Water and salt balance of Great Salt Lake, Utah, and simulation of water and salt movement through the causeway, 1987-98

The Southern Pacific Transportation Company completed a rock-fill causeway across Great Salt Lake in 1959. The effect of the causeway was to change the water and salt balance of Great Salt Lake by creating two separate but interconnected parts of the lake, with more than 95 percent of freshwater surface inflow entering the lake south of the causeway.

The water and salt balance of Great Salt Lake primarily depends on the amount of inflow from tributary streams and the conveyance properties of the causeway that divides the lake into south and north parts. The conveyance properties of the causeway consist of two 15-foot-wide culverts, a 290-foot-wide breach, and permeable rock-fill material.