Utah Waterways
An interactive atlas of submerged vehicles, vessels, aircraft, and structures across 20 Utah lakes.
The 20 Utah waterways in the Submerged Debris Atlas
Fathom Restoration's Utah Waterways Submerged Debris Atlas documents 226 individually confirmed submerged vehicles, vessels, aircraft, and debris items across 20 Utah lakes and reservoirs, and an estimated 499 total once unrecorded losses are included. Every confirmed item is traced to a named news report, government record, court filing, academic study, or salvage case file. Updated August 4, 2026.
- Lake Powell (Utah portion): priority waterway. 53 documented submerged items, 100-200 estimated including unrecorded across 254 sq mi of surface.
- Flaming Gorge Reservoir: monitored waterway. 18 documented submerged items, 25-100 estimated including unrecorded across 66 sq mi of surface.
- Bear Lake: monitored waterway. 37 documented submerged items, 35-80 estimated including unrecorded across 109 sq mi of surface.
- Great Salt Lake: priority (303(d) impaired) waterway. 30 documented submerged items, 35-60 estimated including unrecorded across 950 sq mi of surface.
- Utah Lake: priority waterway. 16 documented submerged items, 25-60 estimated including unrecorded across 148 sq mi of surface.
- Pineview Reservoir: priority waterway. 23 documented submerged items, 18-35 estimated including unrecorded across 4.4 sq mi of surface.
- Strawberry Reservoir: monitored waterway. 10 documented submerged items, 12-30 estimated including unrecorded across 26 sq mi of surface.
- Deer Creek Reservoir: priority waterway. 6 documented submerged items, 8-25 estimated including unrecorded across 4.6 sq mi of surface.
- Jordanelle Reservoir: priority waterway. 6 documented submerged items, 6-20 estimated including unrecorded across 5.1 sq mi of surface.
- Quail Creek Reservoir: monitored waterway. 5 documented submerged items, 5-20 estimated including unrecorded across 1.4 sq mi of surface.
- Sand Hollow Reservoir: monitored waterway. 4 documented submerged items, 4-15 estimated including unrecorded across 2.4 sq mi of surface.
- Yuba Reservoir: monitored waterway. 3 documented submerged items, 2-12 estimated including unrecorded across 16.7 sq mi of surface.
- Rockport Reservoir: monitored waterway. 4 documented submerged items, 3-10 estimated including unrecorded across 1.0 sq mi of surface.
- East Canyon Reservoir: monitored waterway. 3 documented submerged items, 3-10 estimated including unrecorded across 0.7 sq mi of surface.
- Fish Lake: monitored waterway. 2 documented submerged items, 2-10 estimated including unrecorded across 4.1 sq mi of surface.
- Echo Reservoir: monitored waterway. 1 documented submerged items, 2-8 estimated including unrecorded across 1.6 sq mi of surface.
- Panguitch Lake: monitored waterway. 2 documented submerged items, 1-6 estimated including unrecorded across 1.6 sq mi of surface.
- Otter Creek Reservoir: monitored waterway. 2 documented submerged items, 1-5 estimated including unrecorded across 4.0 sq mi of surface.
- Causey Reservoir: monitored waterway. 0 documented submerged items, 0-3 estimated including unrecorded across 0.3 sq mi of surface.
- Mantua Reservoir: monitored waterway. 1 documented submerged items, 0-3 estimated including unrecorded across 0.86 sq mi of surface.
Tap a lake on the interactive map for sources, incident histories, and counting methodology.
What's actually down there.
Documented and estimated submerged debris across all 20 lakes. Confirmed means individually documented, with a named public source behind every single item. Under federal law, an oil discharge is harmful the moment it leaves a film or sheen on the water, so every fluid-bearing item on these lakebeds matters. Updated August 4, 2026.
each tied to a named source
submerged items
surveyed
0 individually confirmed items. What they are:
Counts from the Utah Waterways Submerged Debris Atlas (2026, updated August 4, 2026). Every confirmed item carries a named public source; open any lake for its source list.
How we count, and what we retired
Counts. Confirmed items are individually documented incidents, each tied to a named news report, government record, court filing, academic study, or salvage case file. Estimated ranges add losses implied by patterns but not individually documented. The working count uses the midpoint of each lake's range.
Fluids. Fluid capacities come from manufacturer specifications by category, not a flat per-item rule. Non-fuel fluids (motor oil, transmission and gear oil, coolant) aboard the 226 confirmed items total roughly 520 gallons. No agency publishes fuel volumes for a typical submerged vehicle, so fuel is always stated as an assumption: with partial to near-full tanks assumed, the total lands between roughly 2,000 and 3,700 gallons. We publish no per-lake gallons figure.
What we retired (August 4, 2026). Earlier editions of this page converted item counts into billions of gallons of water at risk using EPA dispersion factors. A primary-source audit showed that math rested on a misquoted EPA statistic, so we removed it everywhere. The full before-and-after is on our Transparency page.
The standard we use instead. Under EPA rules an oil discharge is harmful the moment it causes a film or sheen upon, or discoloration of, the surface of the water (40 CFR Part 110). And it persists: USGS reports that oil from a 1979 pipeline spill near Bemidji, Minnesota is still contaminating groundwater more than four decades later.
EPA: what is a harmful quantity of discharged oil · USGS: Bemidji crude-oil research site
Methodology & disclaimers
What this atlas covers: submerged vehicles, vessels, aircraft, and large debris compiled from incident reports, news archives, agency records, and dive-community documentation across 20 Utah lakes and reservoirs.
Item counts use the midpoint of the documented + estimated range. Where documented evidence (confirmed incidents) exceeds the estimate midpoint, the confirmed count is used. Confirmed counts include items that have since been recovered. The estimate midpoint is the best approximation of items currently submerged.
Pre-2000 incident records are sparse for most lakes outside Great Salt Lake and Utah Lake. Wasatch County SAR explicitly does not maintain records before 1994. USCG BARD database excludes Utah data per DHS PIA-011.
This is a research compilation, not an engineering survey. Numbers should not be cited in legal, regulatory, or engineering contexts without primary-source verification. Earlier editions converted counts into gallons of water at risk; that methodology was retired August 4, 2026 (see the Stakes tab and our Transparency page).
About Fathom Restoration
To our knowledge, the only nonprofit in Utah dedicated to underwater debris recovery. We are building the team, permits, and equipment to recover submerged vehicles, vessels, and debris, starting with volunteer trash and debris cleanups on the lakebeds today.
Veteran-founded. IRS-recognized 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit.
Contact: info@fathomrestoration.org
EIN: 42-2166469
Site: fathomrestoration.org
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