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October 9, 2002
News
Specialist John Daley Reporting.
A new plan is in the works to preserve the shorelands of the
Great Salt Lake.
The lake is an internationally significant breeding ground
and migratory staging area for millions of birds.
Now, for the first time, a plan is being developed to protect
those areas in Salt Lake County.
The areas along the edges of the Great Salt Lake are critical
for water quality, flood prevention and wildlife habitat.
Those are also some of the areas that, at first glance anyway,
may be suitable for development. The goal of this new plan
is to find a way for both to peacefully coexist.
Because the Great Salt Lake mudflats are flat, and sandy,
and mostly they LOOK like nothing's there, they appear to
be ideal grounds for development. But first impressions can
be deceiving.
These shorelands, known as playa lands, support the foraging,
nesting and brood-rearing activities of many migratory birds
during the spring. The key is the insects that live here.
"For
shorebirds that are migrating sometimes as far as Argentina,
sometimes nonstop for 3,000 miles, they get to the Great Salt
Lake exhausted, hungry and just devour these insects,"
says Joan Degiorgio of the Utah Mitigation Commission.
Saving the playa lands is critical to protecting the birds.
Now, a process is in place to develop a plan for the shorelands
of Salt Lake County--the roughly 30-square mile zone south
of the lake--from Saltair to I-215.
A committee of city and county officials, property owners,
developers, planners and others is trying to figure out how
to save the shorelands, and allow appropriate future development.
The first step will be a high-tech in-depth mapping of the
area.
"We
know that habitat is significantly reduced here and other
places. So really to save as much as we can is not going to
be too much."
Similar plans are already well underway in Box Elder, Davis
and Tooele County. This area is NOT in the route of the contentious
Legacy Highway project.
And the goal here is to avoid any Legacy-like fights in the
future by getting all sides together and collaboratively planning
ahead.
"People
in Utah I think are getting pretty smart about planning their
communities. They've seen some things happen over the past
few years that they don't like. They've seen changes that
they now realize are not reversible and they want to do the
right thing from the outset," says Sharen Hauri, a land
planner with Swaner Design.
As part of this plan--there are on-going public meetings including
some next month. The group expects to have an initial report
ready in March.
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