Great Salt Lake Conservation Gains Momentum with $1 Billion Federal Push and Renewed State Commitment

Because the disaster dealing with Nice Salt Lake continues to garner ongoing native and nationwide consideration and concern, National Audubon Society welcomes the rising array of dedicated organizations and leaders advancing efforts to protect Nice Salt Lake by their management and monetary help.  As individuals in as we speak’s roundtable hosted by Governor Spencer Cox, Audubon strongly helps federal investments to leverage the State of Utah’s ongoing investments and personal sector contributions to a more healthy Nice Salt Lake. For greater than three many years, Audubon has been a recognized leader committed to the long-term conservation and restoration of Great Salt Lake and its linked wetlands. 

“We’re grateful for the management of Utah’s congressional delegation, Governor Cox, and different federal and state leaders in recognizing the significance of sustained federal funding as a key step towards addressing the challenges dealing with Nice Salt Lake,” mentioned Marshall Johnson, Chief Conservation Officer on the Nationwide Audubon Society. “Constructing on many years of conservation and restoration work at Nice Salt Lake, Audubon is able to assist flip this dedication into lasting progress by science, partnerships, and on-the-ground motion that advantages birds, communities, water sources, and Utah’s financial system.”

As the biggest saline lake within the Western Hemisphere, Nice Salt Lake is a globally essential stopover, internet hosting 12 million migratory birds yearly—birds that depend upon the lake and its wetlands for breeding and fueling habitat. This contains a few of the largest congregations of species discovered wherever on the earth, just like the Eared Grebe and Wilson’s Phalarope. Defending the lake is crucial not just for migratory birds and wildlife on the hemispheric scale, but additionally for regional air high quality, financial stability, public well being, and the well-being of hundreds of thousands of individuals. 

By way of science-based conservation, coverage management, and collaborative partnerships, Audubon is advancing durable, watershed-scale solutions that enhance water safety, shield habitat, and strengthen the resilience of the lake and its wetlands. Working alongside federal, state, Tribal, native, agricultural, and neighborhood companions, we are implementing revolutionary and sensible options that assist stabilize and get well the Nice Salt Lake ecosystem. Audubon and The Nature Conservancy lead the Great Salt Lake Watershed Enhancement Trust (the Belief), that has helped to secure new and existing water flows to Great Salt Lake by voluntary water transactions that profit the lake and surrounding communities. The Belief has develop into a number one mannequin for collaborative water stewardship and supporting restoration of the lake’s habitats. 

To construct on this progress and meet the dimensions of the challenges dealing with the lake, Audubon strongly helps the request for $1 billion in federal funding devoted to the safety and restoration of Nice Salt Lake and its watershed. As mentioned at as we speak’s roundtable, this stage of funding would assist speed up conservation methods to convey extra water to the lake together with voluntary water transactions, pure infrastructure, habitat restoration, species and wetland safety, scientific monitoring, and community-based partnerships which might be important to securing the way forward for the lake, and integral to Audubon’s work at Nice Salt Lake. 

Defending Nice Salt Lake just isn’t solely a regional precedence, it’s a hemispheric crucial. Daring federal motion now will help safe a sustainable future for this irreplaceable ecosystem, particularly as we rally across the objective of securing a wholesome Nice Salt Lake by the 2034 Winter Olympics.