In the early-morning stillness, pelicans rise suddenly from the grasses, swooping over brackish blue-green waters framed by mountains in the distance. There is no hint that one of America’s fastest-growing metropolitan areas lies only a few miles away, sprawling toward these vulnerable wetlands.
For millions of migratory birds, this is an essential spot to rest and eat on their long flight from South America to the Arctic, a unique home away from home.
Now the ebb and flow of these marshes, teeming with life, is threatened by plans to build a 14-mile highway along the eastern edge of the Great Salt Lake to accommodate Salt Lake City’s explosive growth. Last month, the Utah Department of Transportation published a much-anticipated environmental analysis of the $370 million project, suggesting the highway could relieve traffic congestion without causing excessive damage to the environment.
Last week, the public responded at a long, contentious meeting in Salt Lake City’s northern suburbs.
If the Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency approve the roadway this autumn, as state officials hope, construction would begin by next summer.
The proposed roadway, known as the Legacy Highway, raises a vexing question: What kind of legacy would a new four-lane highway leave on this narrow, mountain-rimmed valley whose population is soaring at twice the national average?
“The Legacy Highway seems to be the lightning rod for a major issue that everyone is thinking about here: How do we want to grow?” said Jess Agraz, who heads the Transportation Management Association of Utah, which is closely associated with the business community.
The debate over the Legacy Highway is emblematic of conflicts over growth and the environment occurring across the West, as the roaring economy spurs home building, business development and sprawl.
But this controversy is framed by unique circumstances: the fact that two-thirds of Utah’s growth comes from within the state (birth rates for Mormons are much higher than the national average) and the significance of the beautiful landscape that Mormon pioneers declared their Zion.
Highway supporters, including Utah’s popular Gov. Mike Leavitt, say the road would mean more efficient transportation and a better quality of life for people who now spend too much time in traffic jams around Salt Lake City. Leavitt initially proposed a 120-mile roadway. The Legacy would be the first, and perhaps the only, leg to be built.
Aided by hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds, which flowed to the state after Salt Lake City won the 2002 Winter Olympics, Leavitt’s administration also has overseen a major expansion of Interstate Highway 15, the area’s main north-south artery. The proposed new road would run parallel to I-15, helping divert rush-hour traffic and opening several areas around Salt Lake City to new development.
Therein lies a good part of its appeal. Several suburbs surrounding Salt Lake City, such as Farmington, Bountiful and Centerville, hope to draw new businesses that would generate sales tax revenues. Home builders are salivating over the prospect of new communities. Speculators are trying to persuade ranchers and farmers with land along the Legacy route to sell, and “for sale” signs are easy to spot.
Conservationists fear the Legacy Highway could help destroy an intricately balanced ecosystem along the edge of the Great Salt Lake, which nine years ago was designated an internationally important habitat for shorebirds and migratory birds by the Western Hemispheric Shorebird Reserve Network.
Early settlers were struck by the abundance of wildlife on what came to be known as “America’s Dead Sea,” the largest lake west of the Mississippi River. In 1849, explorer Howard Stansbury wrote, “The Salt Lake … was covered by immense flocks of wild geese and ducks. … Thousands of acres, as far as the eye could reach, seemed literally covered by them.”
No one is sure what might happen if a highway is run across the area, isolating upland marshes from the mud flats at the water’s edge, introducing noise and the potential for highway pollution runoff, and adding stress for wildlife.
“The long-term effects just are not known,” said Lynn de Freitas of Friends of Great Salt Lake, which opposes Legacy along with the Sierra Club, Audubon Society and other groups. “Risking all these impacts on a unique ecosystem like this just for another highway, it’s irresponsible.”
In written comments submitted to the Utah Department of Transportation in April, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service criticized the state agency for its limited analysis of Legacy’s potential harm to the environment.
Utah has promised to create a 1,251-acre Legacy Nature Preserve, including 300 acres of wetlands to compensate for 114 acres of wetlands that would be destroyed by the highway. But the Fish and Wildlife Service concluded that the full impact of the highway has not been adequately studied and said the proposed preserve probably wouldn’t compensate for its effects.
While vocal in their opposition, those concerned about the proposed road face an uphill battle. Utahans are far less fond of their great lake than Chicagoans are of theirs; for many, its allure pales beside their dramatic mountains.
Almost no beaches flank the lake’s muddy shores, and access is extremely limited. A putrid smell and an abundance of annoying brine flies keep visitors away. Swimming in the salty water is anything but common, and recreational activities on the huge but shallow body of water are almost non-existent. From Salt Lake City, the bald eagle nests, herons and ducks along its shores are invisible.
Although 257 species of birds have been recorded at the lake, their numbers and habits are only now being tracked by state biologists and the federal Fish and Wildlife Service. The best available estimates place the number of shorebirds that feed or nest there at 2 million to 5 million and migratory waterfowl at up to 5 million.
On a recent morning just after daybreak, Hank Armantrout, 42, a sportsman and avid bird watcher, maneuvered his airboat into an isolated cove, idling the engine and peering out over the glassy water.
Every 10 days from April to September, Armantrout documents the number of birds on the southern edge of the lake for state biologists. “The diversity is just overwhelming,” he said, pointing out several white-faced ibis, California gulls and black-bellied plovers darting among reeds and winging above the water. “It’s a forgotten wilderness right on the edge of the city.”
“There’s so much we don’t understand about these birds, what salinity and water depth they need, . . . how they use different parts of the lake during different times of the year, how they react to stress,” Armantrout said, gunning the motor and heading toward one of the areas where fresh water from feeder streams mixes with salty water, creating a rich stew of nutrients.
“These are wild birds, not the birds you see at golf courses. To rush a highway through, before scientists have a chance to determine the significance of this staging area, is ridiculous,” he said.
The alternative, conservationists say, is more public transportation and land-use planning that would reduce dependence on highways. “Envision Utah,” an initiative to help the state begin to think more systematically about smart growth, emphasizes similar strategies.
But the Wasatch Front Regional Council, which represents cities and counties throughout the area, says its analysis shows that public transportation alone cannot relieve the congestion in the region, which is expected to expand to almost 2.7 million people within the next 20 years, up from 1.2 million in 1995.
Council program director Mick Crandall said he doesn’t expect that the new road would produce more traffic, a “build it and they will come” argument frequently raised by its opponents and confirmed by numerous studies. Moreover, he said, the highway could become a barrier to development creeping toward the shore of the Great Salt Lake, preserving land west of the road that is currently threatened.
Jennifer Gillmor, 28, scoffs at that argument. Her family has ranched along the shores of the Great Salt Lake for more than 100 years. The Legacy road would cut through the Gillmor lands, and developers have come calling, urging the family to sell. No way, she said.
“This place means everything to me,” she said, showing a visitor the alfalfa field that keeps cows fed in the winter. “I feel very fortunate to have grown up with the wind in my hair and the sun on my face, riding a horse. I don’t have kids yet, but if I do, I want them to see this just like it is now, with the swallows ripping by and the flowers blooming.
“It’s a delusion of the West: People come out here and buy their ranchette and build a house on it, then they complain about the commute,” Gillmor added. “This, to me, is our legacy. My granddad passed it to my dad, and my dad passed it to me and my brothers. We should leave it alone.”
