Consider that we are only the very latest people to live near the Lake over more than ten millennia, and that most who inhabited these shores during all that time drew material and spiritual nourishment without changing her at all. That thought ought to humble us. Perhaps we owe something to all those men and women who preceded us in this place. We could gain much by allowing ourselves to become again, if only in some small degree, a people of the Lake.
-Dean May in Images of The Great Salt Lake, 1996 (Centennial)

 

I want to begin by thanking all of you for your participation in the recent public commenting process on the Natural Resource Damage (NRD) Settlement Proposal between the State of Utah, Kennecott Utah Copper and the Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District.

Your passion and clarity about your concerns for the Great Salt Lake Ecosystem and the health and welfare of all of us who live within its watershed was uplifting. Making new friends and learning a great deal about my neighborhood around Great Salt Lake helped strengthen my commitment to work even harder toward what's best for our quality of life and for the long term quality of life of the Lake.

You did a tremendous job of staying on message about specific problems we have with this proposal. One of the most obvious problems being the glaring lack of baseline data on selenium and sulfates in our rivers, wetlands, and Great Salt Lake. If decisions are made without the benefit of rock solid science to determine key contaminant thresholds in the system, they are in danger of being arbitrary and capricious. The lack of scientific integrity of those decisions undermines any assurances we are given about cleaning up one source of contamination without creating another.

The Trustee of the NRD Settlement Proposal is Dr. Dianne Nielson. She is also, of course, Executive Director of the Department of Environmental Quality. In both roles she has a responsibility to act in the interest of the Public Trust Doctrine on behalf of and in protection of its natural resources. Every day requests for permits abound: solid and hazardous waste, air quality, water quality, and permits to fill wetlands, just to name a few. The situation becomes even more challenging when decisions about key lake resources such as wildlife management, mineral extraction, and water resources are also being made by seven different agencies within the Department of Natural Resources.

The growth projections anticipated for Utah guarantee that demands in the watershed and on the Great Salt Lake system will only increase. Unless we are deliberate in our effort to move away from a piecemeal management style and toward the adoption of a holistic watershed approach, the future does not look promising.

FRIENDS has always advocated a watershed approach for Great Salt Lake preservation and protection. Remember that we discussed this at our 2000 Great Salt Lake Issues Forum when we brought in stakeholders from around the country to showcase their watershed models. Perhaps, now is the time to begin talking more seriously about a comprehensive watershed management plan for the Great Salt Lake Ecosystem.

A first step would be to commission a comprehensive and independent study of the Lake's entire system so at the very least, we would have the benefit of reliable science to work with. That would be coupled with a comprehensive monitoring program to establish those very critical baselines.

And again, thanks to all of you, the Division of Water Quality has begun to collect grab samples in the wetlands and around the Lake to help all of us understand what levels of selenium currently exists in the wetlands.

And yes, we also need to have a serious conversation about water quality standards for Great Salt Lake. Currently, as stated in the Utah Department of Natural Resources' Management Plan for the Great Salt Lake (under the authority of the Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands), "The general policy is that, to the extent feasible, no pollutants (discharges) should be delivered to the Lake in amounts that result in concentrations greater than those already present in the Lake." Without knowing what concentrations already exist, what basis is there for allowing more contaminants to be discharged into the Lake? In other words, how do we do "no net gain" without knowing what the "net" is already?

The intense interest that has been generated over the NRD Settlement Proposal could be the very springboard to move Great Salt Lake's stewards (that means all of us) forward into a more responsible and progressive role in making decisions about its future.

And as we work with the Lake in mind, we will be consciously acknowledging Great Salt Lake as a mirror of where we live and how we live.

In saline,

Lynn de Freitas