Utah Lake: The Past
Utah Lake is the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi. It is 24 miles long and 13 miles wide (at its widest point), has 96 miles of shoreline and an average depth of 10.5 feet. It is a large shallow lake. It receives water from precipitation and snow that drains off the adjacent east and west mountains, across a vast watershed into the lake. It has been a valuable resource to local communities who have lived near and around the lake for centuries.
After the arrival of the Mormon pioneers in the mid-19th century, use of the lake and the surrounding watershed, including streams and rivers, increased substantially. There was a great deal of economic development that affected Utah Lake over the course of 100 years. From over-fishing to introducing invasive non-native fish species, to disposing of chemicals, saw dust and other waste into the lake, between mid-19th century to the passing of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1948 and the Clean Water Act of 1971, little was done to manage the lake and its water quality nor to protect the natural wildlife in and around the lake, or the condition of the critical watershed lands. The ignorance and lack of planning had a substantial impact on the ecosystem of Utah Lake, damaging it in such a way that, without restoration, its sustainability came into question.
Only in recent years has there been any effort to restore the damaged ecosystem and to return to the lake some of the native species of fish that have become endangered as well as remove invasive species of plants and fish to improve the habitat and water quality needed to support native wildlife. To say Utah Lake has been a very “sick” lake is an understatement. Fortunately, it is not a dead lake, and recent improvement in the lake’s ecosystem has proven that the lake can be restored, and with proper management, it can be sustained long into the future.
As a student of sociology and economics, I study how societies utilize economic natural resources and how the impact on those natural resources can be mitigated with proper management. That is the essence of sustainability. It is not about “not using” a resource but using it responsibly and ethically with an eye to having it last for generations to come.
Utah Lake is one such resource. Before the arrival of the Mormon pioneers, those who lived around and utilized Utah Lake as a resource were mostly indigenous people with a small number of “outside” visitors such as the Spanish explorers and fur trappers and traders. Visitors didn’t stay long. The indigenous people respected the lake while using it for fresh water, food, and recreation. The importance of preserving the lake is found in this old Indian saying, “We are borrowing the lake from our children”. They knew that the resource had to live on to provide for those in the future. We can learn to manage Utah Lake in such a way that we live up to this same idea. The exact opposite would be to exploit the lake in such a way that it becomes “lost”, or transformed into something it never was. That is not a responsible and sustainable way to use such a valuable natural resource.
Utah Lake is the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi. It is 24 miles long and 13 miles wide (at its widest point), has 96 miles of shoreline and an average depth of 10.5 feet. It is a large shallow lake. It receives water from precipitation and snow that drains off the adjacent east and west mountains, across a vast watershed into the lake. It has been a valuable resource to local communities who have lived near and around the lake for centuries.
After the arrival of the Mormon pioneers in the mid-19th century, use of the lake and the surrounding watershed, including streams and rivers, increased substantially. There was a great deal of economic development that affected Utah Lake over the course of 100 years. From over-fishing to introducing invasive non-native fish species, to disposing of chemicals, saw dust and other waste into the lake, between mid-19th century to the passing of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1948 and the Clean Water Act of 1971, little was done to manage the lake and its water quality nor to protect the natural wildlife in and around the lake, or the condition of the critical watershed lands. The ignorance and lack of planning had a substantial impact on the ecosystem of Utah Lake, damaging it in such a way that, without restoration, its sustainability came into question.
Only in recent years has there been any effort to restore the damaged ecosystem and to return to the lake some of the native species of fish that have become endangered as well as remove invasive species of plants and fish to improve the habitat and water quality needed to support native wildlife. To say Utah Lake has been a very “sick” lake is an understatement. Fortunately, it is not a dead lake, and recent improvement in the lake’s ecosystem has proven that the lake can be restored, and with proper management, it can be sustained long into the future.
As a student of sociology and economics, I study how societies utilize economic natural resources and how the impact on those natural resources can be mitigated with proper management. That is the essence of sustainability. It is not about “not using” a resource but using it responsibly and ethically with an eye to having it last for generations to come.
Utah Lake is one such resource. Before the arrival of the Mormon pioneers, those who lived around and utilized Utah Lake as a resource were mostly indigenous people with a small number of “outside” visitors such as the Spanish explorers and fur trappers and traders. Visitors didn’t stay long. The indigenous people respected the lake while using it for fresh water, food, and recreation. The importance of preserving the lake is found in this old Indian saying, “We are borrowing the lake from our children”. They knew that the resource had to live on to provide for those in the future. We can learn to manage Utah Lake in such a way that we live up to this same idea. The exact opposite would be to exploit the lake in such a way that it becomes “lost”, or transformed into something it never was. That is not a responsible and sustainable way to use such a valuable natural resource.
Formation and Purpose of the Utah Lake Commission
Thanks to increasing public awareness and evidence produced through several in-depth studies backed by science, the idea of reducing the human impact on the lake as well as restoring its ecosystem began to take hold before the turn of the 21st century. As a result, the Utah Lake Commission was formed in 2007. Its purpose was to bring together several stakeholders who would work in cooperation to form a “master plan” for Utah Lake.
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Those stakeholders included several Utah County cities, Utah County, Dept. of Environmental Quality, Utah Dept. of Natural Resources, Central Utah Water Conservancy District, Utah Division of Forestry, Fire, and State Lands, and the State Representative for Utah County. A representative of each of these entities sat on the Board of Directors of the ULC and had one vote
The Future of Utah Lake: Formation of Utah Lake Authority (ULA)
The Utah Lake Authority came into existence during the 2022 legislative session. With the ULA being so new and with so little history, I interviewed the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Brady Brammer, District 54, Utah County to learn more about what the ULA is about and how it plays a part in the future of Utah Lake. Rep. Brammer sat on the board of the Utah Lake Commission and currently sits on the board of the Utah Lake Authority. When asked about his role on the ULC/ULA board, Rep. Brammer said that his position on the board is to “vote in accordance with what he feels to be best for Utah Lake”. Voting takes place after there is a period of public input following the usual nomination procedure. All meetings are public, recorded, and available to the public to view after. Public input is welcome and often includes data gathered from studies with conclusions backed by science, often provided by local universities and Utah State agencies. As an attorney, Brady’s experience with municipal and public entity litigation helps him be “more sensitive to the transparency and open/public meeting act issues that come up”. |
I asked Rep. Branner to provide an example of his legal expertise in action as a board member of the Lake Authority, and he said he advised that “in order to do any work on the lake, oft times it impacts a wetland area, and if work is going to impact a wetland area, there would first have to be environmental “credits” built up from restoring other wetland areas so that it’s a “net neutral” impact. One such project might be putting a trail through a wetland area, and to do that, the ULA would likely need to buy land and restore the wetland on that land so that the outcome is net neutral. Such negotiations would take place in a closed meeting where the ULA approves people to go look for land, but the ULA doesn’t identify any specific parcels or else it can have a detrimental impact on the public’s ability to negotiate”.
Environmental credits would not be required for shoreline development on lands owned by city or county entities as the Lake Authority “does not impact the land use authority of the surrounding areas. The ULA will encourage things, but they’re bounded by the high watermark of the lake. They cannot impact the shoreline below that watermark. Cities retain their jurisdiction over that land”. He went on to explain that although the ULA doesn’t impact the land use authority, others such as the Division of Water Quality or Natural Resources might. “The city will have to go to them if they’re going to expand development or activities that impact the lake. The Division of Forest, Fire, and State Lands handles the permitting process for activities on the lake”.
The purpose of the ULA as stated in the legislation is to “work in concert with applicable federal, state, and local government entities, property owners, owners of water rights, private parties, and stakeholders to encourage, facilitate, and implement the management of Utah Lake”. I asked Rep. Brammer to elaborate on the ULA’s purpose, and he said that the “ULA sets the management plan for the lake, and so, think of it as the ULA sets the policy in the direction of the lake and the permissions for acting on the lake are largely the Division of Forestry, Fire, and State Lands.”
Environmental credits would not be required for shoreline development on lands owned by city or county entities as the Lake Authority “does not impact the land use authority of the surrounding areas. The ULA will encourage things, but they’re bounded by the high watermark of the lake. They cannot impact the shoreline below that watermark. Cities retain their jurisdiction over that land”. He went on to explain that although the ULA doesn’t impact the land use authority, others such as the Division of Water Quality or Natural Resources might. “The city will have to go to them if they’re going to expand development or activities that impact the lake. The Division of Forest, Fire, and State Lands handles the permitting process for activities on the lake”.
The purpose of the ULA as stated in the legislation is to “work in concert with applicable federal, state, and local government entities, property owners, owners of water rights, private parties, and stakeholders to encourage, facilitate, and implement the management of Utah Lake”. I asked Rep. Brammer to elaborate on the ULA’s purpose, and he said that the “ULA sets the management plan for the lake, and so, think of it as the ULA sets the policy in the direction of the lake and the permissions for acting on the lake are largely the Division of Forestry, Fire, and State Lands.”
Different Utah State agencies have a lot of influence when it comes to developments around and on the lake, depending on how those developments impact the lake. He went on to further explain, that “it’s not just the water of the lake, but also Bird Island in the lake, and there
are some estuaries and places like Provo Bay and Hobble Creek, which are spawning grounds for the June Sucker. While those are not the high-water mark areas of the lake, there’s still a lot of area in between those that the ULA manages. When considering areas that are beyond that high water mark, a different entity would manage that”.
So, the question is – what really is the difference between the Utah Lake Commission and the Utah Lake Authority? Rep. Brammer explained it this way: “The commission was just a group of people working together”, essentially collaborating, bound by an interlocal agreement without state level authority. “They didn’t have and don’t have true authority to do anything - not even to go out and get their own grant or a revenue bond if there was a large project. They had to go ask others to do it for them. This doesn’t mean there wasn’t the usual collaboration between the Commission and different entities and agencies, but to have to constantly ask “mother, may I”..” that was not efficient or effective for the direction the lake needed to be managed. “With the Utah Lake Authority, there’s now the ability to triple the amount of funding they can use. Policy making has also changed with the new ULA in that local entities have a much greater influence on the policy of the lake. The governor is primarily concerned with two things – (1) water rights, and (2) water cleanliness. There’s a lot more happening on the lake than that which matters, and while there is state consideration about something such as recreation on the lake, that consideration is not in the same way the mayors around the lake care about it. The ULA increased local control, and additionally, the previous funding of the lake was all from local entities and agencies that were all pitching in $20,000 to $30,000 a year”. That is no longer the case. There are federal dollars, state dollars and agency dollars available for those projects that the ULA can now utilize to achieve the objectives of the Utah Lake Management Plan.
I asked Rep. Brammer in what way does the public have a voice, and he emphasized that there is accountability in what the ULA board does. He pointed out that there are 15 members that sit on the board, 7 of which are elected city officials, 1 who is a Utah County elected official, 2 who are legislative elected officials, 2 who are appointed by the Governor – who is an elected official, 2 who represent state agencies with local jurisdiction who are publicly accountable, and lastly, 1 who represents the Utah Valley Chamber of Commerce as appointed by the Utah County Council of Governments. While there are no direct elections of the ULA board members, it’s been set up in such a way that each city and the county appointed elected representative has accountability to the public at the ballot box. The public can also attend ULA meetings as they are public. They can also sign up to receive regular email updates on the ULA agenda and meetings, so they don’t have to go looking for them.
Rep. Brammer went on to explain that the cities, county, and agency representatives all work well together. In fact, the agencies supported the formation of the ULA and the way it will have more funds and authority to manage some of the bigger issues that the lake is facing. “The ULA is the next evolution from Commission”, he explained, “where the Commission was about gathering information and addressing some of the issues by opening them up to public input. Here it is 20 years later, and there are some mounting issues that the Commission just could not address. One issue is where there are more people coming to the lake and likely interacting with the lake, and so with the increased population and use of the lake, the time to get on top of these concerns was now. Those interactions could be great or damaging. The ULA has to plan for how more people are going to fill in around the lake in order to create a positive interaction with the lake where it’s both positive for the people interacting with it and positive for the lake when people interact with it. That’s a big part of why the Utah Lake Authority was created – to facilitate that.”
are some estuaries and places like Provo Bay and Hobble Creek, which are spawning grounds for the June Sucker. While those are not the high-water mark areas of the lake, there’s still a lot of area in between those that the ULA manages. When considering areas that are beyond that high water mark, a different entity would manage that”.
So, the question is – what really is the difference between the Utah Lake Commission and the Utah Lake Authority? Rep. Brammer explained it this way: “The commission was just a group of people working together”, essentially collaborating, bound by an interlocal agreement without state level authority. “They didn’t have and don’t have true authority to do anything - not even to go out and get their own grant or a revenue bond if there was a large project. They had to go ask others to do it for them. This doesn’t mean there wasn’t the usual collaboration between the Commission and different entities and agencies, but to have to constantly ask “mother, may I”..” that was not efficient or effective for the direction the lake needed to be managed. “With the Utah Lake Authority, there’s now the ability to triple the amount of funding they can use. Policy making has also changed with the new ULA in that local entities have a much greater influence on the policy of the lake. The governor is primarily concerned with two things – (1) water rights, and (2) water cleanliness. There’s a lot more happening on the lake than that which matters, and while there is state consideration about something such as recreation on the lake, that consideration is not in the same way the mayors around the lake care about it. The ULA increased local control, and additionally, the previous funding of the lake was all from local entities and agencies that were all pitching in $20,000 to $30,000 a year”. That is no longer the case. There are federal dollars, state dollars and agency dollars available for those projects that the ULA can now utilize to achieve the objectives of the Utah Lake Management Plan.
I asked Rep. Brammer in what way does the public have a voice, and he emphasized that there is accountability in what the ULA board does. He pointed out that there are 15 members that sit on the board, 7 of which are elected city officials, 1 who is a Utah County elected official, 2 who are legislative elected officials, 2 who are appointed by the Governor – who is an elected official, 2 who represent state agencies with local jurisdiction who are publicly accountable, and lastly, 1 who represents the Utah Valley Chamber of Commerce as appointed by the Utah County Council of Governments. While there are no direct elections of the ULA board members, it’s been set up in such a way that each city and the county appointed elected representative has accountability to the public at the ballot box. The public can also attend ULA meetings as they are public. They can also sign up to receive regular email updates on the ULA agenda and meetings, so they don’t have to go looking for them.
Rep. Brammer went on to explain that the cities, county, and agency representatives all work well together. In fact, the agencies supported the formation of the ULA and the way it will have more funds and authority to manage some of the bigger issues that the lake is facing. “The ULA is the next evolution from Commission”, he explained, “where the Commission was about gathering information and addressing some of the issues by opening them up to public input. Here it is 20 years later, and there are some mounting issues that the Commission just could not address. One issue is where there are more people coming to the lake and likely interacting with the lake, and so with the increased population and use of the lake, the time to get on top of these concerns was now. Those interactions could be great or damaging. The ULA has to plan for how more people are going to fill in around the lake in order to create a positive interaction with the lake where it’s both positive for the people interacting with it and positive for the lake when people interact with it. That’s a big part of why the Utah Lake Authority was created – to facilitate that.”
I asked Rep. Brammer how the ULA weighs the polarization of the public where one side says, “Leave the lake alone, let it heal; don’t allow any economic development”, and the other says, “It’s a resource and we have a right to it. It can provide water, recreation, and other features for the people.” How does the ULA respond to that situation? Rep. Brammer said, “As the ULA, there’s three primary elements to that. The first is the Authority is charged with developing a management plan which is an overall plan over decades to manage the lake”. The conceptual management plan was approved on March 29, 2023, and is now posted and open for public comment. It is expected that the full Utah Lake Management Plan will be approved and implemented by the end of 2023.
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You can find the statutory requirements for the management plan here: (https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title11/Chapter65/11-65-S204.html) and the approved conceptual plan here: (https://drive.google.com/file/d/19NUIiYj2eJattH4BH9fYCbquQGvM2xVz/view).
“The second thing that the ULA does is according to a statutory set of objectives, and those objectives are not necessarily to approve or restore the lake to something that somebody thinks it was at one time because the lake has gone through various iterations over time.
What the ULA is charged with is to improve the lake within the content of the 18 different objectives in the statute (found at these two sites: https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title11/Chapter65/11-65-S202.html and https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title11/Chapter65/11-65-S203.html). Most of them are environmentally friendly and recreational and things like that. People do approach the ULA and say, “Hey we’d like to do this”, and then the ULA is tasked with asking, “How does this fit within our management plan and within our statutory objectives?” – and then they make decisions based on how it fits with the resources that we can allocate to that.”
What the ULA is charged with is to improve the lake within the content of the 18 different objectives in the statute (found at these two sites: https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title11/Chapter65/11-65-S202.html and https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title11/Chapter65/11-65-S203.html). Most of them are environmentally friendly and recreational and things like that. People do approach the ULA and say, “Hey we’d like to do this”, and then the ULA is tasked with asking, “How does this fit within our management plan and within our statutory objectives?” – and then they make decisions based on how it fits with the resources that we can allocate to that.”
He further explained, “One of the things that the ULA helps a lot with is we really want to have accessibility to the lake, and so we want to encourage the surrounding communities to zone in a way that invites the public down to the lake. That makes the lake a feature and not a defect within our community. The cities have views out over the lake, so they have office buildings with beautiful views, which means that the water is cared for as it goes through storm drains, and if it comes into the lake, that it’s appropriately cleaned. There are educational programs which the ULA provides funding for. There is education on fertilizer and what impact that can have and different ways to do it so that it’s more cost effective and has a lower impact on the lake. A lot of what the ULA is doing is trying to make it so that the lake is a valuable resource for everyone and the more people interact with it, the more they care about it, and the more they will take steps to care for it. That’s kind of our guiding thought on it.”
When asked about the future of the lake, Rep. Brammer said, “If you go to the policies and objectives of the ULA –as part of the statute on the management plan, we require monitoring, so environmental monitoring and other monitoring that will be done yearly so that we can see how things are being impacted on the lake. Setting some objectives on various items such as water cleanliness, which has to be measured, means that the ULA is tasked with providing measurements of environmental factors to see if what actions we are taking are working.” When asked who will do that monitoring, he responded by saying, “The ULA – they hired a biologist to supervise that monitoring, and they may hire third parties to do some of the monitoring. We’re trying to get a research facility funded that’s specific to the lake that will likely be a partnership with UVU or USU.”
As for the future, going forward, Rep. Brammer said, “While minimizing resource use to comply with land use and other agreements and arrangements, we are going to deal with property owners fairly. These are private and municipal property owners’ rights because they negotiated boundaries to the lake; they have been fought for centuries, and so we want to try to abide by those. We are not steamrolling what’s been done in the past.”
(Find the Utah Lake Authority boundary map here: https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/e164d415cfe04fb98242904a315c554c).
Rep. Brammer continued, “We want to encourage tourism and leisure and business opportunities and development of cost-efficient renewable energy in project areas, and adhere to the public trust doctrine, and we want to respect and maintain sensitivity to Native American history and historical sites, too. We also have to protect Provo Airport – for example, we don’t want to put a bunch of bird islands near the airport. You can develop wetlands that pull the birds somewhere else so that it’s not hitting the flight path at the airport. Let’s be thoughtful about it. Nobody has it nailed just right and there will be issues that come up in the future – things that we’re not discussing right now but there’ll be voices loud and maybe quiet voices, but there’ll be other voices coming forward.” The ULA wants the public to have access and to have a voice.
When asked about the future of the lake, Rep. Brammer said, “If you go to the policies and objectives of the ULA –as part of the statute on the management plan, we require monitoring, so environmental monitoring and other monitoring that will be done yearly so that we can see how things are being impacted on the lake. Setting some objectives on various items such as water cleanliness, which has to be measured, means that the ULA is tasked with providing measurements of environmental factors to see if what actions we are taking are working.” When asked who will do that monitoring, he responded by saying, “The ULA – they hired a biologist to supervise that monitoring, and they may hire third parties to do some of the monitoring. We’re trying to get a research facility funded that’s specific to the lake that will likely be a partnership with UVU or USU.”
As for the future, going forward, Rep. Brammer said, “While minimizing resource use to comply with land use and other agreements and arrangements, we are going to deal with property owners fairly. These are private and municipal property owners’ rights because they negotiated boundaries to the lake; they have been fought for centuries, and so we want to try to abide by those. We are not steamrolling what’s been done in the past.”
(Find the Utah Lake Authority boundary map here: https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/e164d415cfe04fb98242904a315c554c).
Rep. Brammer continued, “We want to encourage tourism and leisure and business opportunities and development of cost-efficient renewable energy in project areas, and adhere to the public trust doctrine, and we want to respect and maintain sensitivity to Native American history and historical sites, too. We also have to protect Provo Airport – for example, we don’t want to put a bunch of bird islands near the airport. You can develop wetlands that pull the birds somewhere else so that it’s not hitting the flight path at the airport. Let’s be thoughtful about it. Nobody has it nailed just right and there will be issues that come up in the future – things that we’re not discussing right now but there’ll be voices loud and maybe quiet voices, but there’ll be other voices coming forward.” The ULA wants the public to have access and to have a voice.
Sources of Research
1. Utah Representative Brady Brammer, Dist. 54, Utah County, contact details found at: https://house.utleg.gov/rep/BRAMMB/
2. Utah Lake Commission website, www.utahlake.org
3. Utah State Legislature, HB232, website: https://le.utah.gov/~2022/bills/static/HB0232.html#:~:text=H.B.%20232%20Utah%20Lake%20Authority
4. Film, Utah Lake Legacy, courtesy of the June Sucker Restoration Project, 2009, retrieved from https://youtu.be/iUwTPmFBAkA
5. Utah Lake Symposium, retrieved from https://pws.byu.edu/utah-lake
6. “Approximately Limitless” blog by BYU professor Ben Abbott, July 17, 2022, retrieved from https://benabbo.blogspot.com/2022/07/seven-more-problems-with-utah-lake.html.
7. Utah Lake Commission Governing Board Meeting, 3/16/2023, retrieved from https://youtu.be/C8BFf5U37p8
8. Dunphey, Kyle. 2022. 2 bills lawmakers say will steer Utah Lake toward a cleaner future gaining steam in legislature. The Deseret News. Retrieved from https://www.deseret.com/utah/2022/2/26/22950953/utah-lake-islands-proposal-lawmakers-environment-utah-lake-authority-development
9. Map of Utah Lake Public Access Points, retrieved from https://utahlake.org/access-points/
10. HABS.UTAH.GOV – statewide website for checking algae bloom advisories https://deq.utah.gov/water-quality/ha...
11. Phragmites Removal at Utah Lake https://utahlake.org/phragmites/
12. June Sucker Recovery website https://junesuckerrecovery.org/
13. Provo River Delta Restoration Project website https://www.provoriverdelta.us/
14. Utah Lake Trail Plan https://utahlake.org/utah-lake-trail-...
15. Utah Lake Authority Bill https://le.utah.gov/~2022/bills/stati...
16. Utah Lake: Past, Present, and Future video presentation by Utah Lake Commission: https://youtu.be/2_t9BQhgsPA
17. Utah Lake Interactive Water Quality Map: https://deq.utah.gov/water-quality/recreational-water-quality-home
18. Conserve Utah Valley initiative, Don’t Pave the Lake: https://dontpaveutahlake.org – has timeline of Utah Lake Restoration and HB272
19. Ep. 74, Utah Lake Authority, Utah Lake - Facts, Fiction, & Fun Podcast, retrieved from https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/utah-lake-podcast/episodes/Ep--74---Utah-Lake-Authority-e1lqnbi
20. Utah Lake Conceptual Management Plan: https://drive.google.com/file/d/19NUIiYj2eJattH4BH9fYCbquQGvM2xVz/view
21. Utah Lake State Park, Division of Natural Resources, retrieved from https://stateparks.utah.gov/parks/utah-lake/
22. Utah Valley Vision for 2050, (2022), Envision Utah, Utah Valley growth projections around Utah Lake, retrieved from https://envisionutah.org/valley-visioning
23. Virtual Utah Lake Fieldtrips for 4th Graders, 12 videos, full list found here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrGU2gE0sl6m22xELEWLpUaFwdCsIA_h9
1. Utah Representative Brady Brammer, Dist. 54, Utah County, contact details found at: https://house.utleg.gov/rep/BRAMMB/
2. Utah Lake Commission website, www.utahlake.org
3. Utah State Legislature, HB232, website: https://le.utah.gov/~2022/bills/static/HB0232.html#:~:text=H.B.%20232%20Utah%20Lake%20Authority
4. Film, Utah Lake Legacy, courtesy of the June Sucker Restoration Project, 2009, retrieved from https://youtu.be/iUwTPmFBAkA
5. Utah Lake Symposium, retrieved from https://pws.byu.edu/utah-lake
6. “Approximately Limitless” blog by BYU professor Ben Abbott, July 17, 2022, retrieved from https://benabbo.blogspot.com/2022/07/seven-more-problems-with-utah-lake.html.
7. Utah Lake Commission Governing Board Meeting, 3/16/2023, retrieved from https://youtu.be/C8BFf5U37p8
8. Dunphey, Kyle. 2022. 2 bills lawmakers say will steer Utah Lake toward a cleaner future gaining steam in legislature. The Deseret News. Retrieved from https://www.deseret.com/utah/2022/2/26/22950953/utah-lake-islands-proposal-lawmakers-environment-utah-lake-authority-development
9. Map of Utah Lake Public Access Points, retrieved from https://utahlake.org/access-points/
10. HABS.UTAH.GOV – statewide website for checking algae bloom advisories https://deq.utah.gov/water-quality/ha...
11. Phragmites Removal at Utah Lake https://utahlake.org/phragmites/
12. June Sucker Recovery website https://junesuckerrecovery.org/
13. Provo River Delta Restoration Project website https://www.provoriverdelta.us/
14. Utah Lake Trail Plan https://utahlake.org/utah-lake-trail-...
15. Utah Lake Authority Bill https://le.utah.gov/~2022/bills/stati...
16. Utah Lake: Past, Present, and Future video presentation by Utah Lake Commission: https://youtu.be/2_t9BQhgsPA
17. Utah Lake Interactive Water Quality Map: https://deq.utah.gov/water-quality/recreational-water-quality-home
18. Conserve Utah Valley initiative, Don’t Pave the Lake: https://dontpaveutahlake.org – has timeline of Utah Lake Restoration and HB272
19. Ep. 74, Utah Lake Authority, Utah Lake - Facts, Fiction, & Fun Podcast, retrieved from https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/utah-lake-podcast/episodes/Ep--74---Utah-Lake-Authority-e1lqnbi
20. Utah Lake Conceptual Management Plan: https://drive.google.com/file/d/19NUIiYj2eJattH4BH9fYCbquQGvM2xVz/view
21. Utah Lake State Park, Division of Natural Resources, retrieved from https://stateparks.utah.gov/parks/utah-lake/
22. Utah Valley Vision for 2050, (2022), Envision Utah, Utah Valley growth projections around Utah Lake, retrieved from https://envisionutah.org/valley-visioning
23. Virtual Utah Lake Fieldtrips for 4th Graders, 12 videos, full list found here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrGU2gE0sl6m22xELEWLpUaFwdCsIA_h9