Great Salt Lake (again)

ISSUE #6

April 2023

Terry Tempest Williams wrote about her concern for Great Salt Lake in her thought-provoking New York Times Opinion article. Published on March 25, 2023, her piece was a needed canon, given the Utahn Legislature's failure to develop a rescue strategy for the lake. The 47-day legislative session ended in March, leaving many lake supporters in shock.

I was unaware of the lake's issues until I stumbled upon an Instagram post by Williams. I was instantly taken with her care for the lake. I immersed myself in her work. In the last month, I have devoured Erosion, When Women Were Birds, Finding Beauty In a Broken World, and Refuge. Reading her books is as profound an experience as listening to her narration of the audio versions.

I learned of Refuge while working on Issue #4 about Great Salt Lake. Refuge explores Terry’s life: how she fell in love with the natural world, what it was like to grow up in a Mormon household, Utahn politics, and most of all, her exploration of the high desert. Mimi, her grandmother, introduced her to the birds of Great Salt Lake. The structure of Refuge is organized by shorebirds: American Avocet, Snowy Egret, Western Tanager, and thirty-three others. This is a book I will read annually.

In Refuge, Williams explores the themes of loss in natural environments and the human yearning to connect with ecosystems. Refuge was published to critical acclaim; she released a tenth-anniversary edition in 1991, with the latest update published in 2018 by Vintage Books. Wallace Stegner, her teacher and colleague, writes, “The wonderful thing about Refuge is Terry Williams is too full of life herself, and too fascinated by all its manifestations to write a gloomy book. There isn’t a page in Refuge that doesn’t whistle with the sound of wings.”

The scientific community provided insights into the future of Great Salt Lake in February 2023. According to Brigham Young University scientists, the lake's lifespan is estimated to be just five years. Initially, I thought that was yet another man-made consequence of climate change. It seemed like a preventable disaster caused by flawed zoning policies and uncontrolled capitalism. However, Terry Tempest Williams, who lives in the red rock desert of southern Utah, shares stories in Refuge that go beyond simply depicting poor choices.

In her message, she encourages us to reflect and take action. She vividly portrays the lake's wetlands as a crucial habitat for migratory shorebirds. These sanctuary spaces provide nesting grounds for ten million migratory birds, consisting of 240 species that journey along the Pacific Flyway.

Ever since I became aware of the impending demise of the lake, the situation has been weighing heavily on my mind. Despite my attempts to seek solace by joining an Eco-grief group, a conservation group, and writing poetry, I felt empty. Conversations about the lake often resulted in comments such as "Someone will take care of it," "Technology will solve the problem," or even "Thankfully, we had a lot of snow this year." It's disheartening to hear dismissive statements like "There's no way that 2.6 million people in the Salt Lake City area would need to evacuate due to toxic air”. It is no wonder we begin to see the phrase, “No one is coming for us,” in unexpected places. Last Friday, I watched a presentation on Asheville’s housing situation. It was one of those well-thought-out, every-sentence-matters presentations. The last slide said, “No one is coming to save us,” And I thought, how many times have I seen this…beginning with Barry Lopez. I will come back to this another day.

In “I am haunted by what I have seen at Great Salt Lake,” Williams recalls how she learned of the danger facing the lake’s ecosystem in the fall of 2016. As a long-time resident, she witnessed a heartbreaking scene of 60 salt-encrusted bodies of adolescent pelicans on the salt flats, with their hollow bones protruding from crystallized clumps of feathers. These pelicans were most likely frightened by coyotes. The young pelicans were not strong enough to flee from Gunnison Island, one of North America's largest white pelican rookeries.

The increase in coyote sightings on the islands is linked to the lake's water level, which reached a record low of 4,188.5 feet in 2022. Coyotes can now cross exposed land bridges to reach the sanctuaries of migratory birds. We must heed the scientists’ warnings about the potential demise of Great Salt Lake. The timing of our response will make a difference in preserving life.

Establishing a minimum water level is essential to preserving the well-being and security of the lake. Brigham Young University scientist Ben Abbott and his colleagues have recommended that the lake's minimum level be 4198 feet. This can be achieved by various methods: adopting water conservation techniques, releasing water from the 61 reservoirs located on the Bear River, freeing up water ownership rights, and/or exploring other viable options. These options all come with complications. I mention them to begin the discussion as we move into future issues because water is at the forefront of ecosystem regeneration.

Why did I write about Great Salt Lake again? Because we can’t turn away. As my lake-facing poet friend Nan Seymour says, “When someone you love is dying, you stay with them.”

Why does Great Salt Lake so haunt me? Because what happens to the lake is a reflection of what we do or do not do.

But really, why does Great Salt Lake so haunt me? Because it’s a reflection of the more significant climate issue. We promised, in Paris, to be below 1.5 by 2030. And yet we continue to board planes, we expect life to go back to “normal” after the pandemic, and drilling for oil in Alaska has just been approved.

Christiana Figueres, one of the architects of the Paris Agreement, says we are having a hard time wrapping the long-term thinking part of our brain around the climate situation when putting food on the table seems equally urgent for most.

But 2028 is just five years away for Great Salt Lake, and 2030 is seven years away for the rest of the world.

As Doug Peacock writes in Erosion by Terry Tempest Williams: “These are the most dangerous of all days for humans on Earth and Erosion is the book for our time. Writing on the edge of the sacred, Terry Tempest Williams’s message bears the power and emotional gifts of a close call with a charging grizzly. There are no stray words. Terry writes with a purity glimpsed in certain outcrops of crystalline rock or the waters filling a chain of alpine lakes. I believe there is no more important writer working today.”

I hope you consider purchasing one of Terry’s books from your local independent bookseller.

I fully expect to write encouraging news as we keep the conversation alive. It’s up to all of us to save all of us.

Thank you for being here,

Kath

And before you go, here is my tribute to the amazing avocets of Great Salt Lake.

American Avocet

I am elegant and slender.

White-colored body,
black and white wings.
To celebrate breeding season,
my head and neck
turn a rich rusty-peach color.

My feet are webbed.
My bill is long, thin, and black,
with an upward turn at the end.
I eat brine flies and shrimp.

There are 260,000 of us.
We migrate, we nest in the wetlands
of Antelope Island on Great Salt Lake.

Nan wrote us into her poems.
She stays with us
while men in suits determine
how to keep the lake hostage:
damed, diked, and diminuished.

Nan asks humans to be lake-facing.
Nan's friend Terry counts my dead cousins.
We think she is crying. Brooke stands by her.
The Legislature is not moved.
They accept money from oil men.

Our ancient DNA 
says our ecosytem is safe.
The coyotes tell us otherwise.
The lake waters have receded;
the coyotes have easy passage.
We divebomb them,
we use our third level voice.
But they keep killing.

When will our DNA remap our migratory path?
Where will we find sanctuary?

kbw