Panel looking at Great Salt Lake's future

The Great Salt Lake is a state treasure but faces a long list of threats and lacks a unifying vision for how it should be managed, a newly formed government panel said Tuesday.

Now the Great Salt Lake Advisory Council — a mix of government and industry officials and environmentalists — is trying to decide whether a new approach for overseeing the lake is needed.

One of the decisions will be whether to create an overarching commission similar to those in the Great Lakes, Chesapeake Bay and the Puget Sound. The next decision would be how much authority to give the commission.

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. created the council in an executive order in August to talk about the future of the lake and whether it's time for a dramatic shift in how it's managed.

Meeting at the Capitol, 10 members of the council identified several threats to the lake, including population growth, pollutants and a lack of water. Most pressing, some members say, is the paucity of scientific information about the health of the lake system.

"The biggest threat is the lack of knowledge," said Leland Myers of the Central Davis Sewer District.

Without a basic understanding of how the lake works — and reliable indicators to take its pulse — management will continue to be fragmented and without a full understanding of the implications of management decisions, he said.

Walt Baker, director of the state Division of Water Quality, has been making the case for the formation of a commission. He's not a member of the council but was glad to see its members taking the idea seriously.

"I think it's overdue, this discussion," he said.

The council spent its first four meetings hearing presentations on issues facing the lake. On Tuesday, it took the first steps toward deciding that the lake might need to be managed in a different way.

"The fact that we don't have any coordinated management I think is a problem," said David Livermore of The Nature Conservancy.

Current management of the lake — whether it's duck ponds, pollution or lakeside leases — is handled by a combination of local, state and federal agencies. Council members said those agencies do well with their piece of the action, but no one's keeping an eye on the overall health of the lake system.

There's no shortage of issues facing the lake, council members said.