[0:00] It's just after 10:00.

[0:04] Glad you all found the place.

[0:06] This is definitely

[0:08] fancier digs than we're used to.

[0:12] Um

[0:14] Well, let's get Let's get started. Um I

[0:16] see we've got a number of folks online

[0:18] as well and uh we've got a pretty full

[0:22] agenda here, so

[0:24] um

[0:25] the the primary things that we we want

[0:27] to try to accomplish in today's meeting

[0:30] um we've got two different things that

[0:33] um that we've been working on over the

[0:35] last year. Want to try to move those

[0:36] forward. One is the protocol for

[0:39] calculating salinity um that Christine's

[0:42] been working on for quite a while and um

[0:46] so hoping that can move forward and then

[0:48] also we have the long-term salinity management plan

[0:52] that's a draft and talk about that and

[0:55] see if that's something ready that's

[0:57] move to move forward to and and then

[0:59] also we we have our our typical updates

[1:02] on conditions at the lake and talking

[1:05] about the where we are with salinity and

[1:08] um and if and where we want to go with

[1:09] that. So

[1:11] lots of things to cover. Anything else

[1:12] anybody wants to add

[1:15] to the agenda? Uh Jeff, I'd like to have

[1:18] a little bit of a discussion just about

[1:20] um

[1:21] perhaps thresholds, things that we we

[1:23] may want to consider this uh summer or

[1:25] spring as we consider if we need to

[1:27] alter the berm or just anything else

[1:28] that we need to think Okay, fantastic.

[1:33] Will do.

[1:35] All right, so let's let's just start

[1:37] with introductions. I guess

[1:39] we all have a microphone. That's

[1:41] different than normal, so please all you

[1:43] have to do is hit the button and then

[1:45] we'll pass a microphone around the back

[1:47] as well um for those folks. Um I'm Jeff

[1:50] Den Blakeer with Jacobs um facilitating

[1:53] the Salinity Advisory Committee.

[1:56] I'm Angela Gong with Forestry, Fire, and

[1:58] State Lands.

[2:00] Phil Brown, Great Salt Lake Brine Shrimp

[2:01] Cooperative.

[2:03] Thomas Bosteels, Great Salt Lake Brine

[2:05] Shrimp Cooperative.

[2:09] Elliot Jagnecki, Utah Geological Survey.

[2:12] Andrew Rupke, Utah Geological Survey.

[2:16] Joe Havassey, Compass Minerals.

[2:18] Mike Freeman, USGS.

[2:22] Christine Ramsey, USGS.

[2:25] Kyle Stone, Wildlife Resources.

[2:27] Ben Starman, Forestry, Fire, and State

[2:29] Lands.

[2:31] Emma Whitaker, Forestry, Fire, and State

[2:33] Lands.

[2:35] Travis Anderson, Morton Salt.

[2:38] Jake Alexander, Forestry, Fire, and

[2:39] State Lands.

[2:41] Ryan Doughty, Cargill Salt.

[2:44] Lynn de Freitas, Friends of Great Salt

[2:45] Lake.

[2:47] Laura Vernon, Water Resources.

[2:51] Great. Well, thank you. Oh, and then

[2:53] online,

[2:54] um we have a number of folks as well. Um

[2:57] see, Leila Madie with Water Resources,

[2:59] um Jim Harris with the Division of Water

[3:02] Quality.

[3:03] Jory Kirk Corkery and Bonnie

[3:08] Just got a lot of feedback here. Oh,

[3:10] there we go. Thank you, whoever fixed

[3:12] that. Um and Bonnie Baxter from

[3:14] Westminster.

[3:17] Uh Rob Dubuc with Friends and Bill

[3:20] Johnson at the University of Utah.

[3:23] Did I miss anybody?

[3:28] I don't know if we have an open

[3:29] microphone or I guess we'll figure it

[3:32] out.

[3:34] All right.

[3:35] So, this first part of the agenda, what

[3:38] we want to Oh, I actually let me back

[3:40] up. Um we sent out a meeting summary. We

[3:43] last met in October.

[3:45] Um sent that out back in February and

[3:48] now hopefully you had a chance to review

[3:50] that. I wanted to just if anybody had

[3:52] any comments or changes that they wanted

[3:55] to make to that that summary.

[4:00] And if not, if you have um

[4:04] entertain a motion to approve approve

[4:06] those that summary.

[4:08] Thank you, Thomas. And a second?

[4:11] And Kyle, thank you.

[4:14] All those um in favor of approving them,

[4:17] say I.

[4:19] Any opposed?

[4:21] Any further discussion?

[4:24] Oh, Bonnie says I as well. Thank you.

[4:28] Um so they're approved unanimously.

[4:31] So the first thing I wanted to do um is

[4:34] just go through some updates.

[4:36] Um Christine has agreed again to give us

[4:39] an update on on lake conditions.

[5:24] Good morning, everybody. I made it here

[5:26] um

[5:27] to give you an update. And we will talk

[5:29] about Mike Freeman's here. Has everybody

[5:31] met Mike in very another places? Mike is

[5:34] our field office chief for uh Salt Lake

[5:36] City office. So he coordinates a lot of

[5:37] our stream gagers um that work locally

[5:39] and knows a lot about the lake. He has a

[5:40] ton of experience on the lake. So

[5:42] excited to have him here today.

[5:43] He's going to present what Ryan usually

[5:45] does on lake elevation, stream flow

[5:47] updates, and then I'll I'll jump in with

[5:50] the salinity update, and then I think

[5:52] that's it for this first segment, so.

[5:56] Sure.

[6:02] Okay, so this is

[6:05] the Salt Air gauge, so this is South

[6:07] Arm. The daily value last Friday was

[6:11] 4192.4.

[6:12] Our seasonal low occurred in like

[6:14] October at 4191.

[6:17] We've came up about 1.4 ft since that

[6:20] seasonal low. Looking at the hydrograph,

[6:23] I think we're maybe peaked for the year,

[6:27] maybe like

[6:29] March 22nd is when I think we kind of

[6:31] have the peak. We'll see how it kind of

[6:32] shakes out the next little bit.

[6:36] But I don't think it's going to go up

[6:38] that much. It might just kind of level

[6:40] out. This is the North Arm, so this is

[6:44] at the Saline gauge.

[6:46] Daily value last Friday was 4191.5.

[6:49] Seasonal low is in October-December. We

[6:51] kind of flattened out at 4190.7.

[6:55] We're up about 8/10 of a foot. And the

[6:58] difference right now between the North

[7:00] Arm and South Arm is about 9/10 of a

[7:02] foot.

[7:04] And that is probably

[7:06] that might come up just a little bit

[7:08] more as we get more

[7:10] discharge through the the new breach.

[7:15] Here's some of the the major inflows,

[7:18] and this is kind of just a cumulative

[7:19] discharge plot of kind of how conditions

[7:22] vary over the course of the period of

[7:25] record. So this is the Corrine gauge, so

[7:28] you can see we're kind of in that

[7:30] much

[7:32] below normal right now,

[7:34] I guess below normal, so kind of in that

[7:36] 10 to 25% range. Black line is a current

[7:40] hydrograph.

[7:42] If we look at the Weber River near Plain

[7:45] City, we're getting in that much below,

[7:47] so kind of that 5 to 10% um really low

[7:50] conditions on on the Weber River right

[7:52] now, at least lower down.

[7:56] Um Farmington Bay, it's been actually

[7:59] um

[8:00] kind of in that normal condition. Uh I

[8:02] think the rain has really we've kind of

[8:04] noticed some pretty elevated base flows.

[8:06] You can even see in uh when we had that

[8:07] record October, we were really high,

[8:10] kind of

[8:11] seasonal highs. And um the the rain in

[8:15] March also kind of had a nice long

[8:17] gradual

[8:19] um

[8:20] sustained flow, but it's starting to

[8:21] drop pretty quick.

[8:25] And then lastly, the Goggin Drain, it's

[8:27] kind of up in that normal condition.

[8:28] This is basically I I've kind of changed

[8:31] the operations of the Surplus Canal, so

[8:32] that's why it is up a little higher

[8:34] right now.

[8:35] Um

[8:36] but again, the Surplus is also kind of

[8:38] flowing quite well, probably due to

[8:41] low elevation rain that we've had, so.

[8:45] Um here's some of the new breach flows,

[8:47] so um we measure every month. Um there

[8:50] was no measurements in October and

[8:51] November due to the the government

[8:53] furlough. Um our most recent

[8:55] measurements here on December, January,

[8:58] February, March, so you can see that

[9:00] kind of came up in January. Flows have

[9:03] been kind of just hovering around that

[9:05] five six five 600 to 700 cfs.

[9:10] If we look at the north to south flow,

[9:13] um again, no measurements in October,

[9:15] November, but we have very little flows

[9:18] kind of

[9:19] sneaking past that um

[9:23] the breach there with the berm, so quite

[9:25] low flows.

[9:29] Um this is the the um

[9:32] topography of the of the um the berm.

[9:35] You can see that the low point from the

[9:38] most recent survey has a an elevation of

[9:40] 4186

[9:42] um and there's been some pretty

[9:43] substantial erosion

[9:45] um especially on that right side of the east side of the berm um

[9:51] probably due to

[9:53] my guess is having been out there quite

[9:55] a bit wave action that kind of comes in

[9:57] with the north wind events. So, it kind

[9:58] of crashes in and kind of erodes that

[10:00] berm.

[10:05] Great Salt Lake at Lakeside. Um so, this

[10:07] is the far western breach, the old

[10:09] breach. Um

[10:12] we have kind of some

[10:15] we we we've been making discrete

[10:16] measurements. Uh I'm going to talk a

[10:18] little bit about some of the problems we

[10:20] have at Lakeside, but most of the water

[10:22] now is coming from the Newfoundland

[10:23] basin and so, we had a pretty

[10:27] wet March or beginning of March anyway

[10:29] and we saw quite a bit of um elevated

[10:32] flows. We measured 151 cfs going through

[10:35] the Lakeside breach. So, that's north to

[10:36] south flow and it's pretty much stayed

[10:40] north to south flow due to the low

[10:42] elevation of of um

[10:44] the south arm of the Great Salt Lake.

[10:46] So, just to kind of I I think I've

[10:48] presented on this before like maybe a

[10:50] year or two ago,

[10:51] but um we get these pretty heavy precip

[10:54] events that occur out in the

[10:55] Newfoundland basin and then it kind of

[10:57] goes across where those blue arrows are

[10:59] pointing

[11:00] and we get these large sediment

[11:02] deposition events that actually occur in

[11:05] our um in the Lakeside gauge pool and we

[11:08] typically see these in the winter and

[11:10] the fall when the lake elevation is

[11:12] really low and you don't have the kind

[11:14] of the south arm of to push that water

[11:16] to the north.

[11:19] Um

[11:20] we'll see if these work, but this is

[11:22] kind of the flows that we were observing

[11:24] when we were out there

[11:26] um

[11:27] on March uh 9th.

[11:30] Um this is all this water is coming from

[11:32] the Newfoundland basin and then here's a

[11:35] Let's see if it goes to the other one.

[11:37] Yep.

[11:39] Maybe.

[11:44] And then this is so this is looking

[11:47] south like southwest and it kind of

[11:50] pulls in and then this is where it kind

[11:52] of comes down this dike and all this

[11:54] water eventually makes its way over to

[11:56] the Lakeside gauge.

[11:59] And oop.

[12:00] Here we go. And so

[12:02] it goes north across the railroad

[12:04] causeway and then it has a tendency to

[12:06] kind of dive

[12:08] south again and the water

[12:10] kind of splits. Some of that goes into

[12:12] the north arm and some of it goes into

[12:13] the south arm. Um, when it goes into the

[12:16] south arm of the lake and past the the

[12:19] Lakeside gauge it creates

[12:21] it brings a lot of sediment and um,

[12:23] we've had issues with this since 2016

[12:26] when the lake got below 4193

[12:29] and what that does is from a gauging

[12:31] standpoint is it deposits all the

[12:34] sediment and it seems like we've also

[12:36] now started to collect a bunch of

[12:37] tumbleweeds and so this is a problem for

[12:41] us because our I think I oop.

[12:46] Our um,

[12:47] velocity sensor there's a little pole

[12:50] kind of on the bottom of the screen where you can see the pole

[12:53] sticking out. Our sensor goes just a

[12:56] little bit more

[12:59] streamward of that point right in the

[13:01] middle of those where all those um, kind

[13:03] of right here.

[13:05] And now you can see this is like full of

[13:07] tumbleweeds and it's full of about 2 ft

[13:10] of sediment and so we're unable to put

[13:12] our velocity sensor in there to actually

[13:14] measure flow in a real-time aspect. Um,

[13:19] due to the low lake levels I think we're

[13:21] going to see very little scour as the

[13:23] north I don't think the north arm is or

[13:24] the south arm is going to get above 4193

[13:26] where we typically see those flows that

[13:28] scour that sediment out. So, this could

[13:31] be a problem for gauging um at the

[13:34] Lakeside gauge for USGS with this these this sediment there.

[13:40] Um one of the things that I I believe

[13:42] maybe Jeff mentioned this at a previous

[13:44] meeting is we've talked about solutions

[13:46] of how we can maybe try to improve this this condition.

[13:50] Um you know, possibly a a a jetty that

[13:53] would push the water all to the north

[13:55] arm of the Great Salt Lake. This would

[13:56] reduce the the sedimentation in the

[13:59] Lakeside gauge

[14:01] um and then we could easily

[14:03] report accurate flow um

[14:06] south to north. Um but that is a water

[14:10] source that is you know, then just

[14:12] pushed to the to the north the north arm

[14:13] of the Great Salt Lake rather than the

[14:14] south. Um

[14:17] but it would improve our gauging

[14:19] operations.

[14:20] Uh

[14:22] if people are interested in the the

[14:24] Newfoundland basin and how much water

[14:25] that's contributing, um I think that

[14:28] there could be a potential gauging

[14:29] location

[14:31] um kind of right there on the south side

[14:33] of the causeway at that pinch point. And

[14:36] um we could measure the flow, but it

[14:39] this would be if the jetty was put in

[14:41] place, then it would all go to the like

[14:42] kind of the north arm rather than the

[14:43] south arm. But um

[14:46] it just kind of

[14:48] looking for solutions to improve the

[14:50] gauging at the Lakeside gauge and maybe

[14:52] somehow quantify flow coming in from the

[14:55] Newfoundland basin, um but I guess

[14:57] having talked to Christine and Ryan in

[14:59] the past, they wanted to bring kind of

[15:01] this issue back to this group and and

[15:03] have people start thinking about it as

[15:05] far as what we can do as far as

[15:06] quantifying the source of water.

[15:09] Cuz essentially we can't we

[15:11] right now we don't have continuous

[15:12] discharge at Lakeside. Correct.

[15:15] >> export of you know, whatever goes to

[15:16] Lakeside breach, we really can't

[15:18] quantify that at this time. Do we Do you

[15:20] what the salinity is of that water? It's

[15:22] similar to

[15:23] Could you please repeat that with the

[15:25] microphone for those online?

[15:32] Um I Okay, I'll repeat what I said,

[15:34] which is basically we don't have

[15:35] continuous measurements of discharge at

[15:37] the Lakeside breach, so we can't

[15:39] quantify any exchange occurring there

[15:41] from south to north or that's really

[15:43] coming from the Newfoundland basin other

[15:45] than these discrete measurements. And

[15:46] then the question was what's the

[15:47] salinity of that water um from north to

[15:50] south from the Newfoundland basin. And

[15:52] did you Did you measure the density? I

[15:54] kind of forget what We did measure it. I

[15:56] can look it up, Thomas. We did collect a

[15:57] sample

[15:59] and we recently collected like a full

[16:00] sample for analysis. I We can get back

[16:02] to you on that. We We should be able to

[16:04] figure that out. Um and in the past

[16:06] we've measured, I think it was that did

[16:07] that time we were out, it was like

[16:09] around I think 80,000 microsiemens per

[16:11] centimeter, so that's like half of what

[16:13] the South Arm would be in terms of

[16:14] salinity. But we're quantifying the

[16:16] chemistry of it um as well as the

[16:18] salinity, so. From a mineral standpoint

[16:21] historically,

[16:22] that water looks a lot like South Arm.

[16:24] Right. Yeah, okay. Uh cuz you're getting

[16:27] uh daylight of of shallow ground water.

[16:30] Um

[16:30] >> Um that

[16:31] it kind of runs up against the other the causeway um essentially and then it daylights in that in that trench.

[16:39] Okay.

[16:40] Good to know.

[16:41] The Just to point out that the plot on

[16:44] the screen, the green is actually

[16:47] measured um

[16:49] measured discharge in a continuous

[16:51] standpoint, so we're measuring every 15

[16:53] minutes using a velocity sensor. The the

[16:55] red is actually just estimated flow

[16:59] based off of our discrete measurements

[17:01] that we make and kind of looking at the water level at the Lakeside gauge,

[17:06] but the reason the data is estimated is

[17:08] because we can't put that velocity

[17:10] sensor in because of the sedimentation

[17:12] problem.

[17:13] Um we have left it in in the past. It

[17:15] was buried by 3 ft of sediment and it

[17:17] took it over a year to daylight.

[17:20] Um so, what we've been doing in a

[17:23] similar to this condition in 2025 is we

[17:26] pull it out so it doesn't get buried,

[17:28] and then we wait for the lake to come

[17:29] up. And when the lake gets comes up to

[17:31] 4193, we then

[17:33] basically put our sensor out on kind of

[17:35] a floating

[17:37] system that kind of rides the sediment

[17:39] as it as it scours. So, that's kind of

[17:41] how we've been doing it in the past.

[17:43] That has seemed to work well. We haven't

[17:44] lost our instrumentation,

[17:46] but um it does provide a discrete kind

[17:49] of estimated unreliable record.

[17:52] So,

[17:53] Mike, um

[17:54] when you were doing this, I mean,

[17:56] obviously, you had some maps up there

[17:57] that kind of was showing where this is

[17:59] coming from.

[17:59] >> Mhm. Um

[18:01] it's my understanding that there's some

[18:03] uh

[18:04] topographic features that are kind of

[18:06] prohibiting water from necessarily

[18:08] flowing from the entire basin uh back to

[18:10] the lake. Is some of this groundwater

[18:13] that's coming back in um to those low

[18:15] spots? Cuz it kind of looked like it was

[18:16] like, you know, in the canal there. Do

[18:19] you have any thoughts on

[18:21] Are you looking at um

[18:25] this one? Is this the one you're kind of

[18:26] talking about? Yep. Cuz every that there

[18:29] is like that's everything to the north

[18:30] of the train tracks, right? Right.

[18:32] So, it's north of the train

[18:33] tracks, but it kind of comes down. You

[18:35] can see the arrows are kind of pointing,

[18:36] and then it fans out. There's almost

[18:38] like a delta there that some of the

[18:40] water goes to the north, but the low

[18:42] point is actually south where most of

[18:45] the water does go.

[18:46] >> we uh we had done a

[18:49] uh a study internally with uh UGS helped

[18:52] out with some ET data, and they'd

[18:54] estimated that there could be upwards of

[18:56] 60,000 acre-feet evaporating out of the

[18:58] basin each year. And so, there's uh this

[19:01] 60,000 acre-feet that could be uh

[19:03] evaporating. That that would be on like

[19:05] a a bigger year. There's, you know,

[19:07] small years it could be, you know,

[19:08] 10,000 acre-feet. I If anybody's

[19:10] interested, we can send you the um up

[19:12] the Utah State Water Research Lab did

[19:15] the study and then Mark Hadwin

[19:18] right is that the right name? Mark

[19:20] Hadwin, okay. Thank you.

[19:21] Ran the ET data, but anyway, the idea is

[19:23] that there may be some way to influence

[19:26] the flows to

[19:28] you know, get it to the lake rather than

[19:30] let it just simply evaporate with maybe

[19:33] little to no harm to the you know, to

[19:36] the basin. I mean, I think there's other

[19:37] things we need to think about like

[19:39] scouring of salts and whether there's

[19:41] any wildlife that uses that, but I think

[19:43] the initial glance is that there's

[19:45] likely not a lot prohibiting us from

[19:47] doing something like that and getting a

[19:48] real return on that water.

[19:51] But one thing that folks have talked

[19:53] about is you know, that

[19:55] perhaps some of that is infiltrating

[19:56] into the ground. I'm just curious if you

[19:58] think any of this could be connected to

[20:00] groundwater movement that is helping

[20:02] with those flows or if that's all

[20:03] surface runoff just from the north side

[20:05] of the tracks. I think we'll see some of

[20:07] the groundwater this time of year when or

[20:11] earlier I guess maybe more in the winter

[20:13] we'll see some some flows coming in, but

[20:15] generally we see the biggest flows after

[20:17] big rain events and

[20:19] in 2017 there was a rain on snow event

[20:21] that actually

[20:23] I think the railroad had quite a bit of

[20:24] damage to the Lucin

[20:27] bridge and I think we had that was our

[20:30] biggest deposition event and so kind of

[20:32] rain rain on snow is generally what I've

[20:35] observed when I've been out there, but

[20:36] I'm sure there is groundwater that's

[20:37] coming in especially now. I mean, it's

[20:40] been really dry and we haven't had a lot

[20:42] of rain, but I think it's probably still

[20:44] slowly making it through the system.

[20:46] It'd be really interesting. I think one

[20:48] of the thoughts that we had

[20:50] you know, on the return into the lake if

[20:52] we were ever to complete a project like

[20:54] this is that there could be some type of

[20:56] control structure that could be involved

[20:58] where we could

[20:59] either choose to send it to the South

[21:01] Arm or the North Arm depending on what

[21:03] our goals are with salinity and lake

[21:05] levels and you know, everything else. I

[21:07] think we could achieve different

[21:08] management objectives, but I think it'd

[21:10] be really interesting to get a

[21:12] like you said you're doing, but get the

[21:14] results of that characterization of the

[21:16] chemistry of that water, so we could

[21:18] kind of understand what opportunities

[21:20] exist.

[21:22] I think most of the sediment is coming

[21:24] kind of right north of the lakeside um

[21:28] bridge. It seems like it kind of comes

[21:30] through an old canal and then it hits

[21:32] that playa and I feel like that's where

[21:36] it's picking up most of the the

[21:37] sediment. You have a lot of kind of

[21:40] loose

[21:41] oolitic sands that are available that

[21:44] are on the surface in that area.

[21:46] It's probably that.

[21:48] There is a bunch of clay on the delta in

[21:50] front too.

[21:52] Oh.

[21:53] Okay.

[21:55] All right.

[21:56] That's your findings, so

[21:58] Okay.

[22:00] Anyway, I

[22:02] it's it has presented quite a challenge

[22:04] for the the gauge there, so just so

[22:06] people are aware.

[22:11] Any other thoughts on that stuff or I'll

[22:13] move on to salinity?

[22:16] Okay, let's move on.

[22:17] Um okay. Thinking about salinity in the

[22:20] South Arm, here's the plot of salinity

[22:23] from about the fall of 2022 our high

[22:25] salinity condition to present. Uh our

[22:28] most recent salinities were measured on

[22:30] March 4th and they ranged from 112 g per

[22:33] liter to 118 g per liter at the surface.

[22:36] Our site 2267, which is really close to

[22:38] the bear north of Fremont Island, is our

[22:40] freshest as we usually see.

[22:42] And we are seeing some a little bit of

[22:44] um heterogeneity in the water column

[22:46] where it our site in Carrington Bay and

[22:48] this 2267 we're seeing fresher

[22:50] conditions at half a meter below surface

[22:52] as

[22:53] uh relative to our measurements at 3 m

[22:55] deep or at

[22:56] 2 to 3 m deep.

[22:58] And this plot just uh illustrates, you

[23:01] know, how we've been on a gradual

[23:02] decline relative to this time last year

[23:05] we're anywhere from 5 to 10 g per liter

[23:07] higher, so a little bit higher than we

[23:09] were last spring. And as Mike said, uh

[23:12] we may have peaked in the South Arm, so

[23:13] these may be approximately the the

[23:15] spring low salinities we observe.

[23:19] Relative to last fall um in Carrington

[23:21] or sorry, yeah, in Carrington Bay at our

[23:23] site 2565 we are 13 g per liter fresher

[23:26] and at from relative to our site in uh

[23:29] Gil Gilbert Bay 3510 we're 8 g per liter

[23:32] fresher than we were last fall. So just

[23:34] to give you an idea of the the change

[23:35] we've seen seasonally. In the context of

[23:38] our historical record back to 2010, you

[23:41] can see we're, you know, really hovering

[23:43] around this 120 the low range of the low

[23:45] end of our 120 to 160 g per liter um

[23:48] kind of optimal range that's been

[23:50] identified. These conditions are similar

[23:52] to what we've seen in 2020, 2013, so um

[23:55] you know, it's a

[23:57] you know,

[23:59] we've seen it before.

[24:01] Uh other recent salinities we've

[24:02] measured uh outside of the South Arm are

[24:04] at the new breach, so well it's still

[24:06] the South Arm, but 118 g per liter.

[24:09] And then at Saltair we have a

[24:10] measurement as recent as last week on

[24:12] the March 26th that was 117 g per liter.

[24:15] So that's where we're sitting right now.

[24:18] Um I've started computing our volume

[24:20] weighted salinities uh at the request of

[24:23] Jeff, so on the left looking at our what

[24:25] we call the upper brine layer volume

[24:27] weighted salinity. This is considering

[24:29] the top 4 m of the South Arm uh both in

[24:32] Carrington Bay and Gilbert Bay. That uh

[24:35] value is 118 g per liter. And then if we

[24:38] consider the full depth volume weighted,

[24:40] which goes to the bottom of the lake

[24:42] bottom bottom of the bottom of the South

[24:43] Arm, we're looking at 119 g per liter.

[24:46] Very similar as we're not seeing a lot

[24:47] of variability in the water column.

[24:51] Um looking at these values in the

[24:52] context of our salt mass as well as our

[24:55] elevation, um that kind of line is

[24:57] pointing to our most recent measurement

[25:00] and uh the mass we have at the at that

[25:03] time was an estimated 874

[25:06] million tons. So, again, we're kind of

[25:08] at this uh that low end of the 120 to

[25:10] 160 g per liter range and um not as low

[25:14] in terms of elevation as we've seen

[25:15] before, but it sort of at the low low

[25:17] end.

[25:19] And then our salt mass, so this plot

[25:21] shows salt mass South Arm salt mass in

[25:23] millions of tons on the Y axis from the

[25:25] time of our

[25:27] uh historic low fall of 2022 to present

[25:30] and you can kind of see we were hovering

[25:32] around about a billion metric tons of

[25:33] salt during that time during the fall of

[25:35] 2022 after berm modifications that

[25:38] really set us up into uh kind of an

[25:40] export paradigm where we were losing 134

[25:43] million tons per year

[25:45] up until the point we started to see

[25:47] backwater effects at the breach that was

[25:49] observed by um Andy Carlson back August

[25:52] September of 2024. Since that time we've

[25:54] really kind of seen a step change in the

[25:57] rate of loss of salts and uh more

[25:59] recently like last year maybe last year

[26:01] and a half we've seen the declines in

[26:03] the South Arm of about 28 million tons

[26:05] per year.

[26:08] And I'll leave it there until we get to

[26:10] the kind of spring forecast

[26:13] section unless anyone has any questions.

[26:20] Any So, no questions?

[26:25] All right. Heard a click. Bill.

[26:29] Yeah, just

[26:30] Christine, could you go back to that

[26:32] plot showing the lake elevation and

[26:33] salinity data?

[26:38] Yes.

[26:39] Once I don't know why this is so difficult

[26:42] for me. Appreciate your patience.

[26:44] Sh- sharing.

[26:46] Okay. Hang on, Bill.

[26:51] Okay, this one?

[26:55] The one that actually shows the lake

[26:56] elevation time series um with the

[26:59] salinity values in the time series. Ah,

[27:01] okay. I think a couple before that.

[27:04] Yeah. The back to 2010 or back to last

[27:07] year? Okay, you got it. There you go.

[27:10] Yeah, the one with the most recent. Um

[27:13] So,

[27:14] our lake elevation isn't so so bad

[27:18] now.

[27:21] And I'm just trying to understand

[27:24] whether we as a group

[27:26] can explain that,

[27:29] you know, given the the climate aspect.

[27:33] Is it

[27:34] most

[27:36] What can we attribute this to? How much

[27:38] of this is due, I guess,

[27:40] Do we have a sense of how much of this

[27:41] is due to the negotiated water returns

[27:44] that have been coming through Farmington

[27:45] Bay?

[27:48] Has anybody kind of done that analysis?

[27:54] You're Just to clarify, you're talking

[27:55] about the water level?

[27:58] Yeah.

[28:01] Uh Bill, we haven't. USGS has not looked

[28:03] at that. No.

[28:07] Cuz you know, we haven't had great

[28:09] runoff.

[28:12] And yet we're not sitting too badly,

[28:14] relatively speaking.

[28:16] And I just would like to have a sense of

[28:17] whether or not

[28:20] what the magnitude of those negotiated

[28:23] returns are

[28:25] in that.

[28:27] And it's okay if nobody has that sense.

[28:28] I just That's something I think we

[28:30] should get a handle on, but I'm not

[28:32] quite sure how to do that. Um

[28:34] but uh I just wanted to check and see if

[28:36] anybody had that on the top top of their

[28:38] head.

[28:39] It sounds like we don't at this point.

[28:41] Th- This is Joe. I I I think that the

[28:43] trust is is working to quantify

[28:46] um you know, what's what's

[28:48] been delivered

[28:51] certainly you have you know what was

[28:52] negotiated on on paper but you know the

[28:54] actual measurements

[28:56] to follow through with that

[28:58] I do believe the trust in Marcel are

[29:00] working on something like that.

[29:03] Okay. All right, great. I just I just

[29:05] wanted to

[29:06] get a sense of that. Thank you.

[29:07] All right, Bill and then this is Kyle

[29:08] and then just another kind of anecdotal

[29:12] accessory to this is we noticed water

[29:16] temperature in the lake especially in

[29:17] the South arm all of last summer was

[29:20] kind of on the lower end than what we

[29:22] would expect from our 30-year data set.

[29:25] So I'm wondering if this has something

[29:27] to do with that high runoff of 2023 and

[29:30] then not losing it as quickly as we

[29:32] would expect and so that's you know kind

[29:35] of a saving grace that just for some

[29:37] reason we weren't as hot this last

[29:40] summer and so we're holding on to some

[29:42] of that water that we were given in the

[29:44] big runoff here.

[29:46] So another thread to pull on for

[29:48] somebody who wants to look at all this.

[29:50] Never heard that one before Kyle. I like

[29:52] that.

[29:53] There's also for your information Bill

[29:56] there's water rights has a accounting

[29:59] tool on their distribution plan that

[30:02] talks about

[30:03] what the saved water or I guess

[30:06] dedicated water on approved change

[30:08] application

[30:09] applications accounts for so you can

[30:11] look at there and they have already done

[30:12] this quantification. It doesn't get to

[30:14] what you know Joe was talking about

[30:16] which is

[30:17] you know what water could have been

[30:18] going there already versus new water but

[30:21] it does give a little bit of an insight.

[30:28] Great.

[30:29] I I appreciate your optimism

[30:32] and what you're seeing there.

[30:34] I am

[30:36] so last month's agenda we had

[30:39] asked Jordan Clayton from NRCS to come

[30:42] and give us a presentation.

[30:44] Um and

[30:46] I asked him specifically if he could

[30:47] talk about how NRCS does their

[30:49] forecasting. Um

[30:51] and you know, what's their methodology

[30:53] in developing

[30:55] um an an estimate or forecast of what

[30:58] the spring runoff would be and what the

[30:59] inflows to the lake and then how does he

[31:02] how has he been getting to that his

[31:04] forecast for the lake level um for the

[31:06] summer.

[31:08] And so he um unfortunately we had to

[31:11] postpone our meeting and but we um but

[31:15] he did send and then he couldn't make it

[31:17] today. Um

[31:18] his his final for forecast is comes out

[31:24] first, I guess that's on the on

[31:26] Wednesday. Um and so he's really busy

[31:29] getting that done and finishing up with

[31:31] some field work for that. So he wasn't

[31:33] able to come, but I wanted to I thought

[31:35] it was well worth highlighting some of his slides

[31:40] um for you.

[31:43] And so this is you know, just to preface

[31:45] this, this is all Jordan's information.

[31:48] Um but I thought I think there are is

[31:50] some, you know, as we're looking at how

[31:52] we forecast salinity for the year, I

[31:54] thought this is some good background.

[31:57] Because so much of this comes down to

[31:59] how much water do we expect, um how high

[32:01] do we expect the lake to come up this

[32:03] year. Um and then that drives how we

[32:06] think salinity salt might move through

[32:08] the breach and um and the mass that we

[32:12] have to work with.

[32:14] So he had quite a few slides and I'm

[32:16] going to um skip through a lot of them,

[32:19] but um just in in terms of his

[32:23] you know, just providing an overview, we

[32:26] know the watershed is is large and I

[32:28] think um I think what is impressive is

[32:31] the number of snow tel sites and snow

[32:33] courses that they monitor throughout the

[32:36] basin.

[32:37] Um so it's SNOTEL sites measuring the

[32:40] meteorological information, how much

[32:42] snow is falling. The snow courses where

[32:44] they go up on snowmobiles um up to the

[32:47] site and they're actually measuring um

[32:50] the depth of the snow.

[32:52] And so they've got um they feel like a a

[32:55] really good representation

[32:57] um across the basin looking at um as you

[33:01] know high as well as medium elevation

[33:03] sites, low elevation sites uh really to

[33:06] help um forecast what the inflows or

[33:09] what the available water supply is. And

[33:12] this isn't just used and just recently

[33:14] we've been using this to look at

[33:16] forecasting the the lake level, but this

[33:19] is the data set that's that water

[33:21] suppliers are using and they plan most

[33:24] of their reservoir operations on on

[33:26] these types of forecasts.

[33:30] So um here you can just see a

[33:33] distribution of the of the SNOTEL sites

[33:35] and stream gauging sites um all done in

[33:39] cooperation with USGS.

[33:42] Um

[33:43] you know, in terms of um you know,

[33:46] inflows where they've got measurements

[33:48] um and then

[33:50] uh there you can see the rep the areas

[33:53] that are represented by their sites in

[33:55] red.

[33:56] Uh so in a lot of our mountain areas

[33:58] they've got really good coverage

[34:00] um for precipitation data, same same

[34:03] type of thing. Really for trying to

[34:05] forecast because our system is snow um

[34:09] snowmelt dominated um they're really

[34:11] focusing on trying to understand what

[34:13] what's happening at those higher

[34:14] elevations that hold our snow. This I

[34:17] thought this graph was was interesting

[34:20] just showing the distribution of where

[34:22] they have SNOTEL sites um at different

[34:24] elevations. So you can see with the the

[34:26] blue curve that's that's what I what I'm

[34:29] referencing. All those triangles

[34:31] represent their sites that they're

[34:33] measuring. So we're not just measuring at high

[34:36] elevations. We've we've got SNOTEL sites

[34:39] throughout

[34:40] all of the elevations.

[34:45] Let's see. I touched on this. Um

[34:48] you know, one thing he noted was that

[34:50] most of the precipitation falls between

[34:52] 7,000 and 9,000 ft. And and they really

[34:56] don't feel like we're missing uh too

[34:58] much information there. We can always

[35:00] have more gauges, but for the most part

[35:02] we've covered it.

[35:03] Um current conditions, I think we all

[35:06] know are not good. Um

[35:09] Let's see. Comparison to

[35:12] I did take the liberty to add that

[35:14] straight line in there. Um that was just

[35:17] from

[35:18] So what you see the dash lines, so he

[35:20] was going to present this on February

[35:22] 26th. So his forecast then were based on

[35:25] the information they had on February

[35:26] 1st. And um and so

[35:30] you can go on to their website today,

[35:32] and that's what I did this morning, and

[35:34] you can get their current, you know,

[35:36] where are we today based on SNOTEL data.

[35:39] Um all of those dash lines you see there

[35:41] are are forecasts or projections that

[35:44] they can make um based on where we were

[35:46] on February 26th. And you can see the

[35:49] bottom one there is the minimum

[35:51] projection, um which is even lower than

[35:54] the 10% projection. Um and that black

[35:57] line you see going from upper left to

[35:59] lower right, um there, this is where we

[36:03] are

[36:04] um today um in terms of our snow water

[36:08] or

[36:09] snow water equivalent measurements on um

[36:12] at this um SNOTEL sites throughout the

[36:15] basin. So a lot can change between these

[36:19] forecasts. Um that was this is data

[36:21] based on February 1st. Uh we should be

[36:24] getting another update uh forecasts on

[36:27] April 1st.

[36:29] So, they're

[36:31] constantly updating, trying to figure

[36:33] out what's happening in in the basin.

[36:36] I'm going to jump through a lot of

[36:37] these. Um I think from a precipitation

[36:40] standpoint, um at couple weeks ago at

[36:44] the Utah Water Users Conference, uh

[36:46] Jordan gave a presentation and just

[36:48] noted that overall our precipitation's

[36:50] been pretty normal. Um what's different

[36:53] is just the temperature paradigm that

[36:55] we've been in where we just haven't seen

[36:57] the snow accumulation and and now

[36:59] especially we're seeing the snow melt

[37:01] happening very quickly.

[37:04] Um soil moisture has been above normal.

[37:08] Um and I and and I believe what Jordan

[37:11] had explained is just with more more

[37:13] precipitation coming as rain, that's

[37:15] really helped our soil moisture

[37:17] um in in the watershed. But without the

[37:20] snow, you know, typically a higher snow

[37:23] or soil moisture helps with runoff

[37:25] efficiency, meaning that more of that

[37:27] snow comes into our streams and down to

[37:29] the lake.

[37:30] Um but without the snow, it's it's not

[37:34] helping our our over overall supply.

[37:38] Um I think our air temperatures have

[37:41] been above normal.

[37:43] Um reservoirs are filling with what available snow we

[37:49] do have. Um but we're below where we

[37:53] were last year.

[37:55] Um so, you can see here as of February

[37:56] 1st, we're 68% capacity compared to 80%

[37:59] the the previous year.

[38:02] Um

[38:04] Let's see. So, in terms of of Great Salt

[38:06] Lake inflow and lake level rise

[38:08] forecast,

[38:10] um they are using these four primary

[38:12] gauges, USGS gauges. And um

[38:17] and what they're doing is they're taking

[38:18] the they're estimating their the runoff volume um and and then

[38:25] looking at where we are today or at the

[38:27] particular day in the lake and then

[38:29] they're adding that volume to that to to

[38:31] understand what's what's going to happen

[38:33] to what the water level.

[38:34] So that part I think is fairly

[38:37] straightforward. I think a lot of the

[38:38] magic happens in in forecasting how

[38:41] runoff how the snow's going to melt and

[38:44] how that's going to translate into um

[38:46] flow coming to the lake.

[38:49] So they've got um a lot of data um from

[38:52] prior years. I think one of the key

[38:54] challenges that they have is that every

[38:56] year is different. Um they highlighted in

[39:00] 2023 we had the all-time highest

[39:04] snowpack or snow water

[39:06] um equivalent SWE. Um and then this year

[39:10] we have the all-time low. So in just the

[39:12] span of 3 years we've swung from an

[39:14] all-time high to an all-time low.

[39:16] So that obviously it gives it adds to

[39:20] the data set um but when we're operating

[39:23] on the extremes it's really hard for

[39:25] them to predict um what's going to

[39:28] happen.

[39:30] So they they've got a number of

[39:32] processes that they um that they're

[39:35] using with their with their forecast

[39:37] modeling system. Uh they're using

[39:39] machine learning to constantly try to

[39:41] recalibrate the model to try to

[39:43] understand what's happening um and

[39:46] really starting to work towards and

[39:48] they've got a number of methods that

[39:49] they use to to work towards using an

[39:51] ensemble or an average from those

[39:54] different um forecasts and then

[39:57] reporting those values.

[39:59] Um if you haven't been to their website

[40:02] it's amazing the information that that

[40:04] you have available um to look at. Um

[40:09] let's see.

[40:11] So they're combining what their modeling

[40:13] forecasts are but then they're also

[40:14] looking at um just doing some hand

[40:17] calculations, looking at um

[40:21] you know, what's the 50th um percentile

[40:23] exceedance value that they have and then

[40:26] adding and you can see here they in this case he looked at the February

[40:31] 1st lake elevation uh what the volume of

[40:34] the water was in the lake at that time.

[40:36] And one note is they don't account for

[40:38] the berm. Um they're assuming that the

[40:41] lake is at one level.

[40:44] And um but then they look at what's the lake level associated with the new

[40:49] volume accounting for the inflow

[40:51] forecast. And I think this is I

[40:54] and I think um Bill

[40:56] I think there is something to what you

[40:58] were observing because on February 1st

[41:01] the inflow forecast was only 290,000

[41:04] acre feet. Um which is horrible when you

[41:08] look at what we've typically see.

[41:11] Um and so by when they added that the forecast for the lake um we would

[41:17] all

[41:18] um would have been

[41:20] um

[41:21] I think 4192.2.

[41:24] Um

[41:25] so on the website here and please stop

[41:29] me if you have questions. I'm blasting

[41:31] through this pretty quick. Um but

[41:33] typically what they're looking at is the

[41:35] in in um there's all kinds of these

[41:38] charts. You can look at every stream and

[41:40] see what their forecasts are.

[41:42] Um but then what they've done in the

[41:43] last 5 years is is they've added those

[41:46] all together to come up with the Great

[41:47] Salt Lake inflow.

[41:49] The number that I think is most useful

[41:51] is um

[41:52] in in the green right in the middle

[41:54] there 290,000

[41:56] acre feet of inflow.

[41:59] Um and then you can see the range that's

[42:02] the potential range um and it's a it's a

[42:05] very wide range.

[42:06] But it gives you kind of an idea of the uncertainty that's there.

[42:12] So when when he added that, I guess

[42:14] let's see

[42:15] I was wrong. The based on the February

[42:17] 1st forecast, the the prediction was

[42:21] um

[42:22] Let's see, lake level rise.

[42:25] So, it it was 4190 um 191.8

[42:30] on February 1st. As of March 1st, which

[42:33] is what he's using here,

[42:35] um it was 4192.4.

[42:37] And what he reported at Utah water users

[42:40] 2 weeks ago was that 4192.5.

[42:44] Um

[42:45] And so, one of the reasons that's that

[42:47] it's coming up here

[42:49] is just

[42:51] um

[42:52] Let's see.

[42:54] And I'll I'll email this these slides to

[42:57] you so you can peruse them.

[43:00] Um but the the latest forecast that they

[43:03] have is that we'll have a um

[43:05] uh inflow about 325,000 acre feet. Um

[43:09] so, it's it's been coming up since over

[43:12] the last couple months.

[43:13] Um but one I think this slide is

[43:15] important in just noting that this does

[43:17] not account for management actions. So,

[43:20] on a on a poor year, I think

[43:24] historically, um water managers if if

[43:27] their reservoirs are low, they're going

[43:28] to store as much as they can to to get

[43:30] those reservoirs up to where they can get. Um if if they're already starting out

[43:36] pretty full, then that they may actually

[43:37] dump water um

[43:39] at point to make room for a spring

[43:41] runoff. So, there's a lot of interplay

[43:44] there with um with water managers. And

[43:48] um

[43:50] And you know, he notes here is lower

[43:52] than typical percent of variability is

[43:54] explained by the runoff models. There's

[43:56] poor correlation.

[43:58] Um but a lot of that is just due to a

[44:00] lot of the decisions water management

[44:02] decisions that are happening in the

[44:03] watershed. And so, we can try to

[44:06] calibrate models to USGS gauge data, Uh

[44:10] but just depending on what the needs

[44:12] are, those you know, water managers can

[44:14] change their reservoir operations to

[44:16] meet their needs and and then that can

[44:18] throw off our calibrations

[44:21] because it's not based on natural

[44:23] processes anymore. It's it's now we're

[44:26] trying to have we're having to

[44:27] incorporate

[44:29] management decisions as well. So that adds a lot to the uncertainty here.

[44:35] Um and then they don't account for

[44:36] evaporate evaporative losses

[44:39] um and really trying to just focus on

[44:42] the 50th percentile

[44:44] um

[44:45] when they're doing this.

[44:47] Let's see.

[44:48] Um

[44:52] So generally, you know, they're

[44:53] typically 75 to 80% accurate and I think

[44:58] a few years ago they they nailed the the

[45:01] lake level prediction and last year they

[45:03] were off a bit. Um but I think when when

[45:06] you consider the uncertainty that there

[45:09] is across the the board here,

[45:12] what they're doing is pretty remarkable.

[45:15] Um

[45:17] And so they're they're constantly

[45:18] working to try to make improvements. So

[45:21] here that's where the machine learning

[45:24] is a big thing that they're investing

[45:26] into to try to incorporate a lot more

[45:29] parameters into it to try to understand

[45:31] what's really driving these systems.

[45:34] The longer the period, the better

[45:35] statistical representation that they can

[45:37] get. They've been adding new SNOTEL

[45:40] sites and and really trying to

[45:42] incorporate more parameters. So I think

[45:45] soil moisture is something that's

[45:48] um

[45:49] been I guess when I think about even my

[45:51] career relatively recent

[45:54] addition into the forecasting

[45:57] that I think has made a big improvement

[45:59] in and their accuracy.

[46:02] But there's a lot more that they're that

[46:03] they're working on. And you can see

[46:05] here, I mean even dust impacts on the

[46:07] snow can affect how the snow

[46:10] melts. And those aren't things that we

[46:12] have in our in our snow melt models.

[46:15] Um

[46:15] so there's a lot of things that are

[46:17] moving here.

[46:22] So I think that is the gist of it. Um so

[46:26] there's there's about 50 slides here. So

[46:28] I'll I'll forward that this to you all

[46:30] and you can look through them. Um and

[46:33] Jordan's certainly open to answering

[46:34] questions. Um he but apologized for not

[46:37] being able to be here today. So

[46:40] I guess any questions

[46:42] that I

[46:43] almost hesitate to try to answer.

[46:47] I have an elementary question. Mhm.

[46:49] 325,000

[46:52] estimate

[46:54] for a year.

[46:56] That's for spring runoff. That's for

[46:58] spring runoff. Yeah.

[47:00] Um

[47:02] And what

[47:03] Could we have that repeated for those

[47:05] online?

[47:06] Oh, can you I'm sorry.

[47:10] I'm asking about the period for the 325,000 acre foot

[47:15] inflow. Yeah. So that'll cover what

[47:18] January to July. July, okay.

[47:21] Yeah.

[47:23] So you can go to his their website and

[47:26] um

[47:29] Let's see.

[47:30] How did I get the answer here before? Um

[47:47] Oh, shoot. It's not coming.

[47:52] But um Oh, this is all the stream flows.

[47:54] Um

[47:55] but

[47:56] this is where you can come to um

[48:00] to their website and you can get those

[48:02] graphs to find out exactly what their update is.

[48:06] Um,

[48:08] Oh,

[48:09] I just had to scroll down. So, here's

[48:11] Great Salt Lake inflow. There's the 325

[48:14] value.

[48:15] Um,

[48:16] and then you can go through that's April

[48:18] to July is the forecast period.

[48:21] Um,

[48:22] and then you can go through every one of

[48:26] their gauges in the system

[48:28] to see what that means. Um, or how they

[48:31] get to that.

[48:35] But, when you consider 325,000

[48:37] acre-feet, that's you know, I think an

[48:40] average year was used to be 1 million.

[48:44] Um,

[48:45] you know, acre-feet, so it's not good. Um,

[48:51] and it's a really low year. Um,

[48:53] that said, I think you know, Bill, that

[48:56] the fact that we're getting more flow

[48:57] through the the Jordan River system

[49:00] um, is is a is a good note. Um, you

[49:03] know, is that because they are

[49:06] um, transferring some of those water

[49:07] supplies?

[49:09] Um, I don't

[49:11] I just drove past the Jordan River up by

[49:13] Utah Lake yesterday and it didn't I

[49:16] mean, the Jordan River was not flowing

[49:19] much at all. It was really low. So,

[49:20] they're not moving water from the Utah

[49:22] Lake system.

[49:23] So,

[49:25] you know,

[49:26] I don't know.

[49:32] All right.

[49:34] Um,

[49:35] so, any I guess any questions there?

[49:37] Else we'll move on.

[49:39] Um, yeah, Bill.

[49:42] Yeah, thank you, Jeff. Um,

[49:44] yeah, so I think most of that delivery

[49:47] from Utah Lake was occurring in the

[49:48] fall.

[49:50] And I think it showed up actually in um,

[49:53] Christine's

[49:54] um,

[49:55] you know image.

[49:56] And so

[49:58] I guess the the the take home point is

[50:01] that we're we're now about to face a

[50:04] period that is

[50:06] you know, going to be challenging. Mhm.

[50:09] And the water deliveries that have been

[50:11] negotiated, we'll see how much of that

[50:14] actually materializes in a stressed year

[50:17] like this year.

[50:19] Where the water shed demand is going to

[50:21] be you know, very much dictating what's

[50:23] available to bring into the lake

[50:25] relative to what's been negotiated.

[50:27] Right.

[50:28] >> Um so we're going to learn a lot this

[50:30] summer. Mhm.

[50:34] For sure.

[50:37] Um

[50:38] Great. Well, thank you. Um so Jim, did

[50:41] you have anything to update us with what

[50:45] you know, in terms of what DWQ is doing?

[50:49] Um I just have a brief update. Just um

[50:52] we're in the midst of reviewing um water

[50:55] lease proposed

[50:57] um lithium extraction facility in the

[51:00] North Arm. And as you might recall, we

[51:02] had to develop some rules a couple of

[51:03] years ago that regulate um new

[51:07] extraction um operations. Uh they have to demonstrate that there's no

[51:11] negative impact to the biota or the

[51:13] chemistry of the lake. And so

[51:15] phased approach. The first phase

[51:17] happened last spring where they

[51:18] collected about 6 months worth of data

[51:21] and um rolled that into um

[51:24] certification application that we're

[51:26] reviewing right now. Um where they're

[51:29] kind of self-certifying that they're not

[51:31] going to have an impact or negative

[51:32] impact.

[51:34] And um we've been working with Four

[51:35] Seasons and Empire State Lands very

[51:37] closely on this and um should in the

[51:39] coming few weeks, couple of weeks have

[51:42] um some decisions made on on that, but

[51:44] we're still negotiating some of the

[51:45] details of that application.

[51:48] Uh keep in mind there will be an

[51:49] opportunity for public review and

[51:51] comment. The next steps would be if

[51:53] approved that we would issue a discharge

[51:56] permit and then they'll have a public

[51:58] comment um period associated with that.

[52:00] So, uh look

[52:03] no promises, but look for something

[52:04] sometime this spring. So,

[52:08] that's all I got for now. All right.

[52:10] Thank you.

[52:11] Yep. Any questions

[52:14] for him?

[52:16] If not, Ben, you want to give us an

[52:18] update? Yeah. Uh so, a couple of couple

[52:21] of things I think the last time we met

[52:23] was October. So, it's been pretty slow

[52:25] for us since then. We bought a factory

[52:28] and uh

[52:29] it's that's that's been keeping us on

[52:31] our toes, but um as far as salinity is

[52:33] concerned, I think that's going to be

[52:35] something that I would love to you know

[52:36] discuss with

[52:37] um this group

[52:39] you know, eventually. We're working with

[52:41] Cargill and um some of the other small

[52:43] operators to figure out, you know,

[52:44] exactly what that looks like to keep

[52:46] them, you know, going. Um but with that

[52:48] they're not going to need the same

[52:49] amount of uh water

[52:51] uh and then also they'll have a return

[52:53] flow and I think there's a an

[52:54] opportunity there to think about how we

[52:57] use salinity um that's accumulated in

[52:59] that pond to also buffer, you know, uh

[53:02] what we do between the breach and the

[53:04] north arm and then also how we restore

[53:06] that portion of

[53:07] uh of the bay.

[53:09] So, a lot to come there and but right

[53:11] now we're kind of focused on dealing

[53:12] with the bank and how to let people come

[53:15] in and get their collateral and all of

[53:16] those issues. So, it's been a full-time

[53:19] job or seven

[53:20] um on top of what we're already doing.

[53:23] Um and then we are also still working on

[53:25] our uh comprehensive management plan and

[53:28] mineral leasing plan.

[53:29] Um Jacobs is helping us with those

[53:31] plans. We're making great progress and I

[53:33] think we'll have a draft out probably in

[53:36] the next

[53:38] Well, it'll be we're aiming for July for

[53:41] the public draft.

[53:42] >> Perfect. Um I know we have a few things

[53:44] we're reviewing now, but we're uh

[53:46] we're looking forward to getting that

[53:47] out so we can um move on on getting that

[53:50] plan finalized. There's some updates to

[53:52] the elevation matrix and some other

[53:54] things that um I think will be of

[53:56] interest for everyone. We're also

[53:58] working to finish this salinity

[54:00] management plan so we can reference that

[54:02] in this as well. And with that, I think

[54:04] Jeff will talk about it later, but I

[54:06] think we're thinking more about broad

[54:08] goals and not uh

[54:09] you know, when this happens, here's

[54:11] exactly what we do cuz we know that all

[54:13] these different dynamics um change and

[54:15] that's kind of how it is on Great Salt

[54:17] Lake cuz I think we uh

[54:19] we know what we know right now and then

[54:20] next year we're going to know a hell of

[54:21] a lot more, hopefully.

[54:23] Um and then as far as the water leaf uh application goes, just like Jim said,

[54:28] we're making great progress on that. Um

[54:30] Jake, who's sitting there in the back,

[54:32] he's been doing the bulk of the work for our division and has done a a

[54:35] tremendous job uh coming through that

[54:37] combing through that with a fine-tooth

[54:39] comb. Um but we I think

[54:41] in coordination with water quality

[54:43] should have decisions here in the next

[54:45] few weeks.

[54:46] Um and then the last thing that I wanted

[54:49] to discuss was I I think I kind of piped

[54:51] up and said I wanted to add this to the

[54:53] um

[54:55] to the agenda, but I want to discuss

[54:57] what and how we should be thinking about

[54:59] berm modifications this year, you know,

[55:01] if any. There was some legislation that

[55:03] happened in the special ses- session

[55:05] back in October that um kind of changed

[55:07] the dynamic of how we can consider

[55:08] modifying the berm. It allows us to

[55:10] consider things besides salinity um such

[55:12] as like uh some examples would be you

[55:15] know, microbialite coverage. Like if we

[55:16] were, you know, a couple feet from

[55:18] dropping below 4192 and we want to

[55:20] consider, you know, keeping that South

[55:22] Arm wetted so we could keep those

[55:23] microbialites wetted, there may be some

[55:24] advantage and maybe we can do that in a

[55:26] way that doesn't um harm the salinity as

[55:29] much. Um however, it does put a cap on

[55:31] raising the berm to 4192, at least the

[55:33] way I read it. I think there's been some

[55:35] folks that have had different

[55:36] interpretations, but as we go back and

[55:38] forth, I think we've all uh ended up

[55:40] settling on 4192 as the maximum. We

[55:42] still have to raise it if there's if it

[55:44] goes below 4190. So, there's not a whole

[55:47] lot of room where we get to make

[55:49] discretionary changes to the berm, but

[55:52] it does exist. So, I guess what I wanted

[55:54] to make sure we were thinking about is

[55:57] um I I assume we're going to fall below

[55:59] 4192. I think everybody can probably

[56:01] agree that's going to happen this year.

[56:03] And

[56:04] we might be in a position where we're

[56:05] fall falling below 4190 and we have to

[56:07] raise the berm anyway.

[56:09] So, what I wanted to discuss was whether

[56:11] or not um anybody has any thoughts on

[56:14] whether we should consider, you know,

[56:15] once we start dropping down, should we

[56:17] raise the berm up and try to, you know,

[56:19] impound inflows so we keep what we have

[56:22] in the South Arm this year? Should we

[56:24] let it drop and focus more on fall of

[56:27] this coming year? I mean, I think the

[56:29] one concept would be that we raise it up

[56:31] to 4192

[56:33] um at the end of this water year and

[56:35] then capture everything moving into the

[56:36] next year just knowing that if we

[56:38] continue on a downward trend, we could have some issues. But, I'm sure

[56:42] we'll have some different meetings

[56:43] between now and October, but I just want

[56:45] to make sure that

[56:46] at least right now, we're thinking

[56:48] through what the next step is. So, I

[56:50] don't know if anybody has any thoughts

[56:52] on, you know,

[56:53] what we should be considering here with

[56:55] spring runoff and as we enter into the summer season,

[56:58] you know, with lake levels declining and

[57:00] salinity levels probably rising, um if

[57:03] there's any threshold

[57:05] times or I guess

[57:07] uh yeah, lake levels where we ought to

[57:09] reconvene or consider

[57:12] raising that. Any any thoughts from

[57:13] anybody?

[57:17] Then I did um include those slides that

[57:19] I had shared with you. Oh, perfect. So,

[57:21] I'm kind I kind of walk folks through

[57:23] what it might look like. I don't know if

[57:24] that's helpful, but that might help

[57:25] facilitate the conversation.

[57:26] >> Yeah, I think that would be awesome if

[57:27] that's

[57:28] Yeah. That might I think that would be

[57:30] good. We can just jump into the next

[57:31] agenda item and talk about the estimate

[57:34] or estimates for this year and

[57:36] for Kyle. And then just one thought

[57:38] outside of salinity,

[57:40] um we're going to talk about this a lot

[57:41] more at our TAG meeting coming up on

[57:42] Wednesday. So, if any of you guys can

[57:44] attend that, but some of the emerging

[57:46] research that we're seeing out of Gary

[57:48] Belovsky's lab is a nutrient limitation.

[57:52] And while we're exporting a lot of salt

[57:54] to the North Arm, we're also exporting a

[57:55] lot of nitrogen.

[57:57] And in an already limited system,

[58:01] having all that nitrogen decoupled from

[58:02] the South Arm is becoming a problem.

[58:05] And so, I may, you know, kind of suggest

[58:08] that we may have look at maybe s-

[58:11] cutting a hole in the berm, you know,

[58:12] kind of cleaning it out a little bit now

[58:15] and allow some North Arm water exchange

[58:17] for the summer and then yeah, come back

[58:19] in at the end of the water year and then

[58:21] build that berm back up just to allow

[58:23] some of that nitrogen to come back to

[58:24] the South Arm and maintain productivity

[58:27] for the biota that's there.

[58:30] Um just a thought and I'm willing to

[58:31] discuss it. Like I said, we'll have some

[58:34] finer details on that on Wednesday that

[58:36] I can't speak to yet cuz I'm not as

[58:38] smart as Gary, but

[58:41] maybe the industry has some thoughts on

[58:42] that.

[58:49] I mean, I'll just mention that it's something

[58:53] that we've been discussing for a while

[58:54] now that, you know, we could use we

[58:56] could lose quite a bit of those nutrients.

[59:00] And we haven't really

[59:02] um determined, you know, what those

[59:04] losses are.

[59:06] Um so, it's certainly something we're going to have to focus on.

[59:10] Um

[59:12] And, you know, on the other hand,

[59:15] if we leave the berm open, we keep

[59:17] exporting salt. We may come to a point

[59:20] where that salinity becomes too low.

[59:23] Luckily, we're not there.

[59:25] Well, I I think right now I

[59:28] my opinion is similar to Ben's is we we

[59:31] look at what is happening and

[59:34] during the fall when we start to see the

[59:35] lake or

[59:37] when we get it when the lake reaches its

[59:40] uh

[59:41] its lowest point then we increase the

[59:43] size of the berm to really capture that

[59:45] water.

[59:46] That would be, you know,

[59:48] but it's

[59:50] that's kind of an intuitive

[59:52] approach.

[59:53] I'm a little bit leery of opening up

[59:55] that berm if we don't really know how

[59:57] much

[59:59] um nutrients we can re-import and if we

[1:00:02] don't really know how much salt we're

[1:00:05] going to re-import. So,

[1:00:07] it's um

[1:00:08] I mean, I guess it

[1:00:10] we could look at it as an experiment

[1:00:13] and make sure we measure everything

[1:00:15] carefully, but

[1:00:16] it's a big experiment. Oh, for sure. And

[1:00:21] that's why it's a a conversation right

[1:00:23] now of, you know, I think we're in a

[1:00:24] good position where we're on the bottom

[1:00:27] end of salinity that we have a little

[1:00:28] bit of range to

[1:00:32] absorb some of that salt

[1:00:35] with the potential benefit of bringing

[1:00:37] back some nutrients. So, and that's

[1:00:39] where, you know, cleaning out what's

[1:00:42] left of the berm. I mean, it sounds like

[1:00:43] it's severely eroded based on the most recent topographic images of

[1:00:47] the uh

[1:00:48] of the berm itself. So, maybe cleaning

[1:00:50] some of that out and creating a a space

[1:00:53] for to facilitate North Arm water

[1:00:55] trickling back in, which

[1:00:57] won't be ideal because there's not a

[1:00:58] mixing mechanism and we are going to

[1:01:00] potentially create a deep run layer in

[1:01:03] the in the North Basin of Farmington

[1:01:05] Bay, but

[1:01:07] is that beneficial? And I think that's a

[1:01:08] conversation that would be a good thing

[1:01:10] to have at this time moving forward so

[1:01:14] that we have some opportunities to see

[1:01:16] what's available, look at some of the

[1:01:18] content. And I think some of the

[1:01:20] measurements there it's just we need

[1:01:21] some people to look at the data and

[1:01:24] you know, look at it as an option and

[1:01:26] see what's going to be best for the

[1:01:27] system.

[1:01:29] Carl, did did Gary tell you how much

[1:01:31] nitrogen he thinks the bay the South Arm

[1:01:35] has lost in

[1:01:37] as a whole? I think he mentioned some

[1:01:39] numbers based on some of Christine's

[1:01:41] calculations and that's why

[1:01:44] I'm hesitant to give a number because I

[1:01:46] don't remember what those were.

[1:01:48] But like I say, that's going to be a

[1:01:49] good question on Wednesday.

[1:01:52] And Bill, you had your hand up.

[1:01:55] Yeah, I just want to clarify I'm really

[1:01:57] surprised to hear that that would be

[1:01:59] significant, the nitrogen coming from

[1:02:01] the North Arm would be significant

[1:02:02] compared to all the South Arm inflows

[1:02:04] that are you know, many of which are

[1:02:05] wastewater dominated.

[1:02:08] Um

[1:02:09] So I I'd really like to get a sense of

[1:02:11] confidence level

[1:02:13] that the North Arm is a significant

[1:02:15] contributor of nitrogen compared to

[1:02:16] those sources.

[1:02:19] Um we're very confident that the North

[1:02:21] Arm is a substantial source of nitrogen

[1:02:23] to the system. It's about when it when

[1:02:25] the berm yeah, when the berm was not

[1:02:28] there and we just had bidirectional flow

[1:02:30] from our mass balance analysis from

[1:02:32] about 2017 to 2022, we estimate that the

[1:02:35] North Arm is supplying about half of the

[1:02:37] nitrogen input to the South Arm. So

[1:02:39] that's it relative to the surface water

[1:02:41] gauges. So we know the North Arm is a

[1:02:42] really important source of nitrogen. The challenges with our records at the

[1:02:48] breach is

[1:02:50] and the challenges we've had with the

[1:02:51] nutrient labs is stitching together

[1:02:54] what that nutrient flux has been from

[1:02:56] north to south. We have estimates and

[1:02:58] essentially when you raise the berm, you

[1:02:59] just cut off that supply which we know

[1:03:01] is really important and I'm trying to

[1:03:03] find my email to Gary where we estimated

[1:03:05] this so I can give you a number, but we

[1:03:07] were basically able to say based on our

[1:03:09] estimates of flux that have been cut off

[1:03:11] and relative to the nutrient mass in the

[1:03:13] South Arm nitrogen mass, Um, it's

[1:03:16] decreased the concentration it would

[1:03:17] have decreased the concentration in the

[1:03:18] South Arm by some amount and that's what

[1:03:20] I'm trying to to look up. But, yeah, but

[1:03:22] we know it's a really important source

[1:03:23] of nitrogen, but it has been pretty

[1:03:24] difficult for us to quantify, especially

[1:03:27] after 2023. We just don't have a lot of

[1:03:29] data to work with. Um, but we're

[1:03:32] continuing to think about that and we'll

[1:03:33] be presenting at the TAG on this of like

[1:03:36] our best estimates of the flux and

[1:03:37] relative to, you know, when we modify

[1:03:40] the berm and we change the um the

[1:03:42] magnitude of flux of salt, what is kind

[1:03:44] of a proportional change in nutrient

[1:03:46] flux we're seeing. So, yeah, we're going

[1:03:48] to be discussing that more at the TAG.

[1:03:50] So, Christine, did I hear you right that

[1:03:52] you were saying 50% of the of the

[1:03:55] nitrogen inflow

[1:03:57] into the South Arm would be coming from

[1:04:00] in the past, historically, had become

[1:04:02] >> Roughly about half. Yeah.

[1:04:03] About half and that would be an average

[1:04:05] or that would be a maximum?

[1:04:07] >> That's an like I think an average and I

[1:04:08] can check those calculations, too, but

[1:04:10] that's based on just a kind of an annual

[1:04:12] look at the nitrogen coming into the

[1:04:14] South Arm and it's it's substantial.

[1:04:16] Yeah.

[1:04:17] And to further build on that, some of

[1:04:19] the

[1:04:20] you know, the the suggestion that Gary

[1:04:22] made is that the North Arm has now

[1:04:24] become a giant sink for nitrogen. So,

[1:04:26] while we're exporting everything, all

[1:04:27] the nitrogen goes into the North Arm,

[1:04:29] the water evaporates, the nitrogen

[1:04:31] stays. With the limited return flow from

[1:04:33] North to South, all that nitrogen's

[1:04:35] getting concentrated up there, uh just

[1:04:38] like the way the salt is. And so, we're

[1:04:41] kind of net exporting

[1:04:43] uh nitrogen out of the South Arm. So,

[1:04:45] even though we do have inflow from

[1:04:48] the freshwater sources, it's it pales in

[1:04:50] comparison to what's being kind of

[1:04:53] stuck in the North Arm.

[1:04:55] Yeah, and how conservative nitrogen is

[1:04:57] in the North Arm is another question and

[1:04:59] Bonnie's been um wondering about this, the nitrogen cycling that's

[1:05:03] happening in that hypersaline

[1:05:04] environment. Is it merely concentrating

[1:05:07] or is it also being transformed and

[1:05:08] being removed in some way? We don't I

[1:05:10] don't There's a lot of unknowns there,

[1:05:11] but

[1:05:15] I think um Bonnie and

[1:05:18] um Scott have had some comments there in

[1:05:20] the in the chat here, just acknowledging

[1:05:22] that

[1:05:23] um

[1:05:24] that we do have nitrogen I guess

[1:05:26] nitrogen fixers in the in the north arm

[1:05:29] that would be

[1:05:30] um bringing that nitrogen in.

[1:05:36] So, I think

[1:05:38] So, it's always great to find out that

[1:05:41] things are even more complicated than

[1:05:42] what we thought.

[1:05:44] But, I think the I guess what I'm

[1:05:47] hearing is that not only is that north

[1:05:50] arm

[1:05:51] flow

[1:05:53] have

[1:05:54] you know, 50% of the load into the lake,

[1:05:56] we've cut that off. So, now we've lost

[1:05:58] that load into the south arm, but we're

[1:06:01] also exporting likely exporting some

[1:06:04] nitrogen to the to the north arm. So,

[1:06:06] that

[1:06:07] is affecting that balance even more in

[1:06:09] the south arm.

[1:06:11] So, yeah. Um

[1:06:14] I know a lot of these calculations stem

[1:06:16] on flow and measuring flow and and USGS

[1:06:19] has tried to

[1:06:21] The breach is a is a really tough place

[1:06:23] to measure. And um one of the things I

[1:06:25] just threw this out to Ryan the other

[1:06:27] day cuz I heard that there was potential

[1:06:28] modifications to the to the um the berm.

[1:06:32] Um

[1:06:33] I've spent the last 2 weeks looking at a

[1:06:35] lot of that data. And when the berm's in

[1:06:37] place, we actually have um and I know

[1:06:39] some and USU has been working on this.

[1:06:42] There's I think the modeling as far as

[1:06:45] predicting flow becomes a little better.

[1:06:47] And I think USGS has methods where we

[1:06:49] could probably have a fairly confident

[1:06:51] number from south to north.

[1:06:53] When we blow that berm out or move that

[1:06:55] berm, that kind of adjust that whole

[1:06:58] computation and makes it a little more

[1:06:59] difficult. And one of the things I I

[1:07:01] mean, just throwing this out there, um

[1:07:04] one One things I thought about is if you

[1:07:06] move that berm, you have erosion, It's

[1:07:08] cons- pretty dynamic, it's hard to to

[1:07:10] quantify that flow.

[1:07:13] Would something like pumping the water

[1:07:16] from the north arm into the south where

[1:07:18] you can have more substantial calculations, you can quantify that flow a little bit

[1:07:24] better. Would would definitely improve

[1:07:27] your numbers going from south to north

[1:07:29] and then north to south as well to kind

[1:07:31] of maybe get a cuz I know there's a lot

[1:07:33] of uncertainty in our flow measurements.

[1:07:35] So, I'll I'll just say that we we

[1:07:37] actually had the Jacobs run some

[1:07:38] engineering on putting in a more

[1:07:40] intelligent structure to see about like

[1:07:43] maybe having something more uniform

[1:07:44] that's more easily adjusted. We also had

[1:07:46] them explore the thought of like maybe

[1:07:48] we put in pumps and you can run it both

[1:07:51] ways and you don't have to worry about

[1:07:52] gravity and elevation and all that fun

[1:07:54] stuff or siphons or other things. Um it

[1:07:57] gets really really really expensive and

[1:07:59] also the pumping uh

[1:08:01] just getting enough electricity and the

[1:08:03] size of the pumps, I mean, any of these

[1:08:04] projects end up up at like 30, 40

[1:08:06] million dollars. And so, I think that

[1:08:09] when we discussed it here at the

[1:08:10] salinity committee, it was kind of like,

[1:08:11] well, you know, this rock berm that's

[1:08:13] basically free um is working good

[1:08:16] enough, but I think that this is still

[1:08:18] something that we're interested in to

[1:08:20] see if we can refine that. And we are

[1:08:22] still working to incorporate some

[1:08:25] components of what Jeff's team came up

[1:08:27] with which one of them was uh a

[1:08:29] protective structure, so seiches and

[1:08:31] wave action don't affect the um you

[1:08:34] know, the berms so we don't have like

[1:08:35] accidental blowouts. We're a little more

[1:08:37] informed and can like be more precise

[1:08:39] with our adjustments and I think for

[1:08:41] monitoring and measuring um having

[1:08:43] something that's more uniform and not

[1:08:44] constantly moving will also help, but um

[1:08:47] that's yeah, we're we're still working

[1:08:49] on that, but I think there's going to be

[1:08:50] core permitting and um other other

[1:08:53] issues along with that. And then I also

[1:08:55] just had a quick question as well. Has

[1:08:56] anybody looked to see if salinity, like

[1:08:59] the actual concentration and nutrients

[1:09:01] are are they correlated? Cuz I would

[1:09:03] assume that

[1:09:05] they've got to be somewhat in the same

[1:09:06] realm, right?

[1:09:08] I haven't looked at that directly, Ben,

[1:09:10] but I'm the nutrient concentrations tend

[1:09:13] to be fairly stable over time.

[1:09:16] Um and while while we kind of see these

[1:09:18] step changes in salinity based on

[1:09:20] changing mass, but I mean recently, so I

[1:09:23] found the email that we sent to Gary and

[1:09:26] uh

[1:09:26] yeah, we are seeing some changes in the

[1:09:28] South Arm nutrient mass more recently.

[1:09:30] Um so yeah, that's a good question. It's

[1:09:32] just how how tightly coupled are they,

[1:09:34] which is part of the analysis we're

[1:09:35] doing at the the breach of just looking

[1:09:37] at those fluxes and how their relative

[1:09:39] changes are.

[1:09:39] >> I mean I would think that assuming that

[1:09:41] you know, when we have big infusions of

[1:09:43] North Arm brines and our salinity goes

[1:09:44] up and whatnot, that we would also have

[1:09:47] big infusions of nutrients as well. And

[1:09:49] so I think it'd be really interesting

[1:09:51] before we start making decisions on

[1:09:53] modifying the berm, like Thomas said,

[1:09:55] you know, like can we refine that and

[1:09:57] understand more closely like what how

[1:09:59] that's related, but also you know, did

[1:10:02] we look back and see like the last time

[1:10:04] that we were 120 g per liter in the

[1:10:06] spring, what was our nutrient where were we at on nutrients? Cuz it's

[1:10:10] just it seems to me like it'd be really

[1:10:11] interesting to know if we're just not

[1:10:13] used to being at this kind of

[1:10:14] concentration. I mean, we we were at

[1:10:15] like 90 g per liter last spring coming

[1:10:18] into this if I remember correctly. And

[1:10:20] so, you know, we're we're kind of slowly

[1:10:22] going back up and that also is what

[1:10:23] makes me a little nervous about allowing

[1:10:26] too much North Arm inflow is that you

[1:10:28] know, we're one really heavy

[1:10:31] evaporative, you know, summer, we could

[1:10:34] be right back up at 150 g per liter, 155

[1:10:37] and we're like, you know, right on the

[1:10:38] cusp of being where we've been trying to

[1:10:39] manage, you know, to keep it below that.

[1:10:41] So, I don't know. It's a little nerve-racking to think

[1:10:45] that we're going to get

[1:10:46] too close, especially

[1:10:48] and we also might be coming into another

[1:10:49] like 10-year longer plus drought, so we

[1:10:53] really got to think about, you know,

[1:10:54] what we do today for the next 10 years.

[1:10:57] I had two questions um Bill and then

[1:11:00] Phil um and then I think it would be

[1:11:02] really good to see what Christine's

[1:11:04] numbers are. I think that'll help

[1:11:05] provide a lot of context to this. Go

[1:11:08] ahead Bill.

[1:11:09] I'm just wondering whether the shortcut

[1:11:11] load during runoff is exporting a lot of

[1:11:14] nitrogen

[1:11:16] and that it is that a major part of the

[1:11:18] problem? And Christine, you may or may

[1:11:19] not have a sense of that, but I'm just

[1:11:20] throwing that out there.

[1:11:22] Yeah, I you know, the Bear I think at

[1:11:24] certain I'll have to look at the the um

[1:11:27] the estimates we generated Bill and

[1:11:29] maybe I can prepare that for Wednesday.

[1:11:30] I don't know if you'll be at the TAG.

[1:11:31] The Bear is being the largest inflow

[1:11:33] carries a lot of mass, but some of our

[1:11:35] other inflows like the Goggin and

[1:11:37] Farmington Bay actually have high high

[1:11:39] concentrations of nutrients, so they

[1:11:41] actually contribute a large portion of

[1:11:43] the nutrient mass, but I think yeah,

[1:11:45] anytime, you know, you think about

[1:11:46] contributions from the Bear, there's a

[1:11:48] risk of it being lost due to that short

[1:11:49] circuiting. So, it's an important thing

[1:11:52] to consider.

[1:11:55] And Bill, those uh

[1:11:57] flows coming into the Bear, they might

[1:11:59] be more dilute than what's in the South

[1:12:02] Arm brine itself because

[1:12:05] if I'm remembering the 2017 NAWQS

[1:12:07] report, on an annual basis, river

[1:12:10] inflows are contributing about 8%

[1:12:13] of the nitrogen. Soluble nitrogen.

[1:12:16] So,

[1:12:19] uh it you know, the river inflow may be

[1:12:21] more dilute than what the South Arm

[1:12:23] brine is. It's delivering nutrients

[1:12:25] because they stick in the lake, but it

[1:12:27] might be more dilute than the brine

[1:12:28] itself. So, that shortcutting,

[1:12:30] ironically, could be exporting less than

[1:12:33] if it was just straight South Arm brine,

[1:12:36] but

[1:12:37] I can't be certain of that.

[1:12:39] The the way the numbers stick out in my

[1:12:40] mind is that the

[1:12:43] nitrogen inflow from the runoff is

[1:12:46] basically offset by atmospheric loss.

[1:12:49] Those are kind of

[1:12:51] they kind of cancel each other out every

[1:12:53] year and so the long-term model that

[1:12:56] Gary's been building for us treats

[1:12:58] nitrogen as just a stable pool

[1:13:00] and it dilutes when you in increase with

[1:13:04] runoff and it concentrates as things are

[1:13:07] evaporating and now what the berm has

[1:13:09] done it's it's just decoupled where that

[1:13:12] nitrogen sits. So the amount of nitrogen

[1:13:14] is kind of the same it's just so much

[1:13:17] more of it is in the north arm than the

[1:13:18] south arm and when the south arm is what

[1:13:21] relies on that nitrogen

[1:13:23] to the effectiveness of industry and

[1:13:27] avian population

[1:13:29] that's kind of hurting us is is kind of

[1:13:32] the the thought that I'm putting out

[1:13:34] there that I want to have a conversation

[1:13:35] about in the future. And that concept of

[1:13:38] a

[1:13:39] somewhat stable nitrogen pool being

[1:13:41] diluted or concentrated is present in

[1:13:44] USGS data while the water quality

[1:13:46] laboratory is still willing to run the

[1:13:48] samples you could develop a pretty good

[1:13:50] correlation between lake elevation and

[1:13:52] total nitrogen concentration

[1:13:55] um but the open question is has that

[1:13:57] relationship changed the way it did with

[1:13:59] salinity and part of the problem with

[1:14:02] the water quality lab not running these

[1:14:03] samples anymore is that happened um

[1:14:06] during a period where you'd notice that

[1:14:08] step change and we don't have the data

[1:14:10] and uh Christine's presented on that in

[1:14:12] TAG before it's a bit of a

[1:14:14] um

[1:14:15] bad timing to have a data gap so that's

[1:14:17] kind of the open question but prior to

[1:14:20] um a lot of berm modification it was

[1:14:22] fairly tightly coupled elevation and

[1:14:25] total nitrogen in USGS data so but

[1:14:27] that's

[1:14:28] I want to make sure we've got um cuz

[1:14:30] that it sounds like Wednesday and this

[1:14:33] nutrient issues going to be the main

[1:14:35] event and

[1:14:37] um and so we'll have all of that I mean

[1:14:39] a lot of you will be there. Did you

[1:14:42] some quick Yeah I just wanted to make

[1:14:43] one more comment is that in in a little

[1:14:45] bit of research we did on nutrient

[1:14:47] cycling, which was Christine and the

[1:14:49] USGS did that work.

[1:14:51] We found that it was a lot of

[1:14:52] sequestration of nutrients in the in the

[1:14:55] benthic portion of the lake. And you

[1:14:57] know, one wonders as we lost the deep

[1:15:00] brine layer, how that may or may not

[1:15:02] have contributed to nutrients. So, I

[1:15:04] think there's an added complexity with

[1:15:06] nutrients in that the cycling, you know,

[1:15:09] creates a much more complex situation

[1:15:11] than let's say with minerals in the

[1:15:13] lake. So, Yeah, what I agree. There's

[1:15:15] multiple chemical and biological

[1:15:16] processes happening with nutrients that

[1:15:18] is not necessarily happening happening

[1:15:20] with salinity. But, I I will be sharing

[1:15:22] on more on that Wednesday. Also, maybe

[1:15:23] there won't be time cuz we'll be talking

[1:15:25] about the firm the whole time, but um

[1:15:27] and I did look up our email chain with

[1:15:29] Gary and I had estimated about 0.1 to

[1:15:32] 0.2 mg per liter nitrogen decrease in

[1:15:35] the South Arm. So, that's concentration

[1:15:37] per year. And so, but it's important to

[1:15:39] consider the cumulative effects of what

[1:15:40] that might be. So, each year which we're

[1:15:42] cutting off that nitrogen supply from

[1:15:44] the North Arm by three year by by year

[1:15:47] three, then I estimate about half a

[1:15:49] milligram per liter decline of nitrogen

[1:15:50] in the South Arm. And these are very rough estimates based on limited

[1:15:54] data we have. Um but, that's gives you

[1:15:56] some sense of from what you know,

[1:15:59] conversations with Gary and looking at

[1:16:00] our data with you know, Scott and I

[1:16:02] looking at the data. So, And then just

[1:16:03] for context for those online, half a

[1:16:05] milligram per liter, what is that as

[1:16:07] like a percentage of total nitrogen?

[1:16:08] Percentage, it's like the the South Arm

[1:16:11] nitrogen concentrations around four,

[1:16:13] like four four and a half. So, fair to

[1:16:15] say Five, yeah, so Cool. Just anywhere,

[1:16:17] yeah.

[1:16:18] All right, let's get into the forecast

[1:16:21] and

[1:16:37] Okay.

[1:16:38] Well, I followed the norm the approach

[1:16:40] we normally do, but um as mentioned, we

[1:16:42] may have already peaked. So, these may

[1:16:44] not be super meaningful. Again, our most

[1:16:46] recent uh estimate for as of March 4th

[1:16:48] was 119 g per liter based on observed

[1:16:51] data. I'm and then I I kind of only

[1:16:53] carry this to April 30th, just assuming

[1:16:56] that this is not going to be a long run

[1:16:57] off-season. And so, any precipitation

[1:17:00] coming in during that time, evaporation,

[1:17:02] inflows, all that stuff is considered.

[1:17:05] And I'll just

[1:17:06] cut to the chase here. Here's a table of

[1:17:08] predictions for April 30th. Um I include three climate uh scenarios.

[1:17:13] So, starting at the top row is our dry

[1:17:15] warm, middle is our average condition,

[1:17:17] and then uh the bottom one is a wet cool

[1:17:19] condition. So, ranging from 112 to 118.

[1:17:23] I kind of put in a little plug there um

[1:17:25] just showing what the NRCS forecast at

[1:17:27] 4192.4

[1:17:29] is what they forecast for the seasonal

[1:17:30] peak, and that would result in a uh

[1:17:33] salinity of 117 g per liter. So, just a

[1:17:35] little bit

[1:17:36] lower than than our um volume weighted

[1:17:39] salinity we calculated for March 4th.

[1:17:41] So, that not much change from what we're

[1:17:43] already seeing, unless we get a lot more

[1:17:46] precipitation coming in.

[1:17:48] Is my Okay, mic's on. Okay.

[1:17:51] So, um and then I just did a really This

[1:17:54] is my back-of-the-envelope calculation

[1:17:56] for fall of 2026 and what that might be.

[1:17:59] Um this is a plot showing the annual

[1:18:00] drop in elevation from a spring peak to

[1:18:03] fall low back to 1960, approximately. We

[1:18:06] could to show that the um elevation

[1:18:07] decline each year has been going up.

[1:18:10] That's a

[1:18:11] significant trend we're seeing. And so,

[1:18:13] then I just sort of took that average um

[1:18:16] decline, 2.66 ft, and then applied a

[1:18:19] confidence interval to get a range. Um

[1:18:21] so, anywhere from 2.9 to 2.4 ft foot

[1:18:25] decline from our spring high to our fall

[1:18:27] low. Using the NRCS uh spring peak

[1:18:31] forecast of 117 g per liter, that gets

[1:18:34] us to a fall concentration ranging from

[1:18:36] like around 140 g per liter.

[1:18:38] I did also try this with volume looking

[1:18:41] at the trend in um South Arm volume

[1:18:43] decline. There's still a trend um

[1:18:46] but the elevations the the fall

[1:18:49] elevations

[1:18:50] kind of were not as reasonable. So here

[1:18:53] we're kind of looking at around 3 ft

[1:18:54] decline high twos, which is in line with

[1:18:57] our historical record. If I apply a the

[1:18:59] volume volume approach, I'm getting more

[1:19:01] into like the 3 and 1/2 ft decline.

[1:19:03] Maybe that's reasonable for this year,

[1:19:04] but it's not something we've observed uh

[1:19:07] before. And those concentrations, if I

[1:19:10] do that, that's around 145 to 150 g per

[1:19:13] liter for the fall. So just giving you

[1:19:14] some sense of the different approaches

[1:19:16] that um

[1:19:17] can be used, but this is gives us some

[1:19:20] idea.

[1:19:22] Okay, so now I'm going to walk us

[1:19:24] through these couple of different

[1:19:25] scenarios. And please jump in at any

[1:19:27] time if there's questions, cuz I'm going

[1:19:29] to be using our iso mass plot, which I

[1:19:30] realize can be a bit of a a mind game.

[1:19:34] But the first scenario is that we lower

[1:19:36] the berm. Basically uh Ben asked, you

[1:19:39] know, reached out maybe a a month ago or

[1:19:41] so and said, "Can we just start to think

[1:19:43] about what how salinity would change

[1:19:45] under a couple of different scenarios?"

[1:19:47] The first being we want to import salt

[1:19:49] during the summer because we're kind of

[1:19:51] getting in you know, maybe we're

[1:19:53] flirting with low range. What would

[1:19:55] happen if we open the berm and imported

[1:19:56] some salt over the summer time? So

[1:19:58] that's our first scenario. We lower the

[1:20:00] berm in May um to import salt from the

[1:20:02] north during the summer and then we

[1:20:04] raise the berm in November-ish

[1:20:07] to uh to trap all spring inflows. So and

[1:20:09] this analysis is assuming when we raise

[1:20:11] the berm, we disconnect the north and

[1:20:13] the south arm. So assuming that we stay

[1:20:15] below that 4192 if that's the highest we

[1:20:17] can go for the berm uh construction. The

[1:20:20] second scenario is we don't change the

[1:20:23] berm until November of 2026. So we

[1:20:25] continue in the paradigm we are now,

[1:20:26] which is uh seems to be a net export of

[1:20:29] salt. So salt will continue to ratchet

[1:20:31] down. So those are the two things we're

[1:20:32] considering.

[1:20:34] Um all right, so here we can get

[1:20:35] familiar with where we are now as of

[1:20:37] March 4th our measurements

[1:20:39] are we have our South Arm elevation on

[1:20:41] the Y axis and our volume weighted

[1:20:42] salinity um on the X axis. And we're as

[1:20:46] of March 4th we were sitting 118 and

[1:20:48] 4192.2 ft. So that's our starting

[1:20:51] condition. And these kind of dashed

[1:20:53] lines just kind of mark um how I

[1:20:56] triangulate to see to get to these these

[1:20:59] points these estimates that I'll be

[1:21:00] getting at. And all these are based on a

[1:21:02] spreadsheet mass balance calculation as

[1:21:04] well, but these plots actually

[1:21:05] illustrate really well how we move

[1:21:07] through these three variables. And that

[1:21:10] the dashed uh ice mass line that's kind

[1:21:12] of curved that's in between the 800

[1:21:14] million tons and the billion ton, that's

[1:21:16] kind of our current mass. So you can see

[1:21:18] how I'm triangulating between the dashed

[1:21:21] line that is the mass, the dashed line

[1:21:22] that's elevation, and then salinity.

[1:21:24] That gets us to our salinity.

[1:21:26] So

[1:21:27] uh assuming that we peak around May 1st,

[1:21:31] um this is the NRCS estimate. So

[1:21:33] assuming we get up to 4192.4 which we've

[1:21:36] actually kind of already hit um and that gets our salinity to 117 g per

[1:21:40] liter. At that time I'm estimating

[1:21:42] around a mass of 870 million tons.

[1:21:46] So then moving forward I introduce these

[1:21:48] berm management modifications. So for

[1:21:51] the first scenario we're lowering the

[1:21:52] berm on May 1st. So what happens with

[1:21:54] that?

[1:21:55] Um

[1:21:57] as of November 1st, 2026 we've got two

[1:21:59] different scenarios. The kind of

[1:22:01] orangish uh yellowish scenario is that

[1:22:04] we import salt over the summer. So

[1:22:06] that's the situation where we would have

[1:22:08] lowered it and we would have imported

[1:22:10] salt um on the order of 35 million tons

[1:22:13] over the summer.

[1:22:15] That raises that would raise our mass uh

[1:22:17] to 905 million tons. That's the kind of

[1:22:20] the um higher dashed line. And then the

[1:22:23] blue box and the blue dot represent what

[1:22:25] if we don't change the berm at all? We gradually export salt so that those

[1:22:30] two lines, that's really the key. Those

[1:22:32] two dashed isomath lines are offset and

[1:22:35] that gives us our range in salinity. So,

[1:22:37] 141 g per liter for not modifying the

[1:22:39] berm in May and 149 g per liter in the

[1:22:42] fall for modifying the berm in May.

[1:22:45] Again, because we're just importing more

[1:22:46] salt and that's the effect on the South

[1:22:48] Arm.

[1:22:49] So, after this point, for both of these

[1:22:51] scenarios, we raise the berm completely

[1:22:53] so we're up to we're disconnecting the

[1:22:55] North and the South Arms. The mass stays

[1:22:58] the same from here moving forward. So,

[1:22:59] we have our two scenarios, one at 900

[1:23:02] and 5 million tons, one at 856 million

[1:23:04] tons.

[1:23:06] So, taking us forward to May 30th of

[1:23:08] 2027,

[1:23:10] um this is now these very variations we

[1:23:12] see are really based on estimates of

[1:23:15] inflow from the climate. So, the um

[1:23:18] the orangeish color, that's the scenario

[1:23:20] where we have the import salt and a

[1:23:22] really dry warm uh climate condition.

[1:23:25] That would get us to 135 g per liter in

[1:23:28] the spring.

[1:23:29] If we don't modify the berm, we have

[1:23:31] really wet cool condition, the model

[1:23:32] indicates we would be at 110 g per liter

[1:23:35] in the spring of 2027. Huge range, but

[1:23:38] gives you some idea of um the effect of

[1:23:41] the berm modification, the effect of

[1:23:42] climate different climates. And I guess

[1:23:44] I'll point out that for the scenario

[1:23:46] where you do raise lower the berm, this

[1:23:49] kind of orangey one,

[1:23:51] that one alone, given um kind of a wet

[1:23:55] Wait, that would take us Okay, I'm not

[1:23:56] going to try to do this do this on the

[1:23:58] fly. There's that big range you can kind

[1:24:00] of see there.

[1:24:02] And then we'll get going further to

[1:24:03] October 30th of 2027, still assuming the

[1:24:06] mass has been the same, that things are

[1:24:08] disconnected. Um

[1:24:10] you can kind of see where that would

[1:24:11] shift everything. So, for the scenario

[1:24:13] where we did import salt over the summer

[1:24:16] of 2026, that gets us to 165 g per

[1:24:19] liter. And then for the

[1:24:21] condition where the berm was not

[1:24:23] modified in May um for a wet cool

[1:24:25] condition you get 125 grams per liter.

[1:24:27] And so again, I just highlighted the

[1:24:28] kind of the extremes of what these could

[1:24:30] be just to give you a sense, but I will

[1:24:33] say

[1:24:34] in both of these if if the berm is

[1:24:36] raised in November this you know this

[1:24:38] November what you have to consider is

[1:24:41] the

[1:24:41] then you're setting yourself up for a

[1:24:43] head differential. So why while we're

[1:24:45] exceeding um 100 you know this 160 grams

[1:24:49] per liter optimal in this kind of

[1:24:50] extreme condition that's highlighted in

[1:24:53] orange

[1:24:55] you are going to be in an export

[1:24:58] paradigm um

[1:24:59] from here on out without the ability to

[1:25:01] import salt from the north arm. And

[1:25:03] that's just something Ben and I kind of

[1:25:05] discussed is like when you modify the

[1:25:07] berm maybe you're shifting your salinity

[1:25:09] range in the south arm but you're also

[1:25:11] um kind of setting yourself up for a

[1:25:13] certain condition moving forward which

[1:25:15] is that

[1:25:16] you know when you lower the berm or

[1:25:18] whatever you were going to going to do

[1:25:19] you're going to have a head differential

[1:25:20] so that the south is going to be

[1:25:22] exporting um into the north arm. You're

[1:25:24] going to be in a paradigm where you lose

[1:25:26] salt mass after modification of the berm

[1:25:29] raising of the berm I should say.

[1:25:31] So this is these are the this is it. So

[1:25:33] if you guys have any questions or um

[1:25:36] this helps facilitate what could happen.

[1:25:39] Does that make sense? The walking this

[1:25:41] okay.

[1:25:45] So we need to crystal ball see what the

[1:25:47] next 5 years

[1:25:48] Exactly. Yes. Can we work on that?

[1:25:54] I I do think though

[1:25:56] you know this erosion that's happened

[1:25:59] like we're

[1:26:00] we've been pretty lucky that we're now

[1:26:02] only exporting did you say 28 million

[1:26:04] tons a year?

[1:26:06] And so we're this kind of like

[1:26:07] equilibrium and I think it'll continue

[1:26:09] to

[1:26:10] probably erode from time to time. And so

[1:26:12] part of me just thinks that maybe we

[1:26:14] just

[1:26:15] leave it where it's at and continue to

[1:26:17] monitor and then react if it seems like

[1:26:20] things are not going the way we want it

[1:26:21] to, but you know, like when Christine

[1:26:24] and I discussed this, I think the idea

[1:26:26] of being able to get it, you know, bring

[1:26:28] back some of that salt and nutrients,

[1:26:31] you know, like this is another portion

[1:26:32] of that that we need to consider and I

[1:26:34] think we're highly considering changing

[1:26:35] this committee's name to snack so we can

[1:26:38] incorporate nutrients into the uh

[1:26:40] salinity.

[1:26:41] But uh but those are some of the things

[1:26:43] that I think we have to seriously

[1:26:45] consider, but it does put us into a

[1:26:46] position where, you know, if we in 2027,

[1:26:49] which it's kind of crazy to think about

[1:26:51] um that far out right now, it does put

[1:26:53] us in a position where then we would

[1:26:55] continue in that export paradigm, but

[1:26:57] then are we just set ourselves up for

[1:26:58] just doing this all the time and forever

[1:27:01] or can we find that stable condition

[1:27:02] where the berm

[1:27:04] you know, we get just enough from the

[1:27:06] north arm, but not too much. I mean, I I

[1:27:09] tend to think that maybe that's where we

[1:27:10] want to go is maybe lowering it just

[1:27:12] enough to try to keep the export uh at

[1:27:15] zero.

[1:27:17] I don't know.

[1:27:24] Yeah, that's a real problem, Evan,

[1:27:26] because if we continue in this drought,

[1:27:29] then we know that unless we can get a

[1:27:31] significant amount of

[1:27:34] uh additional leased water into the

[1:27:35] lake, the lake's going to keep going

[1:27:37] down and the only way to prevent that is

[1:27:41] to reduce the evaporative surface, which

[1:27:43] is making it a smaller lake shutting off

[1:27:45] the north arm.

[1:27:47] Then we lose that tool.

[1:27:51] Between a rock and a hard place here.

[1:27:53] >> I'll say too that I mean, there's quite a bit of regulatory uh you know,

[1:27:58] oversight on on this. Like we can't keep

[1:28:01] the north arm, you know, segregated from

[1:28:03] the south arm and and make a lower

[1:28:05] smaller lake by by uh

[1:28:08] you know, recommendation or just by

[1:28:09] doing that. It

[1:28:11] There's a There's a lot of strings tied

[1:28:12] to that. So, we can only do that I think

[1:28:14] for 18 months and then we have to lower

[1:28:16] it again. So, there's there's things that we have

[1:28:20] to consider, but I do think when we can

[1:28:21] buy ourselves like another like if we're

[1:28:23] entering into a drought year, if we can

[1:28:25] buy an extra year of keeping you know my

[1:28:27] curly lights wetted, keeping the

[1:28:29] salinity where we wanted, keeping boat

[1:28:31] harbors functional, keeping you know,

[1:28:34] all these things intact.

[1:28:36] Like that's something we have to

[1:28:37] consider as well and that's not

[1:28:39] something that we were able to really

[1:28:40] talk about or consider

[1:28:42] prior to the legislation in the special

[1:28:44] session.

[1:28:46] And And don't don't forget

[1:28:49] we can reverse flow like come September.

[1:28:53] You know, we shut our our pumps off on

[1:28:55] Promontory Point. You can reverse flow

[1:28:58] and

[1:28:59] you know, continue to move North Arm

[1:29:01] brine

[1:29:03] you know,

[1:29:04] controlled

[1:29:05] you know, into the South Arm if there

[1:29:07] was a

[1:29:08] dire nitrogen need. You know, so so that

[1:29:11] could operate.

[1:29:13] I'll say October through through March.

[1:29:17] You know, so that's not an insignificant

[1:29:19] quantity.

[1:29:25] So, So, for for now though, just to make

[1:29:28] sure we're all on the same page, we're

[1:29:30] not doing anything until we all get back

[1:29:34] together and decide we need to do

[1:29:35] something or does anybody feel like

[1:29:36] there's something that needs to be done

[1:29:38] between now and the next SAC meeting

[1:29:40] because I

[1:29:42] personally I feel like I'm I'm just like

[1:29:44] on the fence could go either way

[1:29:46] and there's a lot of benefits pros and

[1:29:47] cons on either either way we look at it,

[1:29:50] but I don't know that we have enough

[1:29:51] information to make decisions based on

[1:29:52] nutrients yet and I also don't know that

[1:29:55] it makes a ton of sense to do anything

[1:29:57] before we know you know, what this next

[1:30:00] storm looks like or you know, how hot

[1:30:02] and dry the summer was. I mean, there's

[1:30:03] just so many variables that it seems to

[1:30:05] me like waiting this out a little bit

[1:30:07] and reconvening if we think there's

[1:30:08] something to do would be the the way

[1:30:10] that I'd like to go forward.

[1:30:13] Yeah, I'm definitely on board with that.

[1:30:15] I just wanted nitrogen in the

[1:30:17] conversation and I think we're I think

[1:30:19] we're there because I mean this speaks

[1:30:21] to Thomas's trepidation and mine of like

[1:30:23] we're right back to 165

[1:30:26] if everything shakes out in the negative

[1:30:28] way like we think it might. So.

[1:30:31] But as long as we have, you know, I

[1:30:33] agree with Ben that finding kind of that

[1:30:35] middle ground of maybe we

[1:30:37] lower the berm to some

[1:30:39] lower than it is now but not all the

[1:30:41] way. Maybe there is some middle ground

[1:30:43] and then we can tighten up this range a

[1:30:45] little bit and that's kind of the

[1:30:47] homework for this group is

[1:30:51] run what numbers we have and

[1:30:53] get back together and see what's going

[1:30:54] to be the best option going forward.

[1:30:56] >> Is there a way to, you know, with the erosion that's occurred, is there a

[1:31:00] way to model what a uniform, you know,

[1:31:03] berm would look like at 4186, 4187 just

[1:31:07] to know if we were able to modify that

[1:31:08] and see if, you know, what would that

[1:31:10] look like? Like could we try to figure

[1:31:12] out what that zero export looks like

[1:31:14] where it's communicating just enough

[1:31:16] that we're maybe getting some nutrients

[1:31:17] back but during runoff we're, you know,

[1:31:19] exporting a little bit like

[1:31:22] do you think there's any way to try to

[1:31:23] figure out how we balance the checkbook

[1:31:25] on this one and

[1:31:29] Um yeah, we can definitely run the

[1:31:31] hydraulics. Jeff, you guys have done

[1:31:32] that, right?

[1:31:33] Jacobs?

[1:31:34] >> We Yeah, with the CFD model.

[1:31:37] Um I think that can be done.

[1:31:39] Um

[1:31:41] it's just a matter of identifying

[1:31:43] all defining all the different variables

[1:31:45] that go into it.

[1:31:46] Um but I think that I guess that's what

[1:31:48] I

[1:31:49] I'm just thinking over the next month or

[1:31:51] two.

[1:31:52] I mean this week there will be a lot of

[1:31:54] discussion at the TAG meeting on on

[1:31:56] nutrients and

[1:31:58] which hopefully the outcome from that

[1:32:00] can be, you know, what's the sense of

[1:32:02] urgency

[1:32:04] on this and, you know, what's

[1:32:07] what might the trajectory be over the

[1:32:09] next year or two? Um,

[1:32:11] cuz we're

[1:32:13] So, nutrients just adds another variable

[1:32:15] to the mix, you know, where we're we've

[1:32:17] been focused on well, what might the

[1:32:19] inflows be

[1:32:21] and how do we manage the salinity based

[1:32:23] on that? And now now we have another

[1:32:26] variable that works in opposite of

[1:32:29] salinity.

[1:32:30] And so, that makes our fine line even

[1:32:35] narrower um, to try to balance all those

[1:32:37] different things.

[1:32:39] Um, so I think the key to bracketing

[1:32:41] that is just trying to understand well,

[1:32:43] how urgent are we? And I think what you

[1:32:45] did here with the salinity is fantastic

[1:32:47] cuz it gives us an idea of

[1:32:50] what's the worst that could be um,

[1:32:52] and where might be a more probable

[1:32:54] approach to it.

[1:32:56] And I think if we could somehow

[1:33:00] take the nutrient and follow the same

[1:33:02] assumptions you did to see, you know,

[1:33:05] what might happen if we do these two

[1:33:07] scenarios

[1:33:08] for the nutrients and then we can and

[1:33:11] then it's going to come down to what's

[1:33:13] worse.

[1:33:15] I I think um,

[1:33:18] cuz unless

[1:33:20] So, I I mean, I think it over the next

[1:33:22] month So, this week we have the tag

[1:33:23] meeting and then if if we can try to

[1:33:27] estimate well, what would the berm need

[1:33:28] to be to try to back to get to a net

[1:33:30] zero flux? Um,

[1:33:33] cuz that would help bring some nutrients

[1:33:35] back into it. And

[1:33:38] So, my where I'm going with this is that

[1:33:39] perhaps rather than having a meeting our

[1:33:42] next meeting in June, we might need to

[1:33:44] have a a meeting in between just to to focus on this specific question.

[1:33:51] And

[1:33:52] just to try to grapple with, you know,

[1:33:55] how how can we balance this? And do we

[1:33:57] want to make a a change of the berm now

[1:34:00] or should we just wait till November?

[1:34:03] Jeff. Should Christine should should we

[1:34:06] make a calculation that would bring us

[1:34:08] somewhere in between on a berm

[1:34:10] modification?

[1:34:11] Where we would lower the berm but not

[1:34:15] entirely to a level where we end up

[1:34:19] between the orange and the blue.

[1:34:22] Is that

[1:34:23] something we can do?

[1:34:24] >> Meaning a specific berm elevation?

[1:34:27] >> berm elevation?

[1:34:28] >> I think we would need to talk to Sam or Jeff because I think it's it's about there's a number of factors

[1:34:35] but it's all about hydraulic head, you

[1:34:36] know, the concentration in each side of

[1:34:38] the arm, you know, the difference in

[1:34:40] elevation between the two arms and

[1:34:42] really it's predicting flow and and each

[1:34:44] side. And so I can look at historic our

[1:34:47] historical record and and

[1:34:49] but really nothing is going to be

[1:34:51] representative of another berm

[1:34:52] condition. And so I think it really will

[1:34:55] be working with Sam and his team to say,

[1:34:57] "Okay, what if we had a berm at 4186 or

[1:35:00] something straight and then how might

[1:35:02] that affect our north to south flow and

[1:35:04] our south to north flow?" And really the

[1:35:05] calculation is easy. We just need net

[1:35:08] salt flux and we can assume a certain

[1:35:10] amount of what we can measure the the

[1:35:12] salt in the north arm. We can easily

[1:35:13] measure the salt fluxes. It's just

[1:35:15] dialing in, you know, what the dis you

[1:35:18] know, what the discharge will actually

[1:35:20] be estimating discharge under that

[1:35:21] condition. That's the hard part. The

[1:35:23] salt flux calculation isn't hard but you

[1:35:25] know, making that salt flux a net zero

[1:35:27] essentially I think is what I'm hearing.

[1:35:28] Um and then seeing if Sam has insight in

[1:35:31] how we you know, what what cross section

[1:35:34] shape gets us there for the conditions

[1:35:36] we have at a given moment.

[1:35:39] Mhm.

[1:35:41] Jeff, I I like your idea of reconvening

[1:35:43] before our June meeting um since we know

[1:35:46] that the runoff is probably going to end

[1:35:48] much sooner than it normally would. I

[1:35:50] would suggest maybe we should

[1:35:52] you know, shoot for something

[1:35:54] maybe at the issues forum. We all sit

[1:35:55] down and discuss this at lunch. But

[1:35:58] or maybe the week after. But

[1:36:00] something where we can have the time of

[1:36:02] kind of seeing when peak runoff is or

[1:36:04] when runoff is finished and know if you

[1:36:07] know, what the summer's looking like.

[1:36:08] We'll probably have a better forecast of

[1:36:09] weather and know what the spring

[1:36:11] precipitation looked like. So, maybe we

[1:36:13] get together then and then come ready to

[1:36:16] discuss whether or not like focus on

[1:36:18] that whether we want to decide if we're

[1:36:21] going to modify the berm leave it the

[1:36:23] same or do it in the fall. Mhm. And

[1:36:26] that'll I think that should just be the

[1:36:28] really the sole discussion. Maybe some

[1:36:29] forecasts and then jump right into what

[1:36:32] we all think we need to do. Right.

[1:36:34] And a nutrient iso-mass plot. Oh, yeah.

[1:36:37] We're going to enter a new world

[1:36:38] together with a nutrient iso-mass plot.

[1:36:41] Which is going to be hard cuz it's not

[1:36:43] conservative and we don't know all the

[1:36:44] nutrient cycling mechanisms, but we can

[1:36:46] try.

[1:36:48] And I think that net zero salinity

[1:36:52] scenario just in my mind if we find

[1:36:54] that, you know, whether it's 86 or 87,

[1:36:56] whatever where we're importing just as

[1:36:59] much salt as we're exporting, we'll

[1:37:00] actually

[1:37:03] if everything shakes out the way it is

[1:37:04] in my head

[1:37:06] and that what I understand in my limited

[1:37:08] understanding of it is we should be a

[1:37:09] net import of nitrogen from north to

[1:37:11] south, which would benefit the South

[1:37:14] arm.

[1:37:15] Yeah. So, I think if we can run those

[1:37:17] models and have that for a meeting in

[1:37:20] you know, the next before June. Yeah. I

[1:37:22] think that would be a good conversation

[1:37:24] to have and a timely conversation to

[1:37:26] have. And then yeah, we can make a

[1:37:27] decision based on those later and Right.

[1:37:30] maybe it is leave it alone.

[1:37:32] But then we'll know.

[1:37:33] Right.

[1:37:34] Great.

[1:37:36] Well, let's um

[1:37:38] we'll we'll we'll schedule the next

[1:37:39] meeting here in a little bit. Um

[1:37:41] but I guess moving on

[1:37:43] there's and there's so much that we

[1:37:45] could talk about with that. Um but let's

[1:37:47] given the discussion that's going to

[1:37:49] happen on Wednesday

[1:37:50] um, and the modeling questions that we

[1:37:52] have, I think that'll really help inform

[1:37:55] the next our next time where we discuss

[1:37:57] this. So,

[1:37:58] I think that's a good move. Um, I think

[1:38:01] I guess I I'm looking at the time here

[1:38:04] and wanted to just make sure we can

[1:38:06] touch on the last few agenda items. Um,

[1:38:09] the the next one was was the protocol

[1:38:12] that

[1:38:13] Christine's been using

[1:38:15] that we've been using and just wanted to

[1:38:18] see if if there were any remaining

[1:38:20] comments. And Christine, now that this

[1:38:22] has gone through the full USGS review

[1:38:25] and approval process, correct?

[1:38:28] Yes, this is um, ready to be published

[1:38:30] whenever this group is says it's ready.

[1:38:33] Great.

[1:38:34] So, any I guess any questions from the

[1:38:36] committee on this?

[1:38:42] Any concerns with approving it? And if not, entertain a motion to approve

[1:38:48] it.

[1:38:51] Thomas?

[1:38:52] Move. So moved. And Andrew second it.

[1:38:56] All right. And I guess the vote with the

[1:38:58] committee members, um,

[1:39:00] all those in favor say I.

[1:39:03] I.

[1:39:06] And any any

[1:39:10] one within

[1:39:12] does not want to approve it?

[1:39:16] Or any any further discussion? I guess

[1:39:17] this is the last chance you got if you

[1:39:19] have any more questions or concerns.

[1:39:24] All right. Well, I think it's passed

[1:39:26] unanimously and so we will approve that

[1:39:29] and

[1:39:30] um,

[1:39:31] so I guess from a logistics standpoint,

[1:39:33] and USGS will publish this, correct? And

[1:39:36] then that'll be available. That's the

[1:39:38] question I had, actually. Is if we want

[1:39:40] to put it on a state website or if you

[1:39:42] if we need USGS to host it. Technically,

[1:39:45] anything that gets published by USGS

[1:39:46] needs to be publicly available. So,

[1:39:48] either we figure out a place to host it

[1:39:50] or if there's a centrally located

[1:39:52] website that Forestry, Fire, and State

[1:39:53] Lands or another entity would like to

[1:39:55] host it, then

[1:39:56] that's great. Right.

[1:39:58] I guess I think previous publications

[1:40:01] that we've approved from this committee

[1:40:03] have gone on the USGS or UGS.

[1:40:07] Yeah, we'd be happy to

[1:40:08] publish that. Great. We just I just sent

[1:40:10] it to you, Andrew. Sure. Okay. Awesome.

[1:40:12] Thanks. Great.

[1:40:13] >> I did and may I um

[1:40:15] >> Mhm. share one thing. I did prepare

[1:40:17] slides in case anybody wants to go

[1:40:18] through the method for like the seventh

[1:40:20] time. But, one thing that you had asked

[1:40:22] me to do, Jeff, was to kind of mock up

[1:40:25] what this would look like on the

[1:40:26] hydromapper. Mhm. So, this is I had our

[1:40:29] web developer or maintainer do that. And

[1:40:31] so, currently, this is kind of what you

[1:40:33] see on the homepage. I know this is

[1:40:34] small, but this top plot is what we have

[1:40:36] now, which is salinity showing at 3510

[1:40:39] and at Saltair. These are just raw

[1:40:41] measurements of salinity. Um and if we

[1:40:44] wanted to put in this upper brine layer

[1:40:46] volume weighted estimate, which is the,

[1:40:48] you know, the calculated value, um and

[1:40:50] put that on the hydromapper, I just

[1:40:52] wanted to show you that's what this

[1:40:53] would look like. Um and it and ask if we

[1:40:55] wanted to make that change on the

[1:40:57] hydromapper website. Instead of using

[1:40:59] Saltair, use this kind of calculated

[1:41:02] value.

[1:41:05] So, or you don't have to decide now, but

[1:41:07] it's an option and this is what it looks

[1:41:09] like.

[1:41:12] Any comments or

[1:41:14] thoughts?

[1:41:17] I think we discussed this at the last

[1:41:19] SAC or maybe the one before that when we

[1:41:21] started this, but

[1:41:22] uh you're able to do that for all that

[1:41:24] data going all the way back for the

[1:41:27] hydromapper, right? So, nobody would be

[1:41:28] confused by a change in Yep, exactly.

[1:41:31] Yeah, especially for this upper brine

[1:41:32] layer cuz it's just taking the top 4 m.

[1:41:35] It's less computationally subjective,

[1:41:37] I'll say, because you don't have to

[1:41:38] worry about the interface. So, yes. Mhm.

[1:41:41] I think that's where a lot of folks that

[1:41:43] are, you know, just your everyday person

[1:41:45] who's worried about that goes. So, I

[1:41:47] think as long as it can go back and be

[1:41:48] kind of retroactive, I think that's a

[1:41:51] good idea to do it this way. Okay.

[1:41:53] Mhm.

[1:41:54] Great. And I think I mean the the actual

[1:41:57] data is still available. Mhm.

[1:41:59] Definitely. And if people want to plot

[1:42:01] that as well. Mhm. So, I think

[1:42:05] on the salinity management plan, that

[1:42:07] was one of the

[1:42:08] um

[1:42:09] that one of the goals of calculating

[1:42:11] this upper brine layer number was so

[1:42:13] that the public could kind of have a better understanding of what's

[1:42:17] happening.

[1:42:18] Um

[1:42:19] because of the different spatial

[1:42:20] differences and everything. So.

[1:42:25] I I guess do we need to vote on that?

[1:42:28] Should we vote? I guess any concerns

[1:42:30] with

[1:42:31] using that upper brine layer on the

[1:42:33] hydro mapper? Just making that the

[1:42:35] default number that people can see.

[1:42:38] All right. We'll do that. Sounds good.

[1:42:40] We will implement it.

[1:42:43] Great.

[1:42:45] So, um

[1:42:46] as the the the other thing I wanted to

[1:42:49] touch on and and I think is and I guess in light of the nutrient question, I guess it's a question I wanted to make sure we

[1:42:58] have a chance to think about or talk

[1:43:00] about. We have this draft salinity

[1:43:02] management plan that um we've been

[1:43:05] bouncing around for since last summer, I

[1:43:07] think, and

[1:43:08] um you know, is that something that the

[1:43:11] committee would like to approve now? Um

[1:43:13] we've had Now that we have an approved

[1:43:16] protocol, we're using that in the as

[1:43:19] part of the salinity management plan.

[1:43:22] Um

[1:43:26] I think the, you know, I've got the

[1:43:27] slides. I don't know if we want to go

[1:43:29] through I I I've gone through this a

[1:43:31] couple times with with you all over the

[1:43:32] last 6 months.

[1:43:34] Um but is that something that you think

[1:43:36] the plan is ready to be approved um as,

[1:43:39] you know, for March 2026 or is that

[1:43:42] something that we want to wait

[1:43:45] Just before we talk about the approval,

[1:43:47] can you just maybe remind everybody

[1:43:49] again

[1:43:50] um the, you know, the premise of like

[1:43:53] what this management plan does because

[1:43:54] one of the things that I was a little

[1:43:55] concerned about is with the

[1:43:57] ever-changing dynamic of like

[1:43:58] legislation and things that happen, you

[1:44:00] know, with the berm or other things that

[1:44:02] might influence salt. Um you know, even

[1:44:05] just reclamation of the US Mag ponds or,

[1:44:09] you know, Newfound and Basin, Newfound

[1:44:11] and Basin I think everybody calls it. Um

[1:44:14] we need to think about all those things.

[1:44:16] So, you ended up with just more

[1:44:19] broad 30,000-ft level things, right?

[1:44:21] Like we want to either import salt or

[1:44:23] export salt and do these types of things

[1:44:25] and that. So, I think that was a good

[1:44:27] change cuz I think originally we were a

[1:44:29] little more nuanced in what we want to

[1:44:31] do, but this just gives the direction of

[1:44:32] like when we should be exporting versus

[1:44:34] importing and it's just kind of a a good

[1:44:37] reminder. But Jeff, I guess one other

[1:44:39] question I have is

[1:44:40] you know, in the discussion we've had

[1:44:41] today with this, should we leave it,

[1:44:44] should we touch it, what do we want to

[1:44:45] do? Do you feel like the this salinity

[1:44:48] management plan still kind of stands the

[1:44:50] test of time and would allow for, you

[1:44:53] know, whichever way we want to go cuz

[1:44:54] right now I think we're kind of

[1:44:56] maybe at the like a neutral position.

[1:44:59] Yeah.

[1:45:00] I mean, I I I think the management plan

[1:45:03] is is

[1:45:05] fairly general. I think it provides some

[1:45:07] sideboards.

[1:45:09] Um

[1:45:10] I mean, I think, you know, we have the

[1:45:12] ISOMASS plots that um

[1:45:15] that Christine's developed. You know,

[1:45:17] this

[1:45:19] points more directly toward um you know,

[1:45:21] if

[1:45:22] for if

[1:45:23] you know, what should we do? And so, I

[1:45:26] mean, just I and this is very crude. I

[1:45:28] just took the mass that she just

[1:45:30] reported and and threw a star on here to

[1:45:33] kind of give you an idea of where we

[1:45:34] are.

[1:45:35] So, this gives us an idea that, okay,

[1:45:37] we're you know, we're right in the

[1:45:38] middle of the range where we want to be.

[1:45:41] And and I think last fall we were just

[1:45:43] below that. So,

[1:45:45] this give kind of gives us an idea of

[1:45:47] the trajectory we want where we want to

[1:45:49] go. And I think more importantly is that

[1:45:52] if if the lake is fairly stable year to

[1:45:54] year, it gives us guidelines, kind of

[1:45:57] direction, a vision of what to do if the

[1:45:58] lake is declining.

[1:46:00] You know, here broadly is, you know, we

[1:46:03] want to reduce salt import or, you know,

[1:46:05] we want to export more. So, it's pretty

[1:46:08] So, as we're discussing this, you know,

[1:46:10] and fine-tuning the berm, um

[1:46:13] I think the management plan gives us an

[1:46:15] idea of

[1:46:16] our, you know, broadly what we can do,

[1:46:19] but it doesn't give us the input that we

[1:46:21] need to answer these questions that

[1:46:23] we're wrestling with right now. Um so,

[1:46:26] it gives us some sideboards, and but it

[1:46:28] doesn't give us specifics, which I think

[1:46:30] is what our goal was.

[1:46:33] Is we wanted to we wanted to know what

[1:46:35] are the options? Um what are some

[1:46:38] things, you know, generally how do we

[1:46:40] want to move salt um

[1:46:43] you know, for different conditions. And

[1:46:46] um

[1:46:47] And I think it does that.

[1:46:51] Maybe uh one thing to,

[1:46:53] you know, say on this is that with the

[1:46:55] ability and the also the

[1:46:58] uh

[1:46:59] you know, the the concept of managing

[1:47:00] the berm now for more than just salinity

[1:47:03] and, you know, doing some of these other

[1:47:04] management activities, I think the

[1:47:06] salinity management plan, so long as it

[1:47:08] can kind of stand on its own, like this

[1:47:09] is kind of a guiding principle that when

[1:47:11] we're here and the lake is trending in,

[1:47:13] you know, this direction or this

[1:47:14] direction, it gives us some thoughts on

[1:47:16] what we'd want to do to manage salinity,

[1:47:18] but knowing that there may be other

[1:47:19] influences, and this is not the

[1:47:21] playbook, this is the guidebook that

[1:47:23] kind of says this is how we generally

[1:47:25] want to move, but there may be other

[1:47:26] factors or ways that we can manage salt

[1:47:29] or other things that we need to

[1:47:30] consider.

[1:47:31] Um so long as that's you know,

[1:47:33] understood, I think that's the you know,

[1:47:34] my my take on this is that it's pretty

[1:47:37] good and does that.

[1:47:40] Yeah, any other thoughts

[1:47:43] from the committee?

[1:47:49] I guess one thought I had is just we

[1:47:51] don't I don't think the plan speaks to

[1:47:54] the fact that there are other variables

[1:47:57] such as nitrogen or nutrients, and who

[1:48:00] knows what else comes up in the next 10

[1:48:03] years. Um

[1:48:05] and so perhaps adding a caveat

[1:48:08] to it just to state state that there are other factors that will

[1:48:12] need to

[1:48:14] that may need to be considered.

[1:48:16] Uh and maybe just one other thing too is

[1:48:18] we may want to consider what frequency

[1:48:20] we want to revisit this because, you

[1:48:22] know, having 120 g per liter as our fall

[1:48:26] target. Um you know, if we find out that

[1:48:29] nutrients are going to be an issue, then

[1:48:30] maybe we want to readjust that thought

[1:48:33] and think about where we want to be.

[1:48:35] Maybe we want to be a little bit higher

[1:48:36] so that we lowered the spring, you know,

[1:48:38] target salinity and also allow for those

[1:48:41] you know, nutrient um

[1:48:42] imports.

[1:48:43] Um

[1:48:45] I think we should at least make some

[1:48:47] mention of some of those other variables

[1:48:48] that we would want to manage for, but

[1:48:50] also I don't think we need to keep on

[1:48:52] punting this to the next meeting every

[1:48:54] time. It may be something we want to,

[1:48:56] you know, just amend from time to time

[1:48:57] like we do with our bylaws or our

[1:48:59] charter or, you know, other things that

[1:49:01] we do.

[1:49:01] Right.

[1:49:03] Jared, do you

[1:49:06] Is there any harm in

[1:49:08] I'm sorry, you you just said this, Ben,

[1:49:10] but is there any harm in in voting on

[1:49:12] this on in May? The May meeting. Just just so we can kind of all refr-

[1:49:17] it's it's fresh in my mind.

[1:49:18] >> Yeah.

[1:49:18] I I think In the context of this

[1:49:20] discussion. I don't I don't think

[1:49:21] there's any harm. I think the one reason

[1:49:23] that we wanted to get this somewhat

[1:49:25] wrapped up is we would love to be able

[1:49:26] to reference this in our management

[1:49:28] plan. Like we're finishing our CMP, you

[1:49:31] know, to to not have this finished and

[1:49:34] have something that we can point to is a

[1:49:36] little problematic for my my

[1:49:37] perspective. Um but, you know, May, that

[1:49:40] puts us into a position where I think we

[1:49:41] could still do it, right, Jeff? Yeah.

[1:49:43] So, so long as we didn't have

[1:49:45] substantial changes. But maybe what we

[1:49:46] could do is just plan to mail or email

[1:49:49] this out to the uh committee a couple

[1:49:51] weeks in advance and give one last

[1:49:53] chance to look at it. Maybe we can just

[1:49:54] make those modifications now Yeah. to

[1:49:56] discuss the need to evaluate nutrients

[1:49:58] and maybe, you know, re-evaluate this

[1:50:00] plan every, you know, year or so often

[1:50:03] to make sure that we're, you know, still

[1:50:06] uh in accordance with Right. these

[1:50:08] guiding principles. Right. Okay.

[1:50:10] I think that'd be good.

[1:50:12] Okay.

[1:50:13] Great. Well, um

[1:50:16] I'll take I'll read through the plan

[1:50:18] again and just I think you made a great

[1:50:20] point and you know, we have a specific

[1:50:22] date I we changed it to October 15th.

[1:50:25] Um I think Joe made that recommendation

[1:50:28] last time.

[1:50:29] And but we can say, you know what, these

[1:50:31] are principles that should be

[1:50:34] re-evaluated on a consistent basis and

[1:50:38] um and I think it would be good to add

[1:50:41] uh

[1:50:42] at least note that there are other

[1:50:43] factors that to be considered other than

[1:50:46] just salinity.

[1:50:48] So.

[1:50:50] I I will do that. I'll get that out

[1:50:52] to everybody before our next meeting.

[1:50:54] Um any anything else from anybody on

[1:50:57] that?

[1:50:59] If not, let's schedule our next meeting.

[1:51:02] Um

[1:51:04] So, the the Issues Forum is the first

[1:51:06] week of May.

[1:51:09] And

[1:51:10] >> going to say that. I she to say that.

[1:51:12] I'm sorry.

[1:51:13] Linda, do you have any announcements?

[1:51:23] So,

[1:51:25] let me get my calendar out quick. Um

[1:51:28] so that would is would it be more

[1:51:30] helpful to have it the last week of

[1:51:32] April, the week before?

[1:51:38] Does that give us enough time to

[1:51:40] actually finish runoff and make the

[1:51:42] calculations? I would think we'd want to

[1:51:44] kind of air on the week after, maybe,

[1:51:46] but

[1:51:48] happy to do the week before if everybody

[1:51:50] thinks that's better.

[1:51:53] I think I mean that gives us there's

[1:51:55] definitely more time to consider the

[1:51:57] possibilities there. So, I guess we're looking at the week of

[1:52:01] May 11th.

[1:52:03] And

[1:52:05] um if we keep our traditional

[1:52:08] Thursdays, you know, that'd be May 14th

[1:52:11] from 10:00 to 12:00.

[1:52:14] Does that work for everybody online as

[1:52:16] well?

[1:52:19] All right. We will plan on that. We'll

[1:52:22] get a

[1:52:24] an announcement out and get the room

[1:52:25] scheduled and

[1:52:27] perfect.

[1:52:29] So,

[1:52:30] does this

[1:52:32] I don't know how often this room is

[1:52:33] available. Does this room work better

[1:52:35] than the Soldier Hollow?

[1:52:38] If it's available.

[1:52:41] Okay.

[1:52:42] All right. Well, we'll see.

[1:52:46] if we can we can arrange that

[1:52:48] for the future. Um

[1:52:50] depends on

[1:52:51] who else has the room scheduled. So,

[1:52:55] great. Anything I guess anything else

[1:52:57] that we any other action items? Um

[1:53:01] And just to recap the action items that

[1:53:03] are

[1:53:04] have here in my notes is just we the tag

[1:53:06] meeting on Thurs Thursday

[1:53:09] or Wednesday, I'm sorry. Um

[1:53:12] so we'll learn what comes up from the

[1:53:14] nutrients and

[1:53:18] I'm just trying to remember if there's a

[1:53:20] you don't usually publish the summary

[1:53:22] until the next meeting.

[1:53:25] Is that

[1:53:27] I'm just wondering for those who can't

[1:53:28] make it. Yeah, summary from last meeting

[1:53:30] should come out tomorrow and then the

[1:53:33] video recording of tomorrow's meeting

[1:53:35] will be available before. So.

[1:53:37] >> All right. So, you'll be able to

[1:53:41] watch or listen to that if you can't

[1:53:42] make the meeting on on Wednesday.

[1:53:45] Um and then we'll also

[1:53:47] connect to try to figure out how we can

[1:53:49] model the the berm and see if there's a

[1:53:51] way we can

[1:53:53] reconfigure that at all to get to that

[1:53:55] net zero flux um over the summer.

[1:53:59] And um and then we've approved um

[1:54:02] Christine's protocol, so we'll get that

[1:54:05] And then Andrew is going to look into

[1:54:06] having UGS publish that.

[1:54:09] And then I will get some minor modifications to the plan and

[1:54:14] get that back out to the committee

[1:54:16] before our next meeting as well.

[1:54:18] And then lastly, we're meeting on May

[1:54:20] 14th at 10:00 a.m.

[1:54:23] So.

[1:54:24] All right. If nothing else, oh, yes,

[1:54:27] Lynn? I'm finished big, right? Yeah.

[1:54:29] Okay. I'm sending you an invitation You

[1:54:31] got a microphone? Oh, so the online

[1:54:33] folks

[1:54:36] Thanks.

[1:54:38] Thank you. Um

[1:54:39] I'd like to extend an invitation to all

[1:54:41] of you to come to the Great Salt Lake

[1:54:43] Issues Forum May 6th, 7th, and 8th on um

[1:54:48] Thursday, May 7th, first thing in the

[1:54:51] morning, we're actually having a session

[1:54:54] that Ben is going to moderate and uh

[1:54:57] Christine and Phil and Kyle are going to

[1:55:01] be a part of that and the title is worth

[1:55:03] its salt. And pretty soon we'll be

[1:55:06] adding uh

[1:55:07] nutrients. But anyway, and then Gary is

[1:55:10] going to be on the same day later on in

[1:55:12] the afternoon. So, that being said, uh

[1:55:15] there's a lot more and there's um

[1:55:18] you know, a great opportunity to get

[1:55:19] together and talk with others and to uh

[1:55:22] you know,

[1:55:23] extend the reach of what this important

[1:55:26] work and this important commitment that

[1:55:29] we're all involved with um

[1:55:31] is is meaning. So, thank you very much.

[1:55:34] Great.

[1:55:36] All right, thanks Lynn. Chris? Could I

[1:55:38] um

[1:55:39] did we land anywhere with the Lakeside

[1:55:41] breach? And just like I mean, how can

[1:55:43] that conversation move forward? Just in

[1:55:45] keeping in mind that we can't gauge that

[1:55:47] given current conditions. And from Mike

[1:55:49] you know, what Mike has said,

[1:55:51] uh you know, we might need to think

[1:55:52] about some kind of modification given

[1:55:54] low lake levels in the South Arm to be

[1:55:56] able to gauge it. So, I just want to I

[1:55:58] don't know if we need follow-up there in

[1:55:59] some fashion um or not. But thought I

[1:56:02] would remind everybody that that's an

[1:56:03] issue. Yes.

[1:56:06] Do you have anything on that, Ben? I I

[1:56:08] don't have any answers for that. I think

[1:56:09] that it's really important and I think

[1:56:11] it'd be awesome to gauge it, but I just

[1:56:13] think that there's so much happening out

[1:56:15] there that it may be something we have

[1:56:16] to incorporate into a

[1:56:17] like a future project. But right now, I

[1:56:20] think there's some pretty big priorities

[1:56:22] like, you know, the protective structure

[1:56:23] on the berm itself. And I think that

[1:56:26] would

[1:56:27] at least in my mind would rise above,

[1:56:29] you know,

[1:56:30] the protective structure to um support

[1:56:33] the gauging out there. So, I I do think

[1:56:34] that there's a huge opportunity and it's

[1:56:37] something that we can incorporate into

[1:56:39] any future work that would happen out

[1:56:40] there for sure.

[1:56:42] Yeah.

[1:56:44] All right, well

[1:56:45] with that, I'd entertain a motion to

[1:56:47] adjourn.

[1:56:52] And Joe, all right. And Thomas second

[1:56:54] it.

[1:56:55] Um I'll just assume it's approved. Thank

[1:56:57] you, everybody.

[1:57:00] We'll see you May 14th. Actually, we'll

[1:57:02] see you at the Issues Forum.

Great Salt Lake Salinity Advisory Committee Meeting 3/30/2026 (FULL)

Transcript