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[ Joanne Woodward: ] It's one of the most mysterious bodies of water on the planet--a salt water lake in the middle of a desert. It is home to millions of migratory birds.

Surrounding the Great Salt Lake of the American West are some of the world's greatest treasures of wetlands. This is Joanne Woodward. Please join me for one of the most important stories of the American West.

THE GREAT SALT LAKE: AMERICA'S LEGACY OF WETLANDS

A FILM BY JOHN HOWE

NARRATED BY JOANNE WOODWARD

[ Announcer: ] This program is made possible in part by: The R. Harold Burton Foundation, the S. J. and Jessie E. Quinney Foundation, the Willard L. Eccles Charitable Foundation, the George S. and Dolores Dore' Eccles Foundation, and the Dr. Ezekiel R. and Edna Wattis Dumke Foundation

[Joanne Woodward: ] The Great Salt Lake is the largest salt lake in the Western Hemisphere. It's one of the most famous landmarks in the United States. The lake itself has no fish and sits in a desert basin. The eastern shore of the Great Salt Lake is America's Serengeti for migratory birds.

Wetlands can be defined as marshes with changing water levels. Wetlands are found on every continent except Antarctica. America's wetlands are vanishing at a rapid rate. Only a fraction of the United State's original wetlands remain. Wetlands are threatened by the urban sprawl of encroaching cities and diversion of their water sources. Wetlands rival coral reefs and tropical rain forests in terms of diversity.

Population growth is a worldwide factor in the loss of wetlands. The need for more land and water puts wetlands at risk. California has lost over 80 percent of its original wetlands.

The raging rapids of the Colorado River once fed a vibrant wetlands ecosystem. The remaining wetlands are but a hint of the river delta that once existed. Diversion of its water causes the Colorado River to often run dry in the sands of Mexico.

Florida's Everglades may be the symbolic heart of wetlands in America. It's the largest remaining subtropical wilderness in the United States. It's a wilderness in danger.

Conservationist Marjorie Stoneman Douglas described the Everglades as a "river of grass." Diversion of this water has dramatically affected the Everglades and the endangered animals who live here. Water management is the key issue for the Everglades. This river of grass still flows toward the sea.

The Great Salt Lake is located in the Great Basin Desert of the western United States. It covers about 1,500 square miles. It's a terminal lake with no rivers flowing from it. Great Salt Lake is a remnant of prehistoric Lake Bonneville. Fish lived in the lake and Pleistocene mammals lived along the shores. Eventually, the climate became warmer and drier. The lake began to shrink. Salt concentrated as the water evaporated. Much of the salt in Great Salt Lake came from Lake Bonneville. Prehistoric humans arrived in the Lake Bonneville Basin 10-12,000 years ago. The Fremont were a Pueblo group with cultural ties to the Anasazi. The ancient ones left a record of their passing pecked into stone called petroglyphs.

[Joel Peterson, Biologist:] The Great Salt Lake ecosystem is kind of unique in the west in that it's one of the largest lakes in the western U.S.; largest lake west of the Mississippi. It's a harsh environment because it's so hyper saline only a few specialized animals can live here and they live without a lot of competition. There's a lot of insects, a lot of food here, consequently it's a great place for birds to stop over on their migration path and it lies within some other barriers, the Rocky mountains and the deserts to the west, so it really is a funnel for migratory birds.

SPRING

[ Joanne Woodward: ] Spring at the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge is a time of lush green grasses and rushing water. The refuge is the marshland delta of the Bear River. It's located on the northeast shore of Great Salt Lake.

Canada geese guard their young chicks with threatening behavior. The geese are warning predators to stay away. American avocets are beautiful shorebirds which navigate the wetlands of Great Salt Lake. They are characterized by an up-turned bill, brown neck, and striking black outer wings. They may winter as far away as Mexico and Guatemala. At times, 250,000 avocets can be seen at Great Salt Lake in a single day.
Great blue herons are about four feet tall. Herons may live as long as 17 years.
Egrets are elegant waders of the wetlands. They reside on every continent except Antarctica.

The Great Salt Lake ecosystem is a critical breeding and migration habitat for white-faced ibis. Black-necked stilts are strikingly beautiful shorebirds with vibrant pink legs and black necks. Swallows occur in huge migratory flocks in mixed species. They often build nests of mud in large colonies.

Pelicans fish the clear waters of the Bear River delta. The Bear River was named the tenth most endangered river in the United States by the conservation group American Rivers.

Future dams are discussed that may impact wetlands. The Bear River is the largest source of fresh water entering Great Salt Lake.

Biologist Justin Dolling and Peter Paton begin an air boat survey of the Layton/Kaysville Marsh. It's on the eastern shore of Great Salt Lake near the Nature Conservancy's Layton Wetlands Preserve. The Great Salt Lake attracts several million water birds. The birds summer on the prairies of Canada. They winter in Mexico and South America. The Great Salt Lake is a crucial stop along these migration routes.

These avocet chicks are about two days old. Avocets nest in colonies. They construct raised nests on the swampy flats.

The world's largest breeding population of California gulls occurs at Great Salt Lake.
At times, over 150,000 gulls populate the area.

Biologist Justin Dolling:

[ Justin Dolling: ] Canada geese go through what's known as a molt when they lose all their primary flight feathers, and that's kind of a strategy to protect the young and provide some protection for those young. Now, they group together at this time of the year and go through what's known as a synchronous molt, and they'll lose all their primary flight feathers at once and become flightless.

[ Joanne Woodward: ] This combination of mud flats, open water and marshes are a haven for migratory birds. Their movements are some of the most dramatic in the Western Hemisphere.

It is spring on Stansbury Island. Stansbury Island is located in the southwest part of Great Salt Lake. The island was named for Captain Howard Stansbury during his expedition of 1850.

Biologists check on the progress of peregrine falcons on Great Salt Lake's eastern shore. The falcons nest in towers especially built for them. Two downy white chicks have hatched. Peregrine comes from the Latin name for "wanderer."

Falcons declined in the United States by the 1960s. The cause was pesticides. Falcons have made a comeback in the United States since the outlawing of the pesticide DDT.

Salt Lake City and the Wasatch Front is growing rapidly. It's an issue facing much of the American West. Population encroaches on wilderness.

The Legacy Highway is proposed to be built through lands near the southeast corner of Great Salt Lake. It's a 14-mile, four-lane highway corridor. The purpose is to ease traffic congestion between Salt Lake City and Davis County to the north.

[Carlos Braceras, Utah Department of Transportation:] We're in the North Salt Lake City area just north of I-215 and west of Redwood Road. This is near the approximate southerly location of the Legacy Parkway. The lands you see in front of you are typical of the lands that will be impacted by the Legacy Parkway.

[Governor Michael Leavitt, Governor of Utah:] Some of the most pristine, remarkable wetlands in the country exist in and around the Great Salt Lake, it's a unique resource and it needs to be protected. There needs to be some form of barrier to development and there is no barrier to development today. Unless we build the Legacy Parkway we will ultimately see development go all the way to the shores of the Great Salt Lake. It will use up areas that are now developable both under the law and under zoning and in terms of ownership and it will dry up wetlands. We need to create a barrier to development and the Legacy Parkway does not just serve a transportation need, it serves an environmental need to create a barrier to development.

[Terry Tempest Williams, Writer:] What we're seeing in the west right now is unprecedented growth and it's this collision of values, economic, ecological and I think we've missed it. It's not either or, I think that our culture, our humanity, our communities, are enhanced by other communities, even the communities of birds, the communities of brine shrimp, the community that Great Salt Lake embraces of which we are a part. I think if we begin to separate ourselves from the Lake as something other, everything will be diminished. The Lake will be diminished, the birds are diminished, we as a species of human beings are diminished. This is the story of the American West, this collision between growth and restraint.

[ Joanne Woodward: ] Ranchers and farmers are often caught in this collision between growth and restraint. Jennifer Gillmor and her family move their flock of sheep from winter range to the high country for summer. The Legacy Highway is to be built near their winter range.

[Jennifer Gillmor:] Mainly, I don't think there has ever been a road built anywhere that development didn't follow. As you can see this is still a very rural area, if you will--it's raw ground. And it would impact us in many ways in the regard that it brings a demand for this land, and see, to most people what we're standing on here is real estate. And to us, this is the very substance from which we, you know, make...This is the basis of how we exist in the world and it's priceless.

[Jerry Stevenson, Mayor of Layton:] The Legacy Highway is an absolute necessity not only for Davis County but for Weber County and Northern Salt Lake County. It's an absolute must if we look into the future. In today's time we are becoming congested but we have to have that when we look at the area that can develop in the western part of the county.

[ Joanne Woodward: ] Population encroaches on ranch lands. The land becomes valuable as real estate. Farmers and ranchers often sell their land for more than can be made by farming it. They lose an important way of life.

[Jennifer Gillmor:] Sprawl is a problem, in that it is a changing attitude as much as any other thing. You guys saw where we were trailing the sheep herd out of Park City. Ten years ago people would come along and they'd slow down and be patient and they would even smile and say hello and then they'd go about their way. And now it's completely different, nowadays you've got this guy who comes screaming around the corner in his SUV and he's got his cell phone in one hand and he's tapping into his lap top in his other hand and he comes screeching to a halt in back of the sheep herd and totally goes ballistic because you know, he's just purchased this ten acre ranchette in Summit County and he's burning rubber cause he's trying to get to work cause the commutes killing him and he's late and this very guy probably belongs to the Sierra Club and cares a lot about the environment and can't stand sheep because of everything he's read and learned and what that guy doesn't realize is the sheep and cattle are what is keeping that land from becoming condominiums and ranchettes and that's the part of the new West or this idea of the new West that's pretty disturbing to me. I'd like to meet the person who you know, coined the term ranchette.

[ Joanne Woodward: ] Urban commuters stuck in creeping traffic call for relief. It's symbolic of choices facing the American West without simple solutions. Light rail and other commuter choices are being considered. The creeping brown haze of air pollution increases with each car and plagues virtually every large city.

[Marc Heileson, The Sierra Club:] The need of Legacy Highway is very debatable. Basically it's a form of planning for future growth in a way that we feel actually causes a lot of the problems we hope to solve in the future. Legacy Highway will spawn tremendous amounts of low-density urban sprawl type of growth, subdivisions replacing our farmlands and wetlands. And these subdivisions will have people driving further away, driving more often, longer distances and will actually cause traffic in these future areas rather than solving our existing current problems.

[Governor Michael Leavitt:] This is really a question about people. Are we going to have more people and where will they live? We know in this state we are going to grow, we're like a loaf of leaven bread sitting on a table on a hot day, it's going to expand. We have the youngest population in the country and it's going to demographically expand, we know that. The question is how do we manage that growth? We have to manage not to just protect wetlands but for transportation, for housing, we need to find a balance, the Legacy Parkway provides that balance because it will draw a line and it will prevent development from a certain point. And we think it will ultimately not just result in the preservation of wetlands but will ultimately allow us to take full advantage of the beauty and the heritage that they create for us.

[ Joanne Woodward: ] Gunnison Island is one of the shining jewels of Great Salt Lake. Gunnison Island is home to one of North America's largest colonies of American White Pelicans.
At times, 20,000 pelicans reside here. Adults make flights to fresh water lakes and marshes for fish. Pelicans travel many round-trip miles in their quest. Their return brings the safety of Gunnison Island.

SUMMER

The earth cracks and seemingly suffers. This is a desert. Summer brings one of the harshest times of the year. Birds haunt the marshes and playas of Great Salt Lake. Millions become a sea of birds. Avocets flock in the hundreds of thousands. The sky turns a dusty brown with their color. The sun mirrors their images in double exposure. Water appears as a shimmering mirage, but the illusion is real. It is a sanctuary.

[Joel Peterson, Biologist:] Many of the wetland areas are host to water fowl and birds that can live just about anywhere but the Great Salt Lake has some particularly unique wetlands some salt marshes, salt playas that are very much habitat types that these salt adapted species are keying in on. Wilson's phalaropes, eared grebes, stilts, and avocets require salt systems to take advantage of all the food resources that the salt systems provide. So we couldn't just change the Great Salt Lake into a fresh water lake. It's very special and unique for a particular set of birds. And, we have them here by the millions.

[ Joanne Woodward: ] Brine flies populate the beaches of Great Salt Lake in the trillions.
They feed on bacteria and algae. The birds, in turn, feed on brine flies.

Cracked and parched earth tells the story of brutal summer sun. Blue water provides magical illusion to barren, stark landscapes. The Great Salt Lake is surrounded by desert. It appears to be a dead sea, although life defines it. Fish cannot live in its tempting salt water.

Clouds dance on heat waves. In this harsh desert, there's almost undefinable beauty.

On the edge of Great Salt Lake, a barn owl stands guard as a silent sentinel. Owls are primarily hunters of the night.

In the Canadian subarctic, a semi-palmated plover goes through an elaborate dance.
The plover is trying to appear hurt in order to distract predators from its nest. The nest has been built on the ground, making it easy prey. Grizzly bears and wolves roam the seemingly endless tundra. The snowy plover is a relative. Snowy plovers occur in North America's largest numbers
at Great Salt Lake.

Biologists Don Paul and Ann Manning prepare an airboat. They will count birds
on the eastern shore of Great Salt Lake.

[Don Paul, Biologist:] The Great Salt Lake is actually a hemispheric site within the Western Hemispheric Shorebird Reserve Network. Which means it is a tremendously important site for migratory birds, especially shorebirds in this particular scenario. We have birds that come everywhere from the Arctic and travel through the Great Lake to South America, but most birds actually come from the central Canadian provinces and winter off the west coast of Mexico. We have large numbers here right now at the lake. We probably have somewhere between 400,000 and 500,000 Wilson's phalaropes representing maybe 35% of the world's population. We have large numbers of avocets in the fall. We have tremendous numbers of waterfowl that come through. Some people have estimated in the past we've had a million pintails that occur at the lake in the fall, 60,000 tundra swans. It's an important site through the year for migratory birds again because it's sits in a unique and strategic location in the middle of a relatively arid environment. So it's more of a stop over. It's like the lonely gas station on Route 66 for birds.

[ Joanne Woodward: ] All around is the wildness of Great Salt Lake. Marshes stretch for miles along the eastern shore.

Wetlands are essential to shorebirds. Birds may fly 40 to 60 hours on migratory trips. Their travels are not random. They use areas needed for survival. A small, rocky island in Great Salt Lake serves as sanctuary.
The sky is alive with the wings of birds.

Cormorants sit on jagged shards of rock. Cormorants are diving birds with a snake-like appearance when in the water.

California gull chicks are now several months old with characteristic gray plumage. A great blue heron stalks the shallows as if standing guard.

[Don Paul, Biologist:] Well, it is sensitive to development when you consider that you have one of the most unique and important water bird habitats in Western North America sitting right at the foot of a million and a half people up against a mountain range. It not only is sensitive but it's vulnerable to all kinds of anthropocentric activities; road development, urban expansion, the conversion of farmlands and uplands that are associated with wetlands to all of those things. It is sensitive and all of those kinds of things can be detrimental to fragmenting the habitats that are here.

[ Joanne Woodward: ] Great Salt Lake is a contrast. Miles and miles of barren lands
give way to moments bursting with life. The silence suddenly explodes with drama.

Antelope Island is located in the southern part of Great Salt Lake. The island has the exotic feel of an African savanna. Large California gull colonies populate the southern part of the island. Bison pant heavily under a searing noonday sun. About 600 bison roam Antelope Island. Bison thrive on the isolation, grasslands, and fresh water springs of the island.

The adventure of sailing to Fremont Island shows the exquisite fragile beauty of Great Salt Lake. This inland sea can appear like the ocean. Sailors and travelers tell stories of huge waves and violent storms. Stansbury named the island after John Charles Fremont who explored the Great Basin. Fremont called it Disappointment Island. He described the island as "simply a rocky hill on which there is neither water nor trees of any kind". The famous scout Kit Carson accompanied Fremont on a raft trip to the island in 1843.
Kit Carson carved a small cross in the rock which remains today.

Great Salt Lake has salinity greater than the ocean. The south arm of the lake contains a high percentage of salt, which makes it easy to float. Some of the salt came from the evaporation of prehistoric Lake Bonneville. Fresh water rivers enter Great Salt Lake with small quantities of salt. The water evaporates, but the salt remains. Great Salt Lake is divided by the Southern Pacific Railroad causeway. Different salinities of the lake are illustrated by contrasting colors. The north arm is more salty than the less saline south arm.

The salt flats were formed during the last evaporation stages of Lake Bonneville. They are one of the most desolate and flattest areas on earth. Miles of white salt stretch hypnotically to the horizon.

Even here, Great Salt Lake has surprises. Fresh water springs reflect cottonwoods if one knows where to find them. The sound of trickling water flows in the desert. Weary travelers have met their death on this starkly beautiful, barren desert. Shimmering, alluring mirages tell lies in the desert.

The sun beats down upon black rock and desert which frames the north part of Great Salt Lake. Rocky beaches bake under a sweltering, unforgiving sun. The beauty is one of desolation and isolation.

Locomotive Springs sits in the northern part of this forbidding desert. It's a desert oasis of fresh water. Even in such isolation, these wetlands are in danger. Three aquifers feed Locomotive Springs. They are being de-watered at an alarming rate for agricultural use.

On the north end of Antelope Island, biologists Clay Perschon and Paul Birdsey leave the marina. They are part of the Great Salt Lake Ecosystem Project. Their purpose today is to monitor brine shrimp populations.
Brine shrimp live in the saline waters of Great Salt Lake, along with bacteria and algae.
Long, red lines form in Great Salt Lake. Brine shrimp eggs are lighter than lake water
and float on the surface. Artemia are called brine shrimp. They are relatives of shrimp, crab and lobster. Brine shrimp live in hyper-saline lakes were salt content may be as high as 20 percent. They feed primarily on algae.

[Paul Birdsey, Biologist:] Brine shrimp are interesting creatures. They can survive in a number of different environmental situations but they only really thrive in hyper-saline systems. That is where the salinity is greater than seawater and the reason for that is that they don't do well in areas where there is either competition or predation. So in the Great Salt Lake, it's a perfect environment for them. We have a hyper- saline condition. We have really no competitors or no predators here except birds. Birds are the biggest predators of brine shrimp.

[ Joanne Woodward: ] Over one million eared-grebes visit Great Salt Lake each year.
This represents about 50 percent of the world's population. More than 500,000 Wilson's phalaropes use the wetlands. This may be up to 50 percent of the world's population. They feed almost exclusively on brine shrimp.

The commercial harvest begins each fall. The industry began in the 1950s. Adult brine shrimp were used as fish food for aquariums. More recently, the eggs--or cysts--are the focus of the industry. Brine shrimp may live as long as three months. Adult shrimp usually die from either lack of food or cold temperatures.

[Clay Perschon, Biologist:] When brine shrimp are harvested from the Great Salt Lake, the eggs are packaged and cleaned and they're marketed worldwide. And it's really interesting that they're used in the commercial aquaculture business. They're fed to table shrimp that people eat and the fish that people eat, when they're being raised in captivity. There's a huge amount of the world's fish and shrimp that are being fed on brine shrimp eggs from The Great Salt Lake.

[ Joanne Woodward: ] Threats continue to the Great Salt Lake ecosystem. Birds, plants and soils are sensitive to off-road use. Industry surrounds the southern part of the lake. Urban sprawl creeps ever closer to shorelines. Farmers feel the encroachment of development. Farmers are faced with the dilemma of whether to sell their land.

Charlie Black farms several hundred acres near Great Salt Lake. He has signed a conservation easement with the Nature Conservancy. This easement will protect 40 acres from commercial development. The land is a crucial buffer for the Nature Conservancy's Layton Wetlands Preserve.

[Charlie Black, Farmer:] The development moving down escalated land prices down here. My plans originally were to keep buying land as I could afford it every few years, but it's to a point now that I'll never be able to buy another piece of farmland. It's just priced out of farming range. In fact, farmers have to be businessmen, and if you were to figure the price of the land that you could sell it for and what you could make investing it, you're really foolish to continue to farm this high price land.

[Governor Michael Leavitt:] On the day that we announced the building of the Legacy Parkway I met in a farm field near Ogden. There were two groups of people there. One group from the community where there were houses said build that highway but build it out there where there are no homes because it won't disrupt the homes. And there were the farm families who were saying, don't destroy this farmland because it's precious. Build it over there where there's already population. That's the tension that always exists when you're having to build and expand some kind of basic infrastructure.

FALL

[ Joanne Woodward: ] Change is in the air. The lake's personality is temperamental--one moment placid and calm; the next, windy and violent.

A graceful tundra swan sits on the wetland shore. Thousands come to Great Salt Lake
during their fall migration. Tundra swans are large birds with striking white plumage
and black legs and beak.

Most tundra swans nest in Canada and Alaska. Tundra swans are solitary nesters. They usually do not mate until four or five years of age. They may defend a territory of two miles or more. Tundra swans have few natural predators other than humans.

Bison are thriving on Antelope Island in Great Salt Lake. Each fall, bison are rounded up
by an army of cowboys on horseback and by helicopter. A desert island in Great Salt Lake
seems an unlikely place for this historic symbol of the American West. Bison are probably not native to the island. Twelve bison were brought to the island in 1893. The bison came on a sailboat, which almost capsized. By the 1920s, the small herd was decimated by hunting. Children come to see a baby bison only weeks old. Bison once numbered in the millions on the Great Plains and vast wilderness of the west. Bison turned the great grasslands into a sea of black with their numbers.

The Salt Lake International Airport is located near about 6,000 acres of wetlands
on the southern shore of Great Salt Lake. The contrast of development and wilderness is illustrated.
It's a recurring theme of the West concerning how to balance needs of a growing population
with that of wilderness.

[Terry Tempest Williams, Writer:] I've been going out to Great Salt Lake since I was a child, five years old, and when I think about the changes in the lake, just in the last five years, I think what we're seeing is tremendous sprawl. The Wasatch Front is growing like it's own cancer, and where you used to be able to walk out to the lake, feel the magnitude of those wetlands, these sparkling bodies of water that seem. . . that's not the case anymore.

[Governor Michael Leavitt:] Well, they're going to be protected. One of the things we would like to do with the Legacy Parkway is create a Legacy Wetlands Preserve. It will preserve some 1600 acres of wetlands that will ultimately be destroyed if there isn't a barrier to development. We see a park in terms of trails and berms and full use of the wetlands that exist so that people can both enjoy them and they can be protected.

WINTER

[ Joanne Woodward: ] Winter locks the desert landscape under a mantle of snow, another part of the mystery which is Great Salt Lake. Sunflowers of spring feel winter's icy grasp. Wind pushes the waves of Great Salt Lake.

A red fox darts for cover. Foxes are opportunistic. Foxes hunt the eggs and young of migratory birds in spring.

American bald eagles stand guard on the eastern shore of Great Salt Lake. This winter world is a sea of gray.

Great Salt Lake is one of the top ten wintering areas for bald eagles in the lower 48 states.
Winter in Great Salt Lake is a cold gray realm with ice choking fresh water bays. Gulls and eagles, along with other birds of prey, feed on fish. These fresh water inlets around Great Salt Lake are almost frozen by the grip of winter.

Snowcapped peaks of the Wasatch Range lead to the Great Basin. It's a land of dramatic contrast. Great Salt Lake has an important affect on the weather due to its great size. This "lake effect" helps form weather patterns. The "lake effect" creates what some call "the greatest snow on earth" in the Wasatch.

On a winter's day in Utah, antelope are being captured by helicopter. They will return to the island in Great Salt Lake named for them. Antelope had virtually disappeared from Antelope Island by the 1930s. Lewis and Clark first described this effortless runner. Antelope can run at 60 miles an hour. They easily outdistance most predators.

A blanket of newly fallen snow covers Antelope Island. John C. Fremont and Kit Carson were among the first non-natives to explore the island. The explorers saw herds of antelope. The population now numbers about 50 animals.

A lake filled with salt in the desert challenges definitions of beauty. Graceful migratory birds walk its shores in poetic motion, moving to ancient rhythms. Great Salt Lake has priceless wetlands in a wilderness that remains virtually unknown. It's a story of timeless millennia written in the landscape of a desert lake.

graphic: The Legacy Highway has been approved pending litigation.

To learn more about The Great Salt Lake: America's Legacy of Wetlands please visit www.kued.org.

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Please note: this text approximates what is heard, but may differ slightly.