Why We Advocate for Great Salt Lake

"Protecting the environment is not like building a highway or painting a building. You can't do it and walk away from further work. You must stay everlastingly at it, or things begin to slide."
Wm. D. Ruckelshaus, 1^st and 5^th EPA Administrator

At the 1996 Biennial Great Salt Lake Issues Forum, four major threats to the Great Salt Lake Ecosystem were identified.

• Ignorance about the Lake
• Development in the uplands and wetlands
• Diverting riverine and instream flows that would normally enter the Lake
• Discharges into the Lake from industry and a growing population

Using these threats as guidelines for our Lake work, we are strategically moving forward on a variety of fronts to preserve and protect this hemispherically important ecosystem.

We recognize that in order for people to care about Great Salt Lake and work to protect it, they must first understand it. To that end, we provide both formal and informal Great Salt Lake education programs, activities and materials to help build that connection.

Located next to a growing metropolitan area, with a population predicted to surpass 5 million people by 2050, the ecological and economic sustainability of Great Salt Lake poses an interesting challenge. The Lake not only generates billions of economic dollars for the State but is an extremely fragile and complex system.

Proposed transportation facilities that bring development closer to the shores of the Lake, extremely high levels of mercury in Great Salt Lake waterfowl, discharges from mining operations, damming the Bear River to bring more water to the growing Wasatch Front and oil and gas development require timely and effective due diligence in our advocacy work.

We strive to build collaborative partnerships to promote Great Salt Lake watershed health and habitat sustainability. And when necessary, work with legal resources to elevate the importance of these issues to get the attention needed for responsible results.

As long as the Great Salt Lake Ecosystem is dealt with as an isolated drying up body of water, its importance will always be marginalized when confronted with the "needs of the people."