Long-term drought played a role in the lake’s decline, but about 75% of the problem was human-caused, according to research published in 2022: People had simply been taking too much lake water for decades.

State officials got serious about intervention in 2022. Lawmakers created a $40 million water trust to boost water quality and quantity. They changed Utah water law to designate it a “beneficial use” for farmers to let their allotment flow to the lake, incentivizing donations and water transfers. (Before the change, unused water rights could be lost.)

State officials also raised a berm along a causeway separating the north and south arms of the lake to give them control over the flow of water and salt between the two. Then, fortuitously, twice as much snow fell in the mountains that winter as usual.

Together, those two factors “basically saved the lake” by lowering its salinity, said Kevin Perry, a University of Utah atmospheric scientist who researches the Great Salt Lake and its toxic dust.

“They filled up and diluted all the salt in the southern part of the lake with that huge snowpack,” he said.

Species returned.

“The flies this year were just robust,” Baxter said.

It was enough to avert crisis — at least temporarily.

“We have avoided that environmental nuclear bomb,” said Joel Ferry, director of the Utah Department of Natural Resources. “We have put the red button away.”

But the water levels have not returned to health, and this year’s dismal snowpack could renew the problems.

The family of an aunt and her niece who were found dead on a Utah trail earlier this week said Friday that they can’t comprehend why the women were slain in a pair of killings allegedly committed by a stranger in search of money.

In a statement, a family spokesperson for Linda Dewey, 65, and Natalie Graves, 34, said the women were “bonding over the beauty of a hike in one of their favorite places on Earth — cherished by them and the community, considered to be a safe sanctuary.”

“They were murdered,” the spokesperson said. “We cannot comprehend why this happened.”

Authorities have charged Ivan Miller, 22, with aggravated murder in their deaths Wednesday. He was charged with the same crime in the fatal shooting of Margaret Oldroyd, 86, who is not related to Dewey or Graves. Oldroyd’s relatives could not be reached for comment Friday.

The bodies of the three women were found at two locations in South Central Utah.

Charging documents filed Thursday in Utah allege that Miller, of Blakesburg, Iowa, confessed to the killings. He allegedly told authorities that “he did it because he needed money” after hitting an elk in Loa, Utah, selling his truck to a local tow company and staying at a hotel for a few days, according to the documents.

Miller said he shot Oldroyd in the head as she sat down to watch TV in her home in Lyman, then took her Buick but realized he didn’t like the car, the documents allege. He drove to a nearby trail, where he encountered Graves and Dewey and shot them, the documents allege.

Miller allegedly said he stabbed Dewey when she continued to move.

He abandoned the Buick, according to the documents, and took a Subaru that belonged to Dewey or Graves. The husbands of Dewey and Graves later found their bodies near a trail head and called authorities, according to the Utah Department of Public Safety.

Miller was arrested hundreds of miles east, in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, after authorities tracked the location of a stolen key fob, the documents state.

Scott Van Zandt, a public defender representing Miller, said during a court hearing Friday that his client does not want to speak to police or media, the Associated Press reported.

A representative for the Colorado State Public Defender did not immediately respond to an NBC News request for comment Friday night.

In the family statement, Dewey was described as a wife, mother, grandmother and sister with a large extended family all over the world.

“She was loved deeply and loved her family deeply,” the statement says. “She was the heart of our family.”

Graves, a wife, daughter and sister, was “adored by her many friends and extended family members. She was joy, sunshine and beauty embodied.”

“We need time to mourn, love each other and be with our family and friends,” the statement says. “We are at a loss for words that can describe what we are feeling and cannot publicly express our sadness and devastation at this time.”