Environmentalists fear Salt Lake mining plans

[hunter]

Environmentalists fear Salt Lake mining plans

By Jorn Madslien
Business reporter, BBC News, Great Salt Lake, Utah

The grazing bison, silhouetted against the almost black-and-white landscape, is a welcome sign of life on Antelope Island - the largest in Utah's Great Salt Lake.

Swarms of persistent gnats and brine flies attract migratory waterfowl to these salt-lined shores, but any other living creatures here are finding it a harsh, inhospitable place.

But if life seems tough on the island, it is even tougher in the salty waters that surround it - waters that, with the exception of the resilient brine shrimp, are devoid of life.

Utah environmentalist and writer Terry Tempest Williams describes the Great Salt Lake as "the liquid lie of the West".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/10118848.stm

Must we always be pushing the limits up until the point of collapse?

There was no one to put the brakes on BP's careless oil extraction efforts in the Gulf of Mexico. The people of Utah and the Army Corp of Engineers ought to be thinking about that as they consider the environmental impacts of expanded salt production and suburban development.