SALT LAKE CITY — President Trump pledged at a February 21 White House dinner with governors to work immediately on saving Utah's Great Salt Lake, describing the shrinking body of water as a critical environmental hazard. The same day, he posted on Truth Social that saving the lake is of tremendous interest to him and must be addressed without delay.

"We're going to save it. We're not going to let that go. That is what I call an environment, a real environmental problem," Trump said at the dinner.

Utah Republican Governor Spencer Cox met with Trump at the White House in late February to discuss the lake. The meeting, originally scheduled for fifteen minutes, lasted an hour and a half, according to Joel Ferry, executive director of the Utah Division of Natural Resources, who helped Cox prepare his pitch. Ferry said Cox had received a call from the White House inviting him to meet with the president and other governors to discuss their top issues. In the meeting, Trump committed to making history by restoring the lake, he said.

"It's the largest lake west of the Mississippi. And it is in decline," Ferry said.

At its peak, Great Salt Lake covered roughly 2,300 square miles, an area larger than Delaware, and supported an ecosystem that contributed to Utah's reputation for having "the greatest snow on Earth." Water levels have declined in recent years following excessive water consumption and winters with below-average snowfall. More than 1,000 square miles of lakebed are now exposed.

The exposed lakebed contains heavy metals and toxins, including arsenic, that pose respiratory health risks to about 2.5 million people. Dust from the lakebed can be carried by wind to Wyoming and Idaho during strong wind events. The lake's waters produce up to 50% of the world's brine shrimp supply, used as a primary protein source for farmed fish and shrimp globally, and lithium and magnesium are among the critical minerals mined there. Millions of migratory birds visit each year. The lake's primary water source is runoff from Utah's snowpack, and water from its three main tributaries is often diverted for other uses before reaching the lake.

"For the past two years now, we've been working on a federal ask," said Ben Abbott, an ecology professor at Brigham Young University and director of Grow the Flow. "If we are able to pull off this saline lake rescue, it will truly be a world first," he said.

Since returning to office, Trump has stripped billions of dollars from climate research funding, rolled back environmental regulations on emissions, canceled billions of dollars in approved funding for clean energy projects and called climate change a "hoax."