranked scientists and engineers who are under the age of 42.

Anderegg’s recent publications have examined the interaction of plant ecology and climate change, from the scale of cells to forest ecosystems. Specifically, he addresses how drought and climate change affect Earth’s forests and the manifold benefits they bring to society. His work overturns a 50-year foundational theory on how stomata—pores on leaves that facilitate photosynthesis—behave in order to improve carbon gain and minimize water loss, and in turn, how this affects global forests’ response to climate change.

 As a leading voice in the field of climate change, Anderegg’s discoveries are already informing climate solutions, global policies, and public health. He is the first ever winner of the Blavatnik Regional Awards to be awarded the Blavatnik National Award Laureate. 

 “I am thrilled that our important work continues to be recognized,” said Anderegg. “I hope that our contributions to this field of research can help illuminate the future of Earth’s forests and provide urgently-needed tools to tackle climate change and increase resilience in ecosystems and communities in the US and across the globe.”

 The 2023 Blavatnik National Awards received 267 nominations from 134 institutions in 38 U.S. states. Nominees must be faculty-level scientific researchers, 42 years of age or younger. Three independent juries —one each for life sciences, chemistry, and physical sciences and engineering —were composed of some of America’s most distinguished scientists. The juries selected three winning laureates and 28 finalists.  

The Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists will celebrated the 2023 laureates and finalists in a ceremony on September 19 at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. (See banner photo above: William Anderegg with Sir Leonard Valentinovich Blavatnik)

In April, Anderegg was one of three 2023 recipients of the National Science Foundation’s prestigious Alan T. Waterman Award for his contributions to ecosystem and climate change science.

 

 

An Unexpected Climate Solution

June 2, 2023

The Wilkes Center Student Innovation Prize

Nicholas Witham is the first-place winner of the Wilkes Center Student Innovation Prize, awarded earlier this month at the University of Utah. The competition invited students to propose creative solutions for tackling the climate crisis, along with presentations that detail their potential impact, benefits, and practicality. Three other prizes, one for second place and two for third place, were also given during the inaugural Wilkes Climate Summit at the University of Utah, May 17-18.

A graduate student at the U, Witham is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in biomedical engineering, as well as running his company Gaia Technologies which makes prosthetic components. For the Wilkes Center Prize, he designed an innovative renewable electric generator that relies on natural fluctuations in the Earth’s temperature. “The type of generator I’ve designed works with thermo-motive artificial muscles,” he says. “That means that they contract when you heat them. Every day the Earth gets hotter and colder which will make them move, and they can pull on a turbine, generating power. The great thing about this is that cooling also generates power, so you can make energy day and night.” This potential for around-the-clock power generation could help to bridge the energy gap that is common with renewable energy sources. 

One of the first places Witham hopes to put his generators is in Southern Utah where the day-to-night temperature change is ideal for this technology 10 months out of the year. And although natural temperature fluctuations may not always be enough to run the generators, Witham believes that they could be used to complement existing renewables such as solar and geothermal energy: “You can use highly efficient geothermal heat pumps to actuate them without needing to have a temperature change caused by the environment. The excess heat that they are wasting, not spinning a turbine, just cooling down before they pump it back into the Earth–we could use that to increase the energy output of our generators tenfold,” he says. 

In fact, installing these generators at pre-existing geothermal plants or solar farms may be the most ideal option to maximize the efficiency and cost of these sites. “I ran the numbers, and I believe that this could be a solution that could cost less than solar, and you can scale it vertically,” explains Witham. “So you could use existing solar infrastructure, place the solar panels on top, and any time you want to reinvest in the site without having to run new electric lines to it, you could just stack them higher.” 

Not only is the generator a potentially powerful form of renewable energy, but it also incorporates carbon capture into its design. “These are polymer textiles. So they’re made out of a plastic called linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE), which is a type of plastic that can be bio-derived. That means you can use corn husks to make this plastic as an indirect form of carbon capture. Every kilogram of LLDPE sequesters 3 kilograms of carbon.” 

Witham carefully considered the environmental impact of these generators, ensuring that they contribute to carbon sequestering efforts instead of creating more waste: “In the decommissioning of solar panels, for example, you generate quite a lot of e-waste. This system is designed to be recycled and decommissioned in an environmentally safe practice.” 

Witham plans to house the entire generator inside a shipping container, and he estimates that one of these generators could be expected to last over 25 years with very minimal maintenance. Due to their self-contained nature, the impact and effect of these units on the surrounding environment is very minimal. “It’s essentially a big black box that we plan to put in the middle of the desert. I contacted the local EPA office about this to see if there was anything I was missing, and they had no real concerns. Because we’re putting it in a box, any microplastics that might be generated by the textiles shearing or breaking catastrophically would be contained,” he states.

The capacity for incorporating these devices in urban areas, according to Witham, may be limited to apartment buildings or skyscrapers. “I don’t think anybody really wants to use a shipping-container-sized portion of their yard to make power,” he jokes. The weight of these containers also limits their ability to be placed on top of roofs, or buildings, as each unit weighs roughly 18 metric tons. However, there is potential for them to be incorporated underneath buildings. “You can absolutely put it underground if you have a heat pump HVAC system to regulate it, but that would be a bit less efficient.” Though the generators wouldn’t function as well as in the remote desert environment Witham has planned, there is still a possibility for urban incorporation. 

With a purse of $20,000 from the Wilkes Center Prize, Witham is one step closer to getting his design up and running at full scale. His lab already has the capability to mass-produce the necessary artificial muscle technology, so a prototype will soon follow. “The assumption is that we can make a nine-megawatt-hour generator at scale to test it in the field. From there we could make a generator field just like you would see for a solar field. And then with a 2.4-year doubling period – which is typical for renewables in this area – that would mean that by 2050 we would have sequestered and offset a total of 15 million tons of CO2.” Witham’s consideration of sustainability, feasible scaling, and collaboration with other renewables make his design both practical and effective as a climate solution.  

Textile artificial muscle in thermo-mechanical testing set-up. Photo credit: Nick Witham

Clearly, the judges of the Wilkes Center Prize thought so as well. Witham’s design is a unique and impressive fusion of renewable energy with pre-existing biomedical technologies, showcasing that the nature of climate solutions will likely be interdisciplinary. Witham jokes that a sleepless night at work is to thank for his idea to incorporate his biomedical work into a renewable energy source: “I was having a sleep-deprived night in the lab, as you do as a graduate student,” says Nicholas Witham, “and I crunched the numbers because I thought, ‘hey, the Earth heats up!’ I connected all the dots because we use a type of plastic that is a lot more energy efficient and is not typically used for these artificial muscles. And that energy efficiency really allowed this idea to have merit.” 

Witham’s creative application of biomedical engineering shows that the most powerful climate solutions may come from unexpected places and that no branch of knowledge is too isolated to make an impact. His impressive design stands alongside dozens of other projects from creative and dedicated students that rose to meet this innovation challenge. With prizes such as this, the Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy is leading the way toward creating a powerful forum for interdisciplinary climate solutions and collaboration, essential for tackling a multifaceted issue like climate change.  

 

By Julia St. Andre
Intern Science Writer

 

William Anderegg Receives NSF Waterman Award

April 27, 2023

William Anderegg and National Science Foundation Dir. Sethuraman Panchanathan at Waterman Award Ceremonies, May 9, 2023. Photo provided by NSF.

William Anderegg RECEIVES Waterman Award

Associate professor of Biology William Anderegg is a 2023 recipient of the National Science Foundation‘s Alan T. Waterman Award. Anderegg, who is also Director of the Wilkes Center for Climate Science & Policy, is one of three awardees each of whom receive a medal and $1 million over five years for research in their chosen field of science. The nation’s highest honor for early-career scientists and engineers, The Waterman Award was presented to all recipients at a ceremony during the National Science Board meeting, held in Washington, D.C., on May 9. The award, established by Congress in 1975, is named for Alan T. Waterman, NSF’s first director.

“Receiving the Waterman Award is incredibly meaningful. It’s an amazing honor and I’m still stunned,” said Anderegg. “It will allow us to take on some really aspirational, creative and high-risk projects that we’ve thought about for a while but can now actually tackle. I’m immensely grateful to the wonderful mentors I’ve had throughout my career who played a huge role in my path as a scientist. I feel lucky to be surrounded by such generous and brilliant scientists, and this award has really made me reflect on how important these people have been and still are in my career.”

This is the second year the National Science Foundation has chosen to honor three researchers with the award, which recognizes outstanding early-career U.S. science or engineering researchers who demonstrate exceptional individual achievements in NSF-supported fields.

 

Read the full story by Ross Chambless in @TheU.
Listen to the National Science Foundation’s recent podcast with Bill Anderegg here.

 

Storm Peak

March 10, 2023

Storm Peak

Storm Peak is a lab and a classroom.

Over forty years ago what would become the premier, high-elevation atmospheric science laboratory in the Western United States opened at Steamboat Springs Ski Resort in Colorado. Storm Peak, as the facility is called, has been “the perfect place, to have your head in the clouds,” says director Gannet Hallar, professor of atmospheric sciences at the U. The laboratory sits in the clouds about 40 percent of the time in the winter. “That allows us to sample clouds and the particles that make clouds at the same time. And from that, the lab has produced about 150 peer-reviewed publications.”

Named after the peak which stands at 10,500 feet above sea level, the 3,500-square-foot lab is not only the perfect place for established researchers but for budding scientists who are studying what changes a cloud, what makes it snow versus what makes it not snow and what makes more versus less ice in the atmosphere, among other questions.

Storm Peak, Colorado

This year twelve students in the new Science Research Initiative at the College of Science will make the five-hour road trip to Steamboat Springs, then take the chairlift to Storm Peak. Funded by the National Science Foundation and operated under a permit from the U.S. Forest Service, the storied lab has an incredible record of long—term atmospheric measurements, “critical,” according to Hallar, to the success of the site and for the broader understanding we need to improve climate predictions.

Hallar has the advantage of operating out of two locations: Storm Peak where regional air quality through long data records is determined over decades of change, as well as the top floor and roof of the Browning Building at the U’s main Salt Lake campus where she studies urban air quality. One week students and faculty collaborators can be seen using a multifilter showdowband radiometer overlooking the Salt Lake Valley and then the next week literally in the clouds witnessing science in the making. Students “can learn concepts in the classroom and then watch that data appear physically in front of their eyes,” says Hallar. “They can see the concept of photochemistry as it appears, how … the concentration of gases change as the sun comes up.”

As pristine as the air is at Storm Peak, just west of the Continental Divide in the northwest corner of the state, it is also typical of rural areas in the U.S. where coal plant emissions can impact atmospheric composition. Two of those plants are upwind of the facility which makes the measurements Hallar and her team collect even more relevant to other rural locations.

William Anderegg

“What’s amazing about this place is that we have shown over the fifteen plus years that we've run undergraduate programs that it's a place of inspiration.” Students learn how important changes in gases are in terms of public health and climate. “I think it's important for our students to come and see us measuring and calibrating carefully. They can see the care and precision taken to measure greenhouse gases.”

Not all greenhouse gases are human-derived. Wildfires in the West have become a new variable in measuring atmospheric composition, involving forest ecologists like William Anderegg, director of the Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy at the U. And there are other measurements being done at Storm Peak that might prove surprising. “We've done studies on how tree emissions change when beetle infestation happens,” says Hallar, which impacts air quality as well.

Storm Peak is just one node in the Global Atmospheric Watch Network, a consortium of labs and observation sites that together address atmospheric composition on all scales, from global and regional to local and urban. Hallar and her team work closely with sites on Mt. Washington and Whiteface, in New Hampshire and New York, respectively, as well Mt. Bachelor in Oregon, among others. Recently, the team submitted a proposal to collaborate with Pico del Este, a field site in Puerto Rico.

It will require collaboration on a global scale to address climate change, and aerosol particle research, says Hallar, “is most definitely the critical measurement that [atmospheric scientists] need to make.” In addition to measuring methane–a critical player because of its warming potential–at Storm Peak, “we can see what we call the Keeling Curve. We can see how carbon dioxide increases every year, but has a seasonal cycle, that is associated with how trees and plants uptake carbon dioxide.

Delivery via snowcat.

Meanwhile, students are preparing for their field trip to Storm Peak in March where the ski resort will not only provide transportation up to the facility via lift but ski passes. A staging facility in west Steamboat Springs houses equipment that includes a snow cat, snowmobiles and other equipment. Up top, bunks are limited to nine, so there is a lot of travel up and down the slopes. But it’s worth it for students to get their collective head in the clouds to work with instrumentation critical to measuring clean air and discovering ramifications more broadly in terms of global warming.

by David Pace, photos by Maria Garcia, Ian McCubbin, and Gannet Hallar.

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Downstream

March 6, 2023

Downstream

Thorn Merrill

Skiing at Alta.

Great Salt Lake is at the lowest point in its recorded history.

Without the lake, skiers and riders of the Wasatch have little hope of continuing to enjoy the mountains surrounding Salt Lake City.

In Downstream, professional skier and atmospheric scientist Thorn Merrill, explains that the health of Great Salt Lake and the enjoyment of the Greatest Snow on Earth are inexorably linked.

Thorn Merrill is a graduate student in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Utah. His research focuses on local air pollution issues, namely dust that impacts Wasatch Front in Utah.

Merrill graduated from Bates College with a B.S. in Geology and a minor in Mathematics. Merrill moved to Salt Lake City in 2020.

To learn more about the issues facing the Great Salt Lake, please visit: https://www.fogsl.org

 

Downstream is a video by Zach Coury, originally published @ YouTube.

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Climate Hackathon

March 2, 2023

Climate Hackathon

https://wilkescenter.utah.edu/

When the new Wilkes Center for Climate Science & Policy announced in Fall ’22 that it would host a 24-hour Climate Solutions “Hackathon,” there was some confusion across the College of Science.

Hackathons were for coders and computer geeks, right? It turns out, not necessarily. This was to be an activity of intense solving, with a focus on a pernicious climate change-related problem: urban heat.

Urban heat is the phenomenon of cities becoming excessively hot because of urbanization, lack of vegetation, and climate change. It is increasingly causing a range of harmful effects across the world, such as air pollution, health problems, and increased energy consumption.

Ready, Set, Go!

By the time the event kicked off at noon on Friday, Jan. 27 at the Crocker Science Center, close to 140 undergraduate and graduate students had registered. Some arrived as teams of three or four, while others showed up alone, ready to partner with anyone. They were given “hack packs” with “hacking sheets” providing prompts and background information to get them rolling.

“We did as much background research as we could beforehand,” said Hollis Belnap, a graduate student in electrical and computer engineering. “But once the hackathon started, that’s when we just started throwing out ideas, like, what about this? What about that?”

As the evening progressed, dozens of teams burrowed in for a long night of brainstorming, surrounded by snacks, white boards, and laptops. U faculty with specialties in urban engineering or atmospheric studies also made the rounds and offered feedback.

“It was really an urban heat crisis crash course for me,” said Victoria Carrington, a biochemistry and law major. “It was intense, but in a positive way. It’s not like being in a competition to beat other people. It’s like we were all working towards a solution. Even if we didn’t win, we were still doing something really important in that 24 hours.”

Ultimately, the submissions that won over the Wilkes Center staff and leadership team were those that recognized the complexity of the problem and found ways to creatively integrate technologies, data, and policies.

Adrian Sucahyo, Victoria Carrington, Vivek Anandh and Aarushi Verma.

First Place:  Schools as Heat Shelters ($3,000 prize) Team: “Green Campus Solutions”

 Aarushi Verma - undergraduate, Q.E.
 Vivek Anandh - undergraduate, C.S.
 Adrian Sucahyo - undergraduate, E.E.
 Victoria Carrington - graduate, law, biochem

Team Green Campus Solutions proposed using public school buildings as places for shelter during the hot summer months, and upgrading schools with renewable generation stations utilizing existing funding mechanisms in ways that would be scalable.

“When I was a senior in high school, I tried to get our school district to transition to 100 percent clean energy,” said Verma. “So, I knew a lot about schools and how schools can be a hub for clean energy. I also knew the challenges that came with that.”

Verma’s teammates also brought their own shared experiences with asthma and struggling to learn in hot classrooms.  “We really focused on how the urban heat crisis impacts children, and how we can make K-12 schools better prepared to support them, said Carrington. “It took some finessing, but I think we got there.”

Sevda Zeinal Kheiri, Hollis Belnap and Luis Rodriguez-Garcia.

Second Place: Resiliency Hubs and Portable Cooling Centers ($2,000 prize) Team: “USmart Solutions”

Sevda Zeinal Kheiri - graduate, E.C.E.
Luis Rodriguez-Garcia - graduate, E.C.E.
Hollis Belnap - graduate, E.C.E.

Team USmart Solutions proposed a combination of resilience hubs that would not overburden the grid, portable cooling stations, and incentives for community members to use less energy during extreme heat periods.

“The ‘resiliency hubs’ would be large buildings that could generate its own power, it would be green, and could be used to house people during heat wave emergencies – a community resource for people who don’t have AC,” said Belnap. “But then we thought, what if someone cannot go there?” said Rodriguez-Garcia. “We’re thinking of older adults, or people who require specific medical equipment. So, then we brought in another layer for portable cooling resources.”

The USmart team also integrated planning for energy equity – a system that would be equitable for all members of a community.

Jack Perry, Nathanael Busath and Thomas Stewart.

Third Place: An Urban Heat Formula ($1,000 prize) Team: “Hacking Urban Heat”

Jack Perry - undergraduate, Math, Q.A.
Thomas Stewart - undergraduate, C.E.
Nathanael Busath - undergraduate, Finance

Team Hacking Urban Heat created an urban heat index formula using data that cities could analyze to determine and mitigate their own unique urban heat challenges.

“We wanted our solution to be as broad-reaching as possible,” said Busath. “It’s a framework for different cities to figure out what they can do to change.”

“As we maximize green space, the denominator for equation, the urban heat index is going to go down,” added Stewart. “So, that was the really cool thing about developing the equation. Now we can go in and look at a specific situation, say, is there a lot of green space in this area already? All right, where can we reduce building materials and their albedo, and minimize that on the numerator.”

Crossing the Finish Line

Victoria Carrington, who like many participants did not know her teammates before the competition, remembered the thrill as the Saturday noon deadline approached.

“I woke up at 4:30 a.m. that second day, and it was like, we’ve gotta get this done! And I think we submitted it with two minutes to spare. It was that super adrenaline-filled type of competition.”

Thirteen teams submitted Hackathon slide decks in total. The top three teams were invited to share posters showcasing their ideas at the upcoming Wilkes Climate Summit on May 16 and 17th. More information about the Climate Solutions Hackathon can be found on the Wilkes Center for Climate Science & Policy website.

Deep in the Hack.

by Ross Chambless, originally published @theU.

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Groundbreaking

February 13, 2023

Applied Science Groundbreaking

Dean Peter Trapa

On Friday, Feb. 10, the University of Utah held a groundbreaking ceremony for the Applied Sciences Project, a $93.5 million endeavor that includes renovation of the historic William Stewart Building and a new 100,000-square-foot building with modern teaching labs and state-of-the-art research facilities. The completed spaces will house world-class scientists addressing the country’s most urgent issues, including energy, air quality, climate change and water management, and provide additional classrooms and experiential learning opportunities for crucial undergraduate STEM courses.

“Utah is growing, and we need to expand,” said U President Taylor Randall to the crowd at the Applied Sciences Project ceremony. “This project will help us increase capacity to educate new generations of STEM leaders and provide the expertise to sustain Utah’s STEM economy to keep Utah vital.”

Gary Crocker

The Wilkes Center for Climate Science & Policy and the Departments of Physics & Astronomy and Atmospheric Sciences will relocate to the new building upon its completion in late 2024. The researchers will use the facilities for a range of activities, such as forecasting hazardous weather, predicting the Wasatch Front’s winter particulates and summer ozone, developing new advances in semiconductors and quantum materials and managing the Willard Eccles Observatory telescope at Frisco Peak. The partnership between these departments is a component of the merger between the College of Science and the College of Mines and Earth Sciences, announced last year.

“In the end, when all is said and done, the core objective of philanthropy has always been the impact that a gift might have on individual lives. Ann and I know very personally that the College of Science is the pivotal portal in this state through which students wishing to enter the sciences and science-based profession must pass,” said Gary Crocker. “Ann and I have seen this virtuous cycle. Science leading to commercial innovation, leading to better jobs and better communities.”

President Taylor Randall

The project will boost the capacity for crucial undergraduate courses, allowing departments to address record STEM enrollment. Classes taught in the buildings are necessary for 37 different STEM degree programs and nine pre-professional programs, including all engineering, pre-medical and computer science majors. Along with access to modern experiential teaching spaces, students will avoid bottlenecks in high-demand courses, helping reduce graduation time.

“The collaborative and interdisciplinary nature of this project will bring together faculty and students who will work together to address the grand challenges of our day and make great advances in fundamental research,” said Peter Trapa, dean of the College of Science.

The Utah State Legislature approved the project in 2020 and the state appropriated $64.8 million in funding for the project. Both the university and the legislature consider the project a high priority because it supports the state’s STEM economy.

Dean Darryl Butt

“The Applied Sciences Building will be a home base, a catalyst for learning and innovation in the 21st century, and will touch thousands of lives,” said Darryl Butt, dean of the College of Mines and Earth Sciences.

When completed, the Crocker Science Center and the two buildings in the Applied Science Project will form the Crocker Science Complex. The complex, made possible by an $8.5 million gift from Gary and Ann Crocker, will form a dynamic interdisciplinary STEM hub on the east side of the U campus.

Visit our Applied Science Project pages for more information.

Visit our UGIVE page to make a donation in support of the Applied Science Project.

Renderings

 

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GSL Strike Team

February 9, 2023

Great Salt Lake Strike Team

Utah’s public research universities – The University of Utah and Utah State University – formed the Great Salt Lake Strike Team to provide a primary point of contact for policymakers as they address the economic, health, and ecological challenges created by the record-low elevation of Great Salt Lake. Together with state agency professionals, the Strike Team brings together experts in public policy, hydrology, water management, climatology, and dust to provide impartial, data-informed, and solution-oriented support for Utah decision-makers. The Strike Team does not advocate but rather functions in a technical, policy-advisory role as a service to the state.

The Great Salt Lake Strike Team developed an evaluation scorecard to create apples-to-apples comparisons of the most often proposed options. By briefly outlining these policies and providing necessary context, options, and tradeoffs, we give an overview of expected water gains, monetary costs, environmental impacts, and feasibility. Many options work in conjunction with others, particularly “Commit Conserved Water to Great Salt Lake” which is foundational to shepherding water conserved through other policy options to the lake.

Strike Team Policy Options

Commit Conserved Water to Great Salt Lake
Coupled with accurate quantification, appropriate procedural mechanisms, and practicable means of delivery, stakeholders may be able to commit conserved water to Great Salt Lake.

Agriculture Water Optimization
Agriculture water optimization provides immediate and improved resilience to producers and builds the foundation of flexibility, infrastructure, and methods required to make more water available for Great Salt Lake.

Optimize Municipal and Industrial Water Pricing
By optimizing water pricing in Utah, policymakers can improve water management and increase water deliveries to Great Salt Lake.

Limiting Municipal and Industrial Water Use Growth
Efficiency and conservation in new and existing M&I water use creates savings for future growth and can also conserve water to be delivered to Great Salt Lake.

Water Banking and Leasing
The State of Utah or the Great Salt Lake Trust could lease water for Great Salt Lake, reallocating water from willing sellers to willing buyers.

Active Forest Management in Great Salt Lake Headwaters
Thinning Utah’s forests is not likely to substantially increase the amount of water reaching the GSL. Although thinning can improve forest health and reduce the risk of severe wildfire, it does not always increase streamflow.

Great Salt Lake Mineral Extraction Optimization
Mineral extractors working on Great Salt Lake collectively hold over 600,000 acre-feet of water rights. The state is currently working with these companies to encourage innovative processes for new mineral development.

Import Water
Importing water to Great Salt Lake from the Pacific Ocean (or other sources) is feasible but would be expensive, slow, and controversial.

Increase Winter Precipitation with Cloud Seeding
Cloud seeding can marginally enhance the amount of snowfall in mountainous regions of primary water sources.

Raise and Lower the Causeway Berm
Raising the adaptive management berm at the Union Pacific Railroad causeway breach between the North and South Arms of Great Salt Lake would effectively act as a dam. This would keep freshwater inflows of the major tributaries in the South Arm where salinity levels are reaching a critical threshold.

Mitigate Dust Emission Hotspots
Implementing dust control measures on exposed portions of the Great Salt Lake lakebed would reduce the impacts of dust on human health.

 

Visit the Gardner Policy Institute to view the latest updates.

 

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Saving Great Salt Lake

February 6, 2023

Saving Great Salt Lake

William Anderegg

The Great Salt Lake can be saved. This is how we do it.

Decisions to bring more water to the Great Salt Lake need to be based on the best available science and data. That’s why last fall, at the request of our university presidents and Utah’s policymakers, we launched a new kind of partnership called the Great Salt Lake Strike Team.

This team is a joint effort between Utah’s research universities — the University of Utah and Utah State University — and state agencies. Our goal is to provide data and answers to key questions needed for saving the Great Salt Lake. The effort aims to be impartial, data-driven and rapid.

On Feb. 8, we’re sharing our key findings in a policy assessment report. We’re focused on answering crucial questions. How did we get here? What are our options going forward?

Our report’s key findings are both stark and hopeful. The lake is currently sliding toward catastrophe. While a long-term drought and climate warming are exacerbating the stress, human water use is the largest driver of low lake levels. Fortunately, we have many policy levers that can help return the lake to healthy levels.

Brian Steed

The report provides a policy assessment and “scorecards” for some of the most-discussed options for bringing more water to the lake. We’ve synthesized the benefits, costs and trade-offs of these options. Also important, our report provides science-based scenarios for refilling the lake to certain target levels and the additional water required for each scenario.

While we do not advocate for any specific policies, we have four concrete recommendations that will help clarify and guide efforts to save the lake:

First, the state should set a target lake level range, based on the matrix developed by the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire, and State Lands and a timeline to reach that lake level. Once a target and timeline have been set, annual evaluations of progress and recalibrations will be important.

Second, wet years will be crucial to helping refill the lake. Wet years — like 2023 is turning out to be — are the time to increase conservation and ensure that conserved water makes it to the lake.

Finally, further in-depth policy analyses can guide specific actions. Research on existing and potential policies, building on expertise around the state and our strike team, will be important for informing data-driven decisions in the next few years.

This “strike team” partnership has been incredibly productive. It represents the land-grant and flagship universities working together, collaborating with state agencies, to serve our great state. It leverages our complementary strengths in water modeling, water policy, climate, hydrology and air quality.

We firmly believe the Great Salt Lake can be saved. Refilling the lake to levels that ensure Utahns’ health and prosperity will require state leadership, research university technical expertise, and individual and collective action.

The next several years are a crucial window to turn the tide, though success requires us to remember that this is a marathon and not just a sprint. As a state, we have the know-how, science, innovation, problem-solving spirit and leadership to rise to the challenge.

William Anderegg is the director of the Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy and an associate professor of biology at the University of Utah. His research focuses on water resources, drought, climate change and forests.

Brian Steed is the executive director of the Janet Quinney Lawson Institute for Land, Water, and Air at Utah State University. He’s previously overseen the Utah Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

 

By Brian Steed and William Anderegg, originally published @DeseretNews.

 

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