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Provo Mayor Michelle Kaufusi speaks at the Utah Lake Symposium Thursday, Oct. 30, 2025, in Provo.

Jacob Nielson, Daily Herald

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Provo Mayor Michelle Kaufusi speaks at the Utah Lake Symposium Thursday, Oct. 30, 2025, in Provo.

Jacob Nielson, Daily Herald

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Division of Wildlife Resources employees load carp onto a boat Tuesday, July 22, 2025, in Provo Bay at Utah Lake.

Jacob Nielson, Daily Herald

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Provo Mayor and Utah Lake Authority Chair Michelle Kaufusi set an ambitious goal Thursday: eliminate carp from Utah Lake in time for the 2034 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

“Yes, you heard me,” Kaufusi told attendees at the Utah Lake Symposium in Provo. “I’m asking you to join me in making Utah Lake carp-free by the night of the opening ceremonies.”

Carp are an invasive species in Utah Lake that threaten other species and increase algal blooms by eating all the vegetation at the lake’s bottom, according to the Utah Lake Authority.

The fight against the species began in 2009 and more than 35 million pounds of carp has been removed since, the ULA said, with the estimated current population of carp sitting between 50-75% of the original figure.

There’s still a ways to go, though.

ULA Executive Director Luke Peterson said a recent study found the lake is still 400% above the threshold needed for the carp not to have a negative impact.

Kaufusi’s proposal seeks to remove the issue all together.

“Being able to get them out of the lake would change the whole trajectory,” she told the Daily Herald. “They eat all the plants, they eat all the other fish. They’re just horrible.”

Kaufusi called upon the federal, state, county and local government entities — as well as universities, nonprofits and businesses — to all get involved.

“We will be knit together like never before,” she said. “Imagine watching Team USA compete in winter sports in Utah and in Provo having just experienced the magic of being part of a special team ourselves.”

Peterson said Sen. John Curtis has secured $1.2 million in federal funds for the Utah Lake Authority — assuming the government shutdown ends a and Congress’ budget is passed — which he called the start-up capital needed to “get this thing off the ground.”

The process of eliminating harmful fish species out of lakes has been done on a smaller level but the scale of Utah Lake poses greater challenges, according to Peterson.

“We will be able to take tools from other places, but then we’re going to have to figure out how you adapt them to Utah Lake, because it’s just there aren’t many lakes this big in terms of surface area,” he said.

To take on the project, Peterson said there’s a possibility to return to commercial netting, which was the main strategy of removing fish in the 2010s, but he said his preference is for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources to purchase the boats and nets and do it themselves.

“I would hate for us to get in a situation again where we’re dependent on a contractor, and that contractor, one day says, ‘I don’t want to do this anymore,'” he said. “So personally, I think we need to build the capacity within the state of Utah so that we can keep going. But absolutely, that is the starting point. We have to get boats and big nets back on the lake.”

Last year, DWR began using box traps to catch carp — a process Peterson said is effective. The ULA also launched The Great Carp Hunt of 2025, where it invited anglers to participate in carp-fishing competitions throughout the year.

Kaufusi said “nothing is off the table,” when determining how complete the goal.

“We believe in throwing out big ideas,” she said. “We believe in swinging for the fences, and the residents will know, at least we tried. We’re going to go to work, we’re going to get committees, we’re going to start looking at it, and being able to have one focus is really significant.”