This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Thanks very much for the Tribune's able May 24 editorial, "A need for speed" on the proposed extension of the Legacy Parkway. Speed is indeed fundamental to the state agencies' central purpose, which consists of interconnected developments for real estate profits and cultural multiplication for dominance.
But speed is only part of the vision, as is becoming obvious in recent legislative and gubernatorial events.
Water, essential for propagation of people throughout the region, is to come from the Bear River Diversion, even in an age of diminishing water inflows.
Like the anomalous proposed diversion from Lake Powell to St. George alongside recommendations for the draining of Glen Canyon (New York Times, May 23) to conserve water, the Bear River cannot possibly support both diversion and compassionate ecology through conservation-first.
The region's wildlife, particularly the millions of migratory birds of more than 400 species that depend on the Great Salt Lake, must be central. Given the sheer number of this and other complexities that cannot be sorted out and managed even in very commendable visions such as the "Shared Solution," it is clear that only the federal government can plan and manage the Great Salt Lake, its precarious biogeochemical systems, and its many ecological ramifications in time to save the birds and their western U.S. ecosystem.
Consequently, the Great Salt Lake should become part of a Western Saline Lakes Migratory Birds National Monument, with the Bear River system put forth by President Obama alongside the essential Bears Ears National Monument, for posterity, both as Utah-focused exercises of the Antiquities Act, before Obama leaves office. Utah leaders won't do what's needed because they don't want to!
Ivan Weber
Salt Lake City