Huntsman Creates Group to Examine Viability of Great Salt Lake

Aug 25, 2008 by Eric Ray

(KCPW News) Governor Jon Huntsman wants to put together a comprehensive plan to utilize and preserve the resources of the Great Salt Lake. Today at Antelope Island State Park, Huntsman signed an executive order creating the Great Salt Lake Advisory Council, which has been given the task of creating a master plan for the lake.

"The lake has been managed in a most compartmentalized fashion, which means people kind of do their own thing and nobody factors that into the longer term, broader worldview of what we think this lake ought to produce for the people of this state," says Huntsman. "So the fact that we now have an opportunity to understand, from stem to stern, what everyone is doing, based upon the backdrop which will be a longer term master plan for what we want this lake to be for future generations, is a very good thing for this state."

Huntsman says the council will evaluate all of the ecological, economic and recreational opportunities the lake provides and recommend ways to balance them. The newly created council is made up of people representing all of these concerns. Council member Dave Livermore of The Nature Conservancy says those groups will have to work together to make a master plan work.

"In the old days of the lake, before there was the tremendous growth we are experiencing, these different interests could go off in their corner and sing their own tune without worrying too much about harmonizing," says Livermore. "But now we have the tremendous growth, the population of Utah is expected to double in our lifetime adding greater pressures to the lake and to other resources, and so it's time to come together."

Huntsman has asked the council to submit its initial recommendations before the end of this year.

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