Are artificial wetlands the future of the Great Salt Lake?

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As the Great Salt Lake recedes, the distance between what we’d normally consider the end point of the fresh water rivers that feed it and the shore of the lake itself grows, according to Max Malmquist, engagement manager for the National Audubon Society’s Saline Lakes Program.

This is creating larger wetland-like areas in areas once covered by the lake itself. And while most of these areas aren’t currently managed for the express purpose of providing habitat for birds, Audubon has observed that these growing deltas tend to attract shorebirds.

“If the lake level stays low, the amount of habitat that it provides may change,” Malmquist says. “If we are looking to maximize or improve habitat for birds, we may want to start looking at those freshwater-saltwater interfaces to see what can be done to create more habitat at those locations.”

To combat a similar issue in California's Salton Sea, the state of California plans to pump water from a nearby river and mix it with water from the Salton Sea to achieve the ideal salinity. The mixed water will be used to fill man-made basins dug into the Salton Sea shoreline to create an artificial wetland — or what the ecology pros like to call a managed wetland.

It’s just the first step in California’s plans to restore 30,000 acres of habitat at the Salton Sea — and one that could have implications for the future of the Great Salt Lake.

Perspective: Compromise for the sake of unity

"In early July 1787, the delegates who gathered in Philadelphia to create a written constitution for the new nation faced the real prospect of failure. Yet by mid-September, they had produced the charter that would be the basis for our enduring success as a nation," Thomas B. Griffith writes.

"In his letter transmitting the Constitution to Congress, George Washington attributed this surprising turn of events — what one popular account of the convention called the 'Miracle at Philadelphia' — to the 'spirit of amity, and of that mutual deference and concession which the peculiarity of our political situation rendered indispensable.'”

"Our current political situation — fraught with division and partisan politics — renders indispensable those same qualities.

"As the late Michael Gerson noted, 'Our political system is designed for vigorous disagreement. It is not designed for irreconcilable contempt. Such contempt loosens the ties of citizenship and undermines the idea of patriotism.'”

Read morefrom Thomas B. Griffith about why compromise is vital to preserve the Constution.

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