Lady of the Great Salt Lake

HERE FOR IT

Honoring one of nature’s gifts to Utah tomorrow

I love this learning review method! Very nice work

"Most new water rights are not siphoning away the Great Salt Lake’s tributaries, like the Bear, Weber, Jordan and Provo rivers. They are drilling new wells. But signs are pointing to important connections between groundwater and the Great Salt Lake."

Study groundwater more, and eat less beef.

OK maybe dressing as a salty little crustacean isn't ordinary, but brine shrimp themselves are rather ordinary, and seeing so many ordinary people out rallying and lobbying for their local environment is magnificent.

People dress up as birds and brine shrimp to show support for the Great Salt Lake.

I like this; I think that success stories often don't get the attention they deserve, and there is so much we can learn from success in one area that can be adapted to another topic or location.

Shallows of the GSL, south side, taken in fall. The sand is formed into ripples as it extends out to meet the water. The shallow water movement creates strong ripple patterns in many beaches of the lake. The ripples here almost look like a wood pattern as they bend around each other, occasionally merging or splitting. Halfway out the field of view, the water becomes deep enough to reflect the sky and is a bright blue. A small haze of clouds is on the horizon.

Been hard to focus on the lake with all the other big things going on, but lake time always helps.

Raise your hand if you already knew that the Great Salt Lake is half blue, half pink.

#didyouknow #greatsaltlake #onlyinutah

Pretty sure the mountain at the edge of the lake is Stansbury Island. This is the second largest island of the lake and has a significant land bridge connecting it to the surrounding lands. Evaporation ponds now flank its west side, which are part of the mineral extraction process. Photo description: A view from an airplane showing the airplane wing and a cloudy morning over the Great Salt Lake. The water is blue and the land where it meets is snowy and pale. A sliver of silvery-rose sunrise color is still visible in the horizon, even in the pale morning light.

The railroad causeway divides the lake into north and south arms, with limited mixing between the two. You can see it stand out here as the south arm keeps a blue color but the north arm water becomes very pink due to a halophilic bacteria that is one of the only things that can live in the saltier water of the north arm. Photo description: a view from an airplane window. The airplane wing is visible, and down below, the great salt lake fills about half the view before mountains and sky create the horizon. The lake has a vertical line through it, about centered in thale photo. The left side of the lake is dark blue/teal and the right side of the lake is dark pink, like a purplish rose color. The pink side of the lake has white lines on the surface, possibly from snow or salt.

A fuller view of the strange textures going on in the pink waters of the northern arm. The white ripples that streak the surface were not moving as I watched, so I am unsure what they could be! I've never seen something like this in my lakewatching yet, but I also rarely get such a great view. I do know that the pink waters of the north arm are basically at full saturation and cannot dissolve more salt, and sometimes create salt deposits or precipitates, but I am not sure if that is what is behind these expansive patterns on the lake surface. Photo description: The blue/pink divide of the lake is still visible (outside of the window and below the airplane wing) but moved so that most of the view is now the pink waters. The surface of the water is streaked with swirling white lines that are wavy but generally horizontal.

The deep pink color against the north arm beaches was so striking to me. The north arm tends to be around 25% salinity but recent droughts have pushed that number closer to 30% as the water level has decreased. That is 9-10 times saltier than the ocean, and because it's near the saturation point for the water (which does change across seasons based on environmental factors like temperature) large salt crystals can form and deposit on the beaches. The Great Salt Lake has 3 rivers that feed it, and all 3 flow into the south arm of the lake, which tends to be around 12-15% salinity due to the fresh water coming in. In the record breaking low lake levels of 2021 and 2022, a berm was raised between the two lake arms to reduce the saltier north arm water from adding to the crisis level salinity the south arm was achieving - near 17 and 18%, which is where brine flies and shrimp can no longer live in the salty water. The heavy snows of 2022-2023 brought in enough water to overwhelm the berm and raise the north arm a foot in addition to raising the south arm 5 feet. Ongoing management involves monitoring water levels and salinity levels on both sides of the lake and planning adjustments to the amount of water that flows between them. Photo description: the amount of land visible below the airplane wing is about halfway pink waters at the bottom of the picture, and pale beach line in the middle of the photo. The shoreline is varied, with a large outgrowing centered in the view. The lake is very shallow and so the shoreline blends between snow and salt, sand and water intricately. Farther away along the beach, more evaporation ponds are visible in the background. They have pale blue water of a few different shades sorted into ponds cut up with straight lines, surrounded by snowy wilderness.

Flew out of SLC a little while back and got some gorgeous views of the lake 😍

Alt text has more deets about the water and land you're seeing!

I love the energy and connection at the rallies; come check it out to learn more about the lake and how to get involved! #greatsaltlake #rally #utpol #utleg #conservation #utah #activism #utahstatecap... TikTok video by LadyOfTheGreatSaltLake

Let's rally! What do you hope for the future? And what are you willing to do to make that future a reality?

www.tiktok.com/t/ZT2NUBPa2/

100% yes. These problems are big enough to affect us all in big and little ways, so of course anyone can help. It's gonna affect business, so business people help. It's gonna affect education, science, food, news, community parks, how much you can golf... so bring your skills and and get started!

Do not allow them to overwhelm you or make you think you have to jump from breaking crisis to breaking crisis. You do not have to carry all of these on your own. Choose where you care the most, where you can be uniquely effective, and focus deeply there. You will make an important difference.

I've also learned new skills from that deeper experience that help me be more effective in concerns that are not my top three but that I still act on. I've met more people through the sustained effort on one problem who are sustaining efforts on other problems, and we now combine our skills better.

There are so many important issues that I want to keep up on, donate to, and be able to support with my knowledge and energy. But that is not sustainable. Focusing deeply on the lake (and a few other issues) has helped me be a more effective advocate and see the longer story, and longer goal.

Oh yeah, I forgot hashtags are actually useful here.
#noobing

We kinda need it even more today.

Seriously! Just listing the facts here all in one place - thank you!

And he has a lot of handlers pointing out the things they want removed from their path of greed.

Policy needs science. These revocations are going to damage our health and home. I hope our local work can resist some of the damage here, and create microclimates of problem-solving, ingenuity, cooperation, and data-driven policy to defend our communities and environment.

Love bumping into fellow ecological eaters! 💚

They're trying to take us with them. We might have to save them alongside ourselves if we're gonna make it.

The future is big, the climate challenges are big, and it's gonna take all of us. Tell her we need her passion, no matter what direction she goes professionally!

We need passionate biologists, marine scientists, climatologists, botanists, chemist, and anyone who wants to study and build our knowledge of what's happening and what's an effective way to respond.

We also need dedicated journalists, entrepreneurs, communicators, educators, agricultors....

Small individual changes can really add up! One of the most effective ways to reduce your individual water and carbon footprints is to reduce your meat intake, especially beef.

So frustrating that they believe fascists and the worst politics has to offer over science.

Thank you for channeling it into something productive.

The state legislature wants to "take a break" from water legislation, and we're salty about it.

Come rally with us to show the state how important it is to keep our eyes on the lake, especially as we enter lower snow years again.

I was there for public lands! Love these takeaways from an inspiring rally. What do you love about the public lands near you?

Got a little snow today :D