Boats are high and dry at a marina at the Great Salt Lake, where water levels have been dropping steadily since 2011 and salinity is unusually high. (AL HARTMANN/ASSOCIATED PRESS)

On the southern shore of Utah’s Great Salt Lake, more than 100 boats are sitting high and dry in a parking lot, unable to sail the shallow, drought-stricken sea.

North of the nearly empty marina, salt-loving bacteria thriving in the low water have turned the liquid pink.

The massive lake, key to the state’s economy and identity, is skirting record-low levels after years of below-average precipitation and record-high heat.

The lake, about 75 miles long and 30 miles wide, is America’s largest outside the Great Lakes. Water levels have always fluctuated, but they have been dropping steadily since 2011.

“If this continues . . . the ecosystem as a whole is under a pretty significant threat,” said Jason Curry, a spokesman for Utah’s Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands.

The state estimates that the Great Salt Lake’s ecosystem has a $1.32 billion economic effect. It is a home or major resting place for more than 250 species of birds. Salt and other minerals are mined from the lake and used for fertilizer, for melting snow on roadways and for making other products. Its waters are credited with helping produce dry, powdery snow that attracts skiers worldwide to the nearby mountains.

The lake is generally three to five times saltier than the ocean, which allows swimmers to float easily. It is an unforgiving environment for most creatures, but a prime habitat for brine flies and brine shrimp — tiny, clear crustaceans whose eggs are harvested and sold worldwide as food for other shrimp, crab and fish.

As lake levels drop and the water becomes saltier, even those creatures are threatened.

“Brine shrimp are very resilient to salt, but even they have a limit, and we’re reaching that limit,” said Don Leonard, chief executive of the Great Salt Lake Brine Shrimp Cooperative, a group of companies that harvest and sell the eggs.

The low water levels stress the shrimp in a way that produces fewer eggs, Leonard said. Last year, the cooperative had a below-average harvest and had to pay to dredge its harbor just to get its boats on the water.

Lynn de Freitas, executive director of the conservation group Friends of Great Salt Lake, said Utah needs to look at how major water pipeline projects may divert freshwater from rivers that normally flow into the lake.

“It’s dire,” she said. “We all have a stewardship responsibility for the lake and should honestly and actively own up to that.”