FRIENDS of Great Salt Lake hosted the regional participation of The Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup. On Saturday, September 15, over 60 volunteers removed 2,444.4 lbs. of trash and debris from the shoreline of our inland sea.

Thanks to generous sponsorships from Autoliv and BudgetDumpster, FRIENDS was able to expand this year’s cleanup and work at two primary sites: the Lee Creek Natural Area along the Lake’s south shore and the eastern shoreline of Antelope Island.

Of the debris volunteers removed were mattresses, televisions, a toilet, and a copy machine, as well as countless plastic bottles, plastic straws, shotgun shells, and cigarette butts. Hazardous waste was separated and disposed of responsibly.   

While it is unfortunate that some people continue to use Great Salt Lake as a dumping ground, this event helps promote Great Salt Lake’s hemispheric importance, and inspires others to preserve and protect it.

Thank you to our many individual volunteers and our community partners: Compass Minerals, Great Salt Lake Audubon, The Nature Conservancy, Utah Division of Forestry Fire and State Lands, and Utah Division of Wildlife Resources.  

To read more about The Ocean Conservancy’s efforts, click here. 

To read more about BudgetDumpster's community programs, click here. 

The Utah Division of Water Resources is engaged in a study to determine water efficiency potential by region. The result of this study will be new  regional and statewide water efficiency goals. Your, and your community's, input is an important part of this process. Please fill out the following survey yourself, and share the link via newsletter, social media, website and any other communications tools you use in order to help us gain the regional context needed. Also, please share it with your mayors, city councils, boards and employees. 

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/localgoals 

There will also be other opportunities to engage in this process, which will be announced in the coming weeks. Thank you for your participation and help getting the word out. 

Joshua Palmer; WE3 Section Manager

Utah Division of Water Resources

801-244-7767

By Taylor Stevens, Salt Lake Tribune

Early Tuesday morning, Paul Hirst received a call with “unprecedented” news: Twenty-five million gallons of water had been drained from one of the Benchland Irrigation Water District’s reservoirs overnight, leaving it empty for the first time anyone working there can remember.

A water shortage, spurred by low snowpack, dry conditions and rapid population growth, led the district to implement tough usage restrictions earlier this month on the east Farmington residents it serves in Davis County.

“We use 30 million gallons a day [on average], which is obscene to be using that much water,” said Hirst, who’s a member of the district’s board of trustees. “There isn’t a supply large enough to meet that demand. So we have these reservoirs that we fill that then can take that demand but they don’t empty and they haven’t ever emptied — until now.” 

Even with a $50 fine for a first offense — and complete disconnection from the water system on the third — the district can’t seem to break customers of the habit of chronic overwatering, said Hirst. Officials issued 400 citations during their first enforcement last weekend of the watering restriction from 8 a.m. Saturday to 8 a.m. Monday.

Hirst said he believes some of the people who received citations may have watered their lawns the entire night, in a “vindictive” effort to make a point. The district has received a number of angry calls and even threats of lawsuits over the restrictions.

Click here to continue reading.

Executive Director's Message – Summer 2018

“The Lake is as essential to who we are and what we are as anything. When Great Salt Lake is in peril, the state is in peril. “

–Warren Peterson, State Water Strategy Advisory Team Co-chair

 On March 23, 2018, water right application No. 23-3972 was filed jointly by the Utah Division of Water Resources, and the Water Resources Board of Idaho for 400,000 acre.-ft. of Bear River water. The application was filed with the Utah Division of Water Rights and proposes to store, and appropriate water that would normally be released from Bear Lake or bypass Bear Lake as a part of flood control during spring runoff. The sources of this water would include:

1) “The Bear River” (which provides the lion’s share of inflows (60%) to Great Salt Lake)

2) “Flood control releases tributary to Bear River”

3) Bear Lake inflows “tributary to Bear River”

Got that?

 Beneficiaries of this stored and appropriated water would include agricultural irrigators within the Bear River Basin in Utah and Idaho, together with municipal and industrial users in selected counties in southern Idaho and along the Wasatch Front. And, although recreation and the environment have been gratuitously tossed into the mix of these beneficiaries, it’s too early to say what that would look like. The Division of Water Resources (Water Resources) is emphasizing that the only way to provide insightful scenarios to answer questions being raised about volume, distribution, timing of flows, and environmental impacts or benefits to Bear Lake and Great Salt Lake will come through improved modeling of the Bear River system. Currently, the model of the system stops at the state line between Utah and Idaho. To develop a more comprehensive understanding, modeling needs to extend to the river’s headwaters in the High Uintas. This will take months, money, and an interstate effort. 

It should be noted that Idaho had initially intended to file the Bear River water right application on its own. However in February, Utah was invited to participate, as was Wyoming – which declined. I do wonder what might have happened if Utah had not been asked to file jointly.  

Although many people were surprised by the news when it was finally made public more than a week after the filing, it’s fair to say that the Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands (State Lands) and PacifiCorp were totally blindsided. 

State Lands is a sister division with Water Resources in the Department of Natural Resources. Its jurisdictional responsibility is to manage the Great Salt Lake Ecosystem as a public trust resource in perpetuity for the people of Utah. About a year ago, it completed a multi year process to develop a tool called the Great Salt Lake Integrated Water Model (GSLIM). The price tag for that was $400,000. The purpose of this model is to help State Lands manage the Lake and its resources more effectively by taking into account upstream diversions in the watershed. To say the least, this water right filing would be a significant factor in that management dynamic and until the revised Bear River model is incorporated into the GSLIM no one can fully predict how various scenarios of Bear River storage and future development will alter the Lake. 

PacifiCorp has been operating on the Bear River since practically the dawn of creation. It’s a source of hydroelectric power in Utah and Idaho, delivers irrigation water to stakeholders along the Bear River, and operates the top 21.65’ of Bear Lake as a storage reservoir for flood control. Through court decrees, the Bear River Compact, and other settlement agreements, PacifiCorp has legal and contractual responsibilities that it is expected to meet. At the very least, in both the interest of working to achieve effective interdivisional communication, as well as promoting the practice of interstate comity, you would think that these two key stakeholders would have been notified in advance of the filing. 

It’s difficult not to confuse this joint water right application with the Bear River Development Project because the initial amount of water that Utah and Idaho can develop under the Project is the same – 400,000 acre-ft. – sort of. And although Water Resources says that this water is for flood storage in Bear Lake and not for development, it’s troubling nonetheless. It’s troubling because the annual flow of Bear River into Great Salt Lake is about 1.2 million acre-feet. And the basic fact here is that taking water out of the Bear River system is taking more water out of the system. And that’s a lot of water and the Lake can’t afford it. So we’ve got to push the pause button, comment and protest, and require the necessary scrutiny that the Lake deserves. If the application is approved by Utah and Idaho water authorities, we need to be sure that at the very least, there is no net decrease, and indeed, that some additional water comes to the Lake.  

But more to the point with this filing, it is a clarion call for Great Salt Lake’s future. This will be the first of many water claims on the Lake that will succeed in its demise of a death by a thousand cuts unless we declare our intention to save it NOW!

When the Bear River Compact was amended in 1980, it allocated ALL the waters of the Bear River – to Utah, Idaho and Wyoming. And none for the Lake itself. So much for Utah’s last untapped water source. These allocations include additional storage of 75,000 acre-ft. above Bear Lake, and additional depletion/consumption of 400,000 acre-ft. below Bear Lake, which is something we should all find unconscionable. The first right to develop and deplete would go to Idaho –125,000 acre- ft. and then to Utah – 275,000 acre- ft. If there is anything left beyond that depletion, Utah and Idaho can each deplete an additional 75,000 acre-ft. of water. Any remaining water would be divided up on a 70/30 basis. This would be a total depletion of 550,000 acre-ft. of Bear River water and the demise of Great Salt Lake as we know it. Average lake elevations would hover between 4192’ and 4194’ for extensive periods of time (20-40 yrs) exposing untold thousands of acres of lakebed to potential dust events, navigation and recreation would be severely impacted, Gunnison Island, home to the 3^rd largest breeding population of American White Pelicans in North America would be exposed for periods of 40 years, migratory bird use and habitats would be in trouble, and all industries including the brine shrimp fishery would be significantly impacted. Just because we can doesn’t mean we should. 

In Leia Larsen’s April 4th Standard Examiner article about the UT/ID water right, Eric Millis, Water Resources director and Bear River Commissioner said, “It is water that would’ve gone to Great Salt Lake, that’s true. I think in the discussion we have to have, we’d be looking at what we are doing to and for Great Salt Lake in all of this.”

What’s important to remember in this conversation is how critical timing and the volume of inflows to the Lake are. There is a direct effect on lake levels that in turn influences ecological dynamics and economic values of the system. That’s why in this newsletter we have included a protest filed against application No. 23-3972 by Dr. Wally Gwynn. Although no formal public notification of the application has been made yet, when the news of the joint filing became public, protests were immediately being filed. Gwynn has calculated how 400,000 acre- ft. of Bear River inflows to Great Salt Lake at different elevations has a significant impact on salinity, the brine shrimp fishery, migratory birds, and mineral extraction. When you fold climate change into the mix, you’ll see how that amount of water flowing into the Lake from the Bear River provides a critical cushion for the system. Without this cushion there will be dire consequences to the Lake. In the initial characterizations of the joint filing by Water Resources about how Great Salt Lake could fit into the “Win-Win-Win” outcome it envisioned, water to the Lake would be too little and too late to address the cushion Gwynn identifies. 

Since Great Salt Lake belongs to all of us as a public trust resource, Water Resources is conducting a scoping process. It’s an attempt to bring stakeholders up to speed on this issue, hear our questions and concerns, and engage us more fully. To date, Water Resources has met with 33 different stakeholder interests that include representatives from Idaho and Wyoming, PacifiCorp, water conservation districts, conservation, recreation, and GSL interests, the Great Salt Lake Advisory Council, the State Water Development Commission, GSL Technical Team, and members of the Executive Water Task Force. One useful outcome from all of this would be a scoping document that reflects this comprehensive input and provides a responsible basis for moving forward on this front.

The State Engineer of Utah and Idaho’s comparable authority have been asked not to act on the filing by putting it out for public notification. At the very least, modeling the entire Bear River system, generating various scenarios from the modeling, incorporating those scenarios in the Great Salt Lake Integrated Water Model, and including the scoping results should be a prerequisite to going “public.” Once that public notification happens, there is a 2-week notification period followed by just a 20-day public comment period during which time protests can be filed with the State Engineer. Confusingly, protests can also be filed now – before the filing is public. The application can be reviewed at: www.waterrights.utah.gov Comments can be emailed to waterrights@utah.gov or mailed to Utah Division of Water Rights, 1594 West North Temple, Suite 220, P.O. Box 146300, Salt Lake City, Utah 84114-6300. All comments and protests should reference Water Right 23-3972.

On April 17^th, the Bear River Commission met at the Department of Natural Resources to discuss public input that began a year ago as a part of a 20-yr review of the Bear River Compact. Article 14 in the Compact provides this unique review opportunity for the Commission to consider any reopening requests and/or amendments proposed through this process. If after extensive study and review the Commission agrees to support amending the Compact – a Herculean prospect to say the least that would take years – “amendments would require approval of all three states, ratification by their respective legislatures and approval by all three governors, as well as consent by Congress and approval by the President. “

During this 20-year review process, 67 written comments were received. Five of them requested reopening and amending the Compact. As one of them, FRIENDS urged the Commission to recognize and incorporate a greater understanding of Great Salt Lake, its ecological significance and economic importance into the infrastructure of the Bear River Compact and management of Bear River. A telling remark from one of the Idaho Commissioners that made my jaw drop was that, although it was clear that there are values and concerns about Great Salt Lake that need to be addressed, it was Utah’s problem. The Commission passed a resolution not to amend the Compact. However, the Commission voted to refer a request to its technical committee to study a recommendation for some kind of mechanism or committee for environmental concerns that could be incorporated into the management considerations. This will be revisited at a future meeting. 

It’s been a year since FRIENDS and 40 other members of the State Water Strategy Advisory Team presented the July 2017 Recommended State Water Strategy to Governor Herbert. The Strategy is a timely and responsible outcome that is intended to begin laying the foundation for a necessary dialogue about water policy and collaborative decision-making for the second most arid state in the nation, one that continues to grow. 

Given what we know about the fate of the Bear River and how diversions and development will impact the Lake, we need to build collaborative partnerships and find solutions that will work. We don’t have the luxury of time. The Lake will not wait for us. Although the responsibility to sustain the Great Salt Lake Ecosystem in perpetuity falls squarely on the shoulders of the State, it’s up to us to make sure that happens. 

In saline, 

Lynn

Louis Sahagun, LA Times

When dust storms began rising off the dry bed of Owens Lake, authorities in the Eastern Sierra blamed Los Angeles’ thirst. The city had, after all, drained the lake in the 1920s to serve its faucets.

Now, as dust kicks up from Mono Lake, authorities in the Eastern Sierra are once again blaming that water-craving metropolis about 350 miles to the south.

But this time, they’re also blaming climate change.

Since 1994, a landmark State Water Resources Control Board decision has capped L.A.’s diversions of the streams that feed Mono Lake, defusing for a time one of California’s most protracted environmental battles.

Scientists say climatic shifts, however, are bringing less snow to the Sierra Nevada and less snowmelt to Mono Lake. That means if Los Angeles keeps taking its allocated share, it will lead to a decline in lake levels and increased health risks for those exposed to windblown dust from the receding shoreline, according to the Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District.

To protect Mono Basin’s ecosystem and airshed, regulatory officials say, will require drafting new predictive models of precipitation, temperature and evaporation rates to control diversions into an aqueduct system that has transformed the ancient brine lake into the largest source of powder-fine air pollution in the United States.

Of particular concern are particulates of 10 microns or less, which are regulated by state and federal laws because they can lodge deep in the lungs, causing respiratory injuries. Dust storms at Mono Lake exceeded federal health standards 33 times in 2016, officials said.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power takes issue with the Great Basin district’s warning that more restrictive measures may be needed to meet clean air standards.

“We’re headed for a showdown with Los Angeles; no doubt about it,” said Phillip Kiddoo, air pollution control officer at Great Basin.

Phillip Kiddoo, air pollution control officer for the Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District, walks across salt and fine white sand at Mono Lake's shoreline, which is prone to dust storms. Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times

“The best way to control Mono’s airborne particulates is to raise the lake level, submerging exposed areas of lake bed prone to dust storms,” Kiddoo said. “To do that, however, L.A. has to agree to further reduce its annual exports of water, which isn’t likely.

“While we cannot interfere with L.A.’s water conveyance system, we could file a lawsuit,” he said. “And California health and safety codes give Great Basin authority to assess the city for our legal expenses.”

Rich Harasick, the DWP’s senior assistant general manager of the water system, said further reductions of its water exports aren’t needed. Since the water board’s 1994 decision, he said, the utility’s diversions have had “a very limited influence on Mono Lake’s elevation.”

Today, he said, the lake level is mainly influenced by weather conditions, which are affecting watersheds in which it operates throughout the Eastern Sierra.

Los Angeles Times Click here to continue reading.

By Brian Switek

Look at the Great Salt Lake and you might think of the vast body of water as lifeless. That’s far from the truth, of course. Not only is the Great Salt Lake home to an incredible number of brine shrimp - fodder for migrating birds looking to refuel - it also boasts microscopic life that’s adapted to the harsh conditions of the super-salty water. They’re called halophiles, and our Natural History Museum of Utah exhibit staff has just come up with a perfect recipe to help them thrive in our exhibit about the local lake.

There’s no single biological category for halophiles. “Most of them are bacteria,” Museum exhibit services supervisor Will Black says, “but they could also be eukaryotes,” or organisms made up of a cell or cells containing their DNA inside a nucleus. Regardless of their classification, though, Black notes that what makes halophiles distinct is right there in their name - halophile is Greek for “salt-loving.”

Click here to read on.

Click here to view any of the wonderful 2018 Issues Forum Presentations. Thank you again to our sponsors, speakers, and everyone who made this event a big briny success. 

Executive Director's Message – Spring 2018

“Here’s another fine mess you’ve gotten me into. “

Oliver Hardy to Stan Laurel (Laurel & Hardy)

On February 16, 2018 – just short of a year into the process – Promontory Point Resources LLC (PPR) withdrew its application for a Class V Permit, which was at that time under review by the Division of Waste Management and Radiation Control. In its letter to Scott Anderson, the Division Director, PPR requested that his staff discontinue review of the application “until further notice.”  Although the train has stopped short of the station, it’s highly unlikely that it won’t eventually show up. I hope I’m wrong about this but my skepticism leads me to believe that it’s only a matter of time before this economic boondoggle rears its ugly head once again. I say this because the money that has already been thrown at it and the politics that support it will continue to fuel it.

That being said, a lot has happened with this convoluted saga both before and after PPR’s request to withdraw its application. My goal here is to help shed additional light on some of the deeper corners of this conversation and to help you maintain your sense of footing on the issue by including some things that are worth repeating for context. 

I wrote extensively about this in the Winter 2018 newsletter. Important points were reiterated in the joint Op-Ed that FRIENDS and Sierra Club published in the 1/26/18 Salt Lake Tribune – Another Class V Landfill is Not the Way to Generate Economic Development for Utah. And we talked about the process and asked questions with the Division at public information meetings hosted by FRIENDS and Sierra Club in January and February. Nothing has changed and the message remains the same today. 

There are many reasons why this proposal is a huge gamble for both Box Elder County and the people of Utah. As a potential economic asset worthy of investment, it’s rife with empty promises and predictable missteps in its practices. And it’s an extremely risky proposition. Perhaps the only thing about it that can be said with any certainty is that it is a clear and present danger to Great Salt Lake. 

Because it’s located next to this hemispherically significant ecosystem that’s critical to millions of migratory birds, a global brine shrimp fishery, and mineral extraction operations that rely on the purity of their products, it jeopardizes a known economic generator of $1.32B annually to the people of Utah. That figure includes $375M in total labor income, and 7,700 jobs that are created from the Lake’s ecosystem services. This project jeopardizes a valuable and irreplaceable resource by constructing a repository for toxic waste and contamination that all Utahns will have to live with for centuries to come. Which is why it’s imperative that we keep our eye on this disturbing foul ball. 

You will recall that under its existing Class I Permit that was acquired with the purchase of the 2,000 acres of property in 2016, PPR, which is the only privately owned landfill in the state, has already sunk at least $16.25M of taxpayers’ money into the incomplete construction of a landfill facility at the SW tip of Promontory Peninsula. 

The money was approved for construction of a Class I landfill in December 2016 by the Utah Private Activity Bond Authority (PAB) part of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development. The bonding was issued by Box Elder County. It’s important to note that the PAB rejected PPR’s initial request for bonding authority for a Class V facility in its October 2016 meeting, which is curious because at that time PPR had not, in fact, submitted its application for a Class V Permit to the Division. As a result of the rejection, PPR modified and resubmitted its request to the PAB on December 6, 2016 for Class I bonding. The PAB approved the request in a 5-4 vote for an allocation of $16.25M to be issued through tax-exempt bonds. PPR is obligated to begin paying interest on those bonds in June 2018 – which is, like, tomorrow!

It’s no wonder that PPR wanted to test the waters with its request for funding a Class V Permit from the PAB because it already had the momentum to support that goal from the 2016 General Session of the Utah Legislature. On March 2016, a joint resolution (HJR 020) sponsored by Sen. Pete C. Knudson (Brigham City), and Rep. Lee B. Perry (Perry, UT) was approved to provide legislative endorsement for a Class V operation. “It would have a favorable economic impact on Box Elder County in the form of new permanent jobs and host fees.” A year later, in an article by Leia Larsen at the Standard Examiner, it appeared that Rep. Perry expressed some remorse about his impulsiveness to grease the skids on this idea. He said the measure was presented to him as an urgent matter, tied to an immediate economic opportunity. The article states that confusion about what type of waste would be accepted, where waste would come from and the depth of local support for – or opposition to – the project were essentially unheeded. Perry also said he wasn’t aware at the time that the company would pursue coal ash, incinerator ash, contaminated soil and industrial waste. It’s unfortunate for all of us that Rep. Perry chose not take more time to become better informed about this “opportunity” before jumping on the band wagon to endorse it. Alas!

On January 4, 2017, Brett Snelgrove, on behalf of Allos Environmental, the parent company of Promontory Point Resources, LLC, and a representative from TetraTech, the company overseeing the design of the landfill, made a presentation to the GSL Advisory Council about the Class I permitted facility. They talked about the design, economic viability, environmental controls, transportation of in-state waste to the site via the overland county road, and a modification of a permit that was on the verge of approval by the Division of Waste Management and Radiation Control; a reference that remained unclear at that time. 

In addition to the $16.25M mentioned above, $20M in private equity capital had also been committed to the project. Among the project costs that must be considered before the facility can begin to operate i.e. receive waste, is a Division-approved bonding source to cover mitigation costs for clean up of any contamination incidents and/or if closure of the facility is left in the hands of the state. The Executive Director of the Department of Environmental Quality would be the designated trustee for this account. What’s concerning here is that the amount of money in the fund – only about $2M – would be woefully inadequate in the event that any of these scenarios occurred. And they may well occur: – existing science supports a compelling argument that impacts to Great Salt Lake are both probable and dangerous. 

PPR hoped to break ground on the Class I landfill by the end of February 2017 but it wasn’t until May when that happened. Since the presentation raised many questions from a packed room of attendees, the GSL Advisory Council (with one abstention from its Box Elder representative) unanimously agreed to send a letter to the Division expressing numerous concerns it had about the facility and its proximity to the Lake. 

Remember that among the many challenges with this business venture for PPR and its Class I Permit is that it can only take waste under contracts approved by the Division from local governments within the state. Currently, that market is already sewn up by 10 existing facilities within the state that have a collective life storage capacity of 363 years. And although PPR’s Class I Permit is up for renewal in 2021, that isn’t where the economic payback is going to come from for these private business partners. 

The real moneymaker seems to be in a Class V Permit on the assumption that it would give PPR some room to move in the marketplace. A Class V Permit would ramp up PPR as a commercial facility. It wouldn’t be limited in its scope of waste markets by having to secure Division-approved contracts. And it could take out of state waste like coal ash from California. It’s well established that coal ash is a hazardous waste. 

However, to facilitate this PPR says it would need a railroad spur on to the site from the UPRR causeway that crosses the Lake. This of course is a terrible idea and clearly untenable since it would entail the transport of potentially hazardous waste across the entire Lake, likely spreading contamination. Additionally, this prospect is overshadowed by the fact that there are already 10 Class V landfill facilities with a combined life storage capacity of more than 2,000 years in operation in Utah. You might think this would have raised question about PPR’s economic viability in the Utah marketplace. Nevertheless, in March 2017, PPR applied for a Class V Permit with the Division of Waste Management and Radiation Control. 

When filing its application, PPR was required to include a Needs Assessment Report to justify the need for the facility. In July 2017, an independent third party review of the report identified numerous data gaps that had to be addressed before evaluation of the application could proceed.  A Needs Assessment Report Addendum was filed on December 20th. This time the third party review found that “it does not demonstrate the need for additional Class V landfill capacity in Utah, does not provide a robust market analysis, and has some remaining data gaps and therefore does not establish the need for the facility.” Back to the drawing board.

On January 9, 2018, a notice went out from the Division inviting public comment on a request from PPR for the installation and relocation of three down gradient monitoring wells. After review by PPR and its engineering and water consultants, it was noted that some of the wells proposed in the Class I Permit Modification (May 2016) were greater than 500 feet from the waste boundary. Down gradient monitoring wells are important for early detection of potential contamination pathways from the landfill into the surrounding water and landscape to avoid impacts. Why the initial location of the three down gradient monitoring wells were so off the mark to serve their objective is puzzling.

On February 14, 2018, the deadline for public comment, Western Resource Advocates submitted a letter to the Division on behalf of FRIENDS and Sierra Club expressing concerns about the subjectivity in the location of the monitoring wells and emphasized the need for better hydro-geologic data pertaining to the landfill and in order to protect groundwater from contamination. The letter included public comments that were submitted by the Great Salt Lake Advisory Council, Compass Minerals, and the Great Salt Lake Institute at Westminster College. All of the comments stressed concerns about the lack of groundwater data and the potential of groundwater flows from upland areas on Promontory Point to documented, proximal lakebed spring systems into this unique and significant ecosystem. Two days later, PPR withdrew its Class V Permit application “until further notice.”

So what does the square root of this information tell us? It tells us that

“Any miscalculation in design or engineering features that results in leaching, leaking, or catastrophic discharge of waste into Great Salt Lake will be highly consequential to the ecology and economic value of GSL. The history of coal ash disposal sites is replete with case studies of intentional, unintentional, and accidental discharge into surrounding terrestrial and aquatic systems causing acute and prolonged harm to aquatic organisms, populations, habitats and ecosystems.”*

Because the risks far outweigh the benefits for Utah’s economy and the long-term integrity of the Great Salt Lake Ecosystem, if PPR changes its mind and reapplies for the Class V Permit, it should be denied.

In saline,

Lynn 

* From the whitepaper Risks to Biota and the Ecosystem of Great Salt Lake from the PPR with Particular Emphasis on Potential Harm to the Brine Shrimp (Artemia franciscana) Population, February 2018, written by Brad Marden, Parliament Fisheries,LLC on behalf of the Great Salt Lake Brine Shrimp Cooperative.

SALT LAKE CITY – Governor Gary R. Herbert has declared May 2018 as the Month of the Bird in Utah. The declaration celebrates native and migratory birds making their way through Utah this time of year and the Beehive State’s remarkable landscapes and water resources that support them.

“May is a great month for residents and visitors to celebrate the important and inspirational role of birds that live in and migrate through our state. I want to thank National Audubon Society for their efforts in protecting birds and the places they need in Utah and beyond,” said Governor Gary R. Herbert.

A number of longstanding events providing educational and recreational birding opportunities occur in Utah every May, such as the Great Salt Lake Bird Festival, now in its 20^th year.

Home to 22 Important Bird Areas and more than 400 observed species, the Governor’s declaration recognizes that Utah’s natural resources provide important habitat for birds. Great Salt Lake and its wetlands, for instance, serve as an important breeding and stopover area for millions of migratory birds each year.

“The wonders of Great Salt Lake hold something for everyone. Seeing Killdeer around the shores of the lake takes me back to my childhood growing up on a farm in Delta - it was always my favorite bird,” said Michael Styler, executive director for Utah’s Department of Natural Resources. “The Department of Natural Resources, along with other local, state, and federal partners, conservation organizations, academia, and businesses, play important and shared roles in protecting Great Salt Lake for migratory birds.”

In addition to May as Month of the Bird in Utah, people around the world are celebrating 2018 as Year of the Bird. This year marks the centennial of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, one of the oldest wildlife protection laws in the United States. In honor of this milestone, National Geographic, Audubon, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, BirdLife International, and dozens of other partners around the world joined forces to celebrate 2018 as the Year of the Bird.

“Year of the Bird is an easy way people can take small everyday actions to help birds along their journeys,” said David Yarnold, president and CEO for National Audubon Society. “Utah is a critical stopover for birds like the Western Sandpiper that refuel at Great Salt Lake on their way to nest and raise their young in Alaska. We’d like to thank Governor Herbert for declaring May as Month of the Bird and recognizing the importance of birds and the places we share.”

Many conservation organizations, businesses and academics have been instrumental in protecting birds and the places they need in Utah. In celebrating May as the Month of the Bird and 2018 Year of the Bird, there is great appreciation for the efforts of many organizations, including local Audubon chapters, The Nature Conservancy in Utah, FRIENDS of Great Salt Lake, Great Salt Lake Institute (Westminster College), waterfowl associations and duck clubs, and many others.

Upcoming events include:

• May 5 is the 4^th annual Global Big Day, the largest single-day birding event in the world.
• May 9-11 is the 12^th Biennial Great Salt Lake Issues Forum – FRIENDS of Great Salt Lake
• May 11-12 is the first International Bird Day Tour in Western Box Elder County
• May 12 is World Migratory Bird Day at Scott M. Matheson Wetlands Preserve in Moab - Utah Division of Wildlife Resources and The Nature Conservancy in Utah 
• May 12-13 is the 13^th annual Urban Bird Festival at Tracy Aviary
• May 12 is the 25^th International Migratory Bird Day in North America
• May 17-21 is the 20^th Annual Great Salt Lake Bird Festival – Davis County
• Throughout May and June, residents and visitors around the West are encouraged help document bird observations for the first ever National Audubon Society Western Rivers Bird Count
• Join the world in celebrating 2018 Year of the Bird at www.birdyourworld.org

Congratulations to Katherine Barrett, University of Notre Dame, winner of the 2018 Doyle W. Stephens Scholarship for reasearch related to Great Salt Lake. 

Katherine Barrett will be awarded the $1,000 scholarship during the 2018 Great Salt Lake Issues Forum on May 10 at the Fort Douglas Officers Club on the campus of the Universtiy of Utah.

Barrett's project titled, Linking Artemia To the Benthos: Do Microbialites Support Brine Shrimp Production in Great Salt Lake?, explores the connections among the Great Salt Lake food chain. See below for her project description

PROJECT DESCRIPTION Despite covering at least 700 km2 in the south arm of Great Salt Lake (GSL), fundamental ecological understanding of microbialites, their associated brine fly populations, and interactions with brine shrimp, is in its nascent stages (Baskin 2014). Researchers have suggested that the benthic (brine fly) and pelagic (brine shrimp) food chains may be linked, and microbialites may be a critical component of brine shrimp cyst production. A long-term pelagic study has benefitted researchers and managers with an understanding of brine shrimp and phytoplankton dynamics in relationship to variable abiotic factors, but this dataset lacks a complementary benthic study (Belovsky et al. 2011). Without further information on the benthic food chain, the importance of pathways supporting brine shrimp production remains speculative. My proposed research, which involves field and laboratory studies, aims to identify microbialite communities and quantify their contribution as a food source to brine shrimp populations in GSL. Since the construction of a rock and gravel railroad causeway created a salinity gradient in GSL, my project will focus on the south arm because that is where brine flies, shrimp, and microbialites are biologically active.