Why this docket exists. Public records only — no interviews, no comment requests. Each case-file page below is built from permits, court filings, monitoring reports, and agency correspondence, with sources cited on every page.
Start Here
Explainers
New to the Great Salt Lake? These plain-language pieces cover the basics — the lake's history and water level, what actually lives in and gets pulled from it, and a running fact-check log — before you get into the accountability reporting below.
Did You Know? The Great Salt Lake, From 1847 to Today
Explainer
The lake behind the headlines has a stranger, older story than most people realize — and the 2022 record low is also why the state created a commissioner, a private trust, and two funding pots still being sorted out today.
History
Water Level
Interactive Map
The Life of the Great Salt Lake: Birds, Brine, and Minerals
Explainer
Ten million migratory birds, a brine shrimp industry that supplies aquaculture worldwide, and the mineral companies — plus now the state itself — competing for the lake's water one acre-foot at a time.
Birds
Brine Shrimp
Mineral Extraction
GSL Fact vs. Fiction: What They Say vs. What the Data Says
Explainer · Ongoing
Claim #1: are water diversions actually slowing down, or is Utah drawing more than ever? A 1847–2026 timeline and the state's own numbers, checked one claim at a time.
Water Diversion
Timeline
Fact-Check
Case Files
Open investigations
New entries are added as records come in. Check back for the Mango-Spiral Jetty water rights lawsuit tied to the lithium project below.
A $100 Million Lithium Project, a 20-Year Discharge and One Week Left to Comment
Comment closed
The Department of Energy just handed a Great Salt Lake lithium plant its largest possible federal award — the same week state records show the company's own pilot data revealed a manganese discharge problem the fix hasn't proven it can solve.
DOE Grant
UPDES Permit
Water Quality
Lithium
One Lake, Two Councils, and One That Calls Itself Private
Ongoing
Utah built a public council to advise on the Great Salt Lake — and a second council, reviewing the same public money, whose own bylaws call it private.
Open Meetings
GRAMA
Conflict of Interest
Water Funding
Coming soon: the Mango-Spiral Jetty water-rights lawsuit — the same project's freshwater source, tied up in litigation with House Speaker Mike Schultz's approved rights next door.
What Losing the Lake Would Cost
Ongoing
The state's own commissioned study puts a price on a drying Great Salt Lake — and compares it to nine lakes worldwide, some of which never came back.
Economic Impact
Advisory Council
Comparative Study
$511 Million Short
Ongoing
The state's own list of 161 projects to help the Great Salt Lake is 80% unfunded — and the projects ready to start now are the least funded of all.
Funding Gap
Advisory Council
Water Infrastructure
The Checklist for Buying Water
Ongoing
The Trust's own screening criteria for water deals are thorough on legal and physical questions — and silent on who's on the other side of the table.
Methodology
Conflict of Interest
Water Transactions
Three Years, $7.24 Million
Ongoing
The Trust's own numbers show 18% of its $40 million fund spent after three years — and a water-transaction total that shrank heading into 2026, not grew.
Fund Disbursement
Water Transactions
Wetland Grants