Human activity has deprived the lake of necessary resources, causing water levels to plunge to dangerously lows levels and threatening the basin’s unique ecology, the groups argued.  

The lawsuit accuses state officials of breaching the state’s public trust obligations to Utah’s citizens by neglecting to take the action necessary to address a looming crisis.  

Since 2020, both climate change and upstream diversions for agriculture, homes and industry have contributed to a yearly deficit of more than 1 million acre-feet of water, according to the groups.  

For reference, a typical suburban U.S. household uses about 1 acre-foot of water each year.  

Meanwhile, the lake’s elevation recently plummeted to nearly 4,188 feet above sea level, or 10 feet below the minimum health threshold identified by scientists, the plaintiffs noted.  

“This already dire situation threatens to get worse,” the lawsuit argues.  

Among the plaintiffs — represented by Earthjustice and the Zimmerman Booher law firm — are Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, the American Bird Conservancy, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Sierra Club and the Utah Rivers Council.  

In suing the state, the groups are seeking a court order that would direct Utah’s leaders to implement solutions that could provide enough water to the Great Salt Lake to sustain the people and wildlife who rely upon it.  

Brian Moench, president of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, cited cautionary tales from around the world, in which saline lakes have collapsed due to upstream diversions, in a statement accompanying the lawsuit.  

“The end result has been public health disasters from the clouds of relentless toxic dust,” Moench said. “Utah’s leaders are prioritizing these water diversions over protecting their own people, so the courts must intervene.” 

Not only does the Great Salt Lake provide habitats for more than 10 million migratory birds, but the basin also supports brine shrimp fishing, tourism, recreation and skiing, according to the groups.  

These industries, the lawsuit argued, contribute billions of dollars to Utah’s economy and provide thousands of jobs.  

“The Great Salt Lake belongs to the people of Utah and the state has a legal obligation to protect this resource,” Stu Gillespie, a senior attorney for Earthjustice’s Rocky Mountain office, said in a statement.  

As the lake’s water levels have depleted, sediments containing fine particulate matter and other toxic pollutants have become exposed to the air and could be carried by the wind, the plaintiffs noted.  

Among the compounds found in the lakebed are arsenic and mercury, which could be inhaled by the millions of people who live in the lake’s vicinity, according to the groups.   

The Hill reached out to the named defendants — the Department of Natural Resources, as well as the Division of Water Rights and the Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands — for comment.  

Welcome to The Hill’s Sustainability newsletter, we’re Saul Elbein and Sharon Udasin — every week we follow the latest moves in the growing battle over sustainability in the U.S. and around the world.

The world is facing a rising tide of invasive species — imposing a global cost of nearly half a trillion dollars per year, a new report has found. 

Human disturbances of natural environments are creating new opportunities for “alien invasives,” or species that have unleashed havoc on a given landscape, according to the study, published on Monday by a leading international science organization. 

Apocalyptic diagnosis: “Invasive species have become one of the five horsemen of the biodiversity apocalypse,” said Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), in a statement. 

Andersen was commenting on the sweeping report about the state of invasives by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services — an entity established by the United Nations General Assembly in 2010. 

The other four horsemen are “changing land- and sea-use, over exploitation, climate change and pollution,” she added.  

By the numbers: The report tracked about 3,500 alien invasive species that have escaped into surrounding landscapes.  

• While the selected species account for less than 10 percent of the total number of introduced aliens, their financial footprint now costs the world more than $400 billion per year.
• The cost has quadrupled every decade since the 1970s. 

Much of that fiscal toll comes from disruption of human economies. For example, the European shore crab has eaten through shellfish beds in New England and Eastern Canada, while water hyacinth is destroying tilapia fisheries in the African Great Lakes. 

Then there is extinction: Nearly two-thirds of all species that have gone extinct in the age of humans encountered an invasive alien species as part of the constellation of factors that killed them.  

And for about 1 in 6, that invasive alien was the sole cause. 

Changing the land: Many invasive species exert serious impacts on broader landscapes — sometimes triggering cascades of invasions. 

For example, invasive grazing mammals like deer, pigs and camels chew up native species, fostering the growth of new species that can tolerate their grazing.  

But solutions are possible. “The good news is that, for almost every context and situation, there are management tools, governance options and targeted actions that really work,” report co-author Anibal Pauchard, of Chile’s University of Concepción, said in a statement. 

• Prevention is almost always the best and cheapest method, according to the report.
• In isolated ecosystems like islands, eradication can also be effective, as was the elimination of black rats and goats in French Polynesia.
• And in certain cases, introducing an invasive alien’s predator or parasite can restrain it — although this technique has inadvertently introduced new species, when not conducted carefully. 

A plea for solidarity: Above all, the report authors urged countries to take a unified approach to containing and combating such invasions. 

“It would be an extremely costly mistake to regard biological invasions only as someone else’s problem,” Pauchard said.