The Great Salt Lake is drying up.
Preserving its waters protects our health, its unique ecosystems, and ensures the future habitability of Utah.
Join us!
Thursday, May 30th at 6:30 pm.
Salt Lake City Public Library, Main Branch
This Watershed Moment: Envisioning Place-Based Futures
Join Utah Humanities and Save Our Great Salt Lake for a panel discussion and project kickoff, discussing the confluence of changing watersheds and courageous imagination.
Panelists include Forrest Cuch, Former Director of Indian Affairs for the State of Utah, author, educator, and member of the Ute Tribe; Bonnie Baxter, Director of the Great Salt Lake Institute at Westminster University; Olivia Juarez, Public Land Program Director with Green Latinos and Organizer & Podcast Host with Of Salt and Sand. The panel will be moderated by Brooke Larsen, Virginia Spencer Davis Fellow at High Country News and creative producer with Of Salt and Sand.
More information about the guidelines for submission, the publication and how to submit your work coming soon. Submissions will be open through September 22, 2024. Learn more about the Project.
The Dangers of a Drying Lake Bed
The Great Salt Lake is a terminal one, meaning it has no outlets. Absent of any outflow, its lake bed has absorbed decades’ worth of industrial waste, pesticides, and heavy metals that occur naturally in Utah’s soil. As water is diverted from the lake – largely for agricultural use and mineral extraction – dried particles blow across the Wasatch Front, exposing millions to toxic, irritating dust.
Without intervention, Great Salt Lake is on track to become one of the largest dust emission sources in North America.
Pictured below are dried out microbialites, rare bacterial structures that are considered one of the oldest life forms on earth. These ‘living rocks’ provide food for brine shrimp and flies who in turn feed tens of millions of shore and migratory birds. A drying lake bed not only endangers humans, but entire ecosystems that rely on stability and homeostasis for continued survival. While 1/3 of the lake’s microbialite structures are now dried out and dead, many more still survive underwater and it’s not too late to save them or our Great Salt Lake.
“If we can’t get a water right for the Great Salt Lake and we can’t protect a certain level of water in the lake, that ecosystem will collapse, and that will have devastating impacts for the millions of humans that live here.”
DR. BONNIE BAXTER, DIRECTOR OF GREAT SALT LAKE INSTITUTE
“Diaphanous clouds sweeping across the sky create a veil of shadows on the pastel landscape of mountain ranges and floating islands and pink water in a bloom of algae. How still this place.”
TERRY TEMPEST WILLIAMS, UTAH AUTHOR & CONSERVATIONIST
