In June 2022, off the eastern shore of our Great Salt Lake, near Saltair, I found reef islands firmly cropping out of the water, due to low water levels. Our very own saline archipelago! (Don’t tell our over-eager Salt Lake housing developers. We don’t want apartment complexes out there, do we?)
Between each island, water ranged from ankle to stomach deep. As I found myself marooned, looking for a way back to shore, I couldn’t help but imagine, and abhor the idea, that one day these islands may become lakebed mountain ranges.
When I wrote to The Tribune in 2021, I had suggested that policy-makers would be slow in acting to save the lake from depletion. I quipped that Utahns should either throw buckets of water into the lake or seek better solutions. Since then, like many of you, I have watched a slew of proposals floated in headlines and articles. Some were destined to sink, like an expensive ocean-to-lake pipeline, surging sea water directly into the lake. While other proposals — like making the lake a national park, the LDS Church donating water, and a resolution to pump snowmelt, bay, and district water into the lake — were more structurally sound.
This year, thankfully, water from our snowmelt has made a difference, and the lake seems to be recovering. At Saltair, it’s not so easy getting marooned. Those reef islands from a year ago are now barely locatable. However, our lake’s sustainability is not something we can simply let nature resolve. Surely another severe drought will come, and if we cannot ensure the lake’s preservation, even in years of excess, then we will, inevitably, one day, be fleeing a dust bowl wasteland. After all, what is our Salt Lake City without its titular lake?
Let’s not become lax, the fight goes on.
Zac Smith, Kearns
