Editorial: This is the first step to saving the Great Salt Lake
As the civil rights movement was rising in the United States in the 1960s, its leaders had an expression for what was happening. It went something like, “We’re not where we want to be. We’re not where we ought to be. But, thank goodness, we’re not where we used to be.” On paper, and in the papers, Utah is reaching such a point when it comes to solving the crisis of the shrinking Great Salt Lake. There is widespread realization that we cannot just sit back and wait for Mother Nature to refill the lake. We see that it will take human action, sustained and expensive, to stop the rapid shrinking that threatens not only its economic output and the birds and other wildlife that depend on its ecosystem, but also the lives and livelihoods of the millions of people who live near its shores.