- Utah Inland Port Authority allocates $7.5 million for Great Salt Lake wetlands conservation.
- New partnerships aim to create buffer zones and curb industrial water use near the lake.
- Efforts focus on balancing economic growth with environmental sustainability, addressing lake’s decline.
Editor’s note: This article is published through the Great Salt Lake Collaborative, a solutions journalism initiative that partners news, education and media organizations to help inform people about the plight of the Great Salt Lake.
SALT LAKE CITY — Joel Ferry, Utah’s natural resources commissioner, says he enjoys taking in the sights and smells of the wetlands that surround the Great Salt Lake.
The lake’s wetlands attract a majority of the estimated 10 million to 12 million migratory birds, which utilize the lake every year, and the lands help clean the water that arrives in the lake. Yet, these types of ecosystems have also become threatened over the past few decades by the lake’s decline on one end and mostly commercial development encroaching into them on the other…