What do the birds sounds like? Why does the state oppose the listing? What's the next legal fight?
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Wilson's phalaropes more than double their body weight while feasting on brine flies and brine shrimp at saline lakes including the Great Salt Lake during the summer before they migrate 3,500 miles to South America.
They're struggling as saline lakes dry up. Could they be our canary in the coal mine?
The groups petitioning to list them as an endangered species Thursday say that our fate is linked to theirs.
Learn what the petition does and why one advocate views it as an opportunity instead of adversarial, in this KSL.com story.
Discover what the repercussions could be if the petition is successful, in this Salt Lake Tribune story.
And while state leaders plan to fight the listing, this may be just the beginning of the legal fights:
- Find out what what advocates say could be the next legal steps, in this FOX 13 News story.
If you're curious about what the birds sound like, check this out.
And you can read the petition here.
Future legal fights — and what the state could to head off a listing
There are other potential "legal nuclear bombs" related to the lake, including over clean air: The University of Utah law school's Great Salt Lake Policy Project issued a report about what else could happen in the courts if the lake's decline is not reversed.
And if you want more legal reading, I found the law school's additional analysis on an endangered species listing, released yesterday, interesting. It lays out what the authors (which have connections to an advocacy group that is part of the petition) say could prove to the federal government that Utah's plan to save the lake is sufficient and its "resolve is firm," including:
- Make the most of our snowpack by getting reservoir managers to release more water.
- Spend more of the Great Salt Lake Enhancement Trust to get water to the lake. (Read about the newly released 5-year-plan for that money.)
- Get more local governments, charities and private groups involved. (Find out which cities don't have efficient landscape ordinances and what aproposed but failed law would have done about it).
- "Take seriously" the opportunity for farmers to implement split-season leasing. Split season leases pay farmers to not grow an extra crop and instead send their water downstream.
