"This pair of birds is committed to what they are doing."
- Bob Walters, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Watchable Wildlife Program

Early this March, a pair of American bald eagles that have been nesting along Great Salt Lake and the Jordan River in Davis County for almost 10 years, gave birth to their 24th eaglet. (Big round of applause here). The succession of eaglets produced by this couple is reflected in the series of numbers listed above. The eaglets are scheduled to fledge sometime around the middle of June.

This noteworthy and long term success has not gone without its challenges. Along with a passel of random disturbances occuring around the nesting site, their original nesting snag blew down three years ago during a severe April windstorm. It was replaced by an artificial nesting tower that Bob Walters described as "a fork that looks like it went through the disposal". But magically, the adults return, year after year, to the same spot; no doubt expecting to use the bent fork once again for nesting.

This bent fork and productive nest are in the heart of the Legacy Nature Preserve. The Preserve is a 2,100-acre mitigation site that was established by the Utah Department of Transportation as required by law under the Clean Water Act to meet specific terms of a 404 permit issued by the Army Corps of Engineers (Corps). According to the Clean Water Act, whenever wetlands are destroyed, mitigation is required. In this case, UDOT was proposing to directly destroy 114 acres of wetlands of the Great Salt Lake Ecosystem as part of the Legacy Highway project.

Regular readers of this newsletter already know our position on building the Legacy Highway. We are opposed. In our Winter 2005 issue, along with Utahns for Better Transportation, and the Utah Sierra Club, we endorsed the Citizens' Smart Growth Alternative (CSGA). We believe that this alternative will not only meet the transportation needs of Davis County, but will provide a comprehensive transportation package that includes more travel choices than Legacy. It has greater connectivity because of the Redwood Road widening and extension, and encourages economic development. The CSGA would retain the Preserve, and has far fewer impacts to wetlands because it's further to the east than UDOT's proposed Legacy route. Overall, the Citizens' Smart Growth Alternative is a better solution for the transportation future of our Great Salt Lake neighborhood.

But whatever the outcome, mitigation is still necessary, and the Preserve must remain. Recognizing this long term responsibility, as well as the educational potential that the Preserve can provide for the Lake's community, the UDOT Legacy Project Team (UDOT) has initiated a two pronged collaborative process it hopes will ensure the success of the future of the Preserve and overall public support.

In January of this year, UDOT with the assistance of SWCA Environmental Consultants, established a Collaborative Design Team (CDT) for the Legacy Nature Preserve. The charge of the CDT is to create a long term management plan that not only addresses the permit conditions required by the Corps for the Preserve as a mitigation site, but it must also be comprehensive enough to provide the overall management of the Preserve in perpetuity when handed off to an appropriate land management organization.

The CDT consists of experts in a variety of fields, which include resource specialists, environmental groups, government agencies and other interested stakeholders. FRIENDS is a member of that team.

To educate the public about the Preserve and the efforts of the CDT, two Open Houses are planned, one this spring and one in the fall. There will be opportunities for the communities bordering the Great Salt Lake to share ideas about developing a vision for the Preserve. The CDT will consider this input in the formulation of the draft of the management plan, which is due to be completed by the Fall of 2005.

The great promise of the Legacy Nature Preserve is to restore wetlands lost to transportation facilities within the North Transportation Corridor. With the development of a long term management plan and the support of the Great Salt Lake community in recognizing this mitigation site as important habitat, and an education component, we can look forward to two gifts: a greater understanding about the Great Salt Lake Ecosystem, and the next generation of eaglets.

In saline,

Lynn de Freitas

What You Can Do

The Collaborative Design Team (CDT) invites you to:

Legacy Nature Preserve Open House on Tuesday, May 24th from 4:30-8:30pm at the Day Riverside Library (1575 West 1000 North) in Salt Lake City.

The purpose of the Open House is to highlight efforts of the CDT as well as gain community input about the Legacy Nature Preserve.

For more information, contact Tracylee at SWCA 801-322-4307