SE4:EP5 - Tim Hawkes: Saving the Great Salt Lake

When you fly into Salt Lake City from the north, you get a poignant view of the vanishing water in the Great Salt Lake. The problem is real. So what is Utah doing about it? Last Chair traveled to Antelope Island, in the heart of the lake, to speak with Utah state representative Tim Hawkes, a passionate advocate, on the very realistic steps the state is already taking to save the Great Salt Lake.

In today’s world of polarized politics, Hawkes stands out as a leader who works across the aisles. He laughs as he describes himself as a conservative who advocates for natural resources. In fact, if there is any one issue in Utah that truly unites politicians, it’s saving the Great Salt Lake.

Hawkes grew up in Brigham City, Utah, learning to love the outdoors as a young boy, hiking, fishing, hunting, cutting school to go skiing. He followed his passion into law, becoming a water rights attorney with a thriving career in Washington, D.C. Over time, he missed the Utah outdoors and moved back to his home state, working first with Trout Unlimited protecting waterways.

Today, Hawkes is a leading advocate saving the Great Salt Lake, working closely with his fellow legislators to seek real solutions. In his day job, he serves as legal counsel for the Great Salt Lake Brine Shrimp Cooperative.

How real is the problem? For our podcast interview, we drove across the causeway to Antelope Island. What used to be a roadway surrounded by water, now has only a few small pools. Birds that used to flock along the highway are now relegated to small patches of water. To find water along the shore of the island, in some places you would need to travel a mile.

Can the lake be saved? Hawkes thinks so. He’s a positive, forward-looking leader focused on solutions.

Here’s a sample of Last Chair’s episode 5 of season 4 with Utah state representative Tim Hawkes on how Utah is working together to save the Great Salt Lake.

What is it about being out in nature that's so compelling to all of us?

There's something deeply human that appeals to us about wild things and wild places. And I think it's important for our mental health, for our spirituality, sense of well-being and connectedness, just presence. 

The Great Salt Lake is an amazing place, but often taken for granted in the past.

It's easy to see the lake as kind of an oddity. I grew up in Utah and you see it as out of sight, out of mind. It's been interesting as an adult to get to know it better, to understand the ecology. That's part of my job – to learn about it. But just to get out to Antelope Island and see the amazing wildlife that's out here, it feels otherworldly.

The Great Salt Lake is a terminal lake – what does that mean?

A terminal Lake is basically a lake that sits at the bottom of a watershed and it doesn't have an outlet. So there are rivers flowing in. There are no rivers flowing out. And so the only way that water is lost is through evaporation. That tends to concentrate salt and other minerals in that system. And that's where you get these unique systems where you need uniquely adapted critters that can survive in them because the conditions are very harsh salt, salt content very high.

Why has the lake attracted so much attention recently?

For those that have been engaged in protecting the lake and trying to conserve the lake, we've all been astonished by just how much interest has kicked in over the lake in recent years. And I think that has everything to do with these low lake levels. So the low lake levels have driven concerns about how that can affect the state and can affect the ecosystem that's driven media attention. And that largely then accounts for the public starting to gain more and more awareness of, ‘oh my gosh, the lake does touch us in ways, really important ways that we didn't fully realize we've got to do something to protect it.’ 

Is this an issue with Mother Nature, climate change, population growth?

It's really human caused. And one of the interesting data points that I don't think people realize, is they assume because we're in the middle of a very significant drought, that it's just we're getting a lot less precipitation and the science actually doesn't back that up. If you take Salt Lake Valley or Cache Valley, important watersheds that feed into the Great Salt Lake, and you just measure them over time, you just look how much rain and snow is falling and you plot it out – it's largely flat. It hasn't changed. It's hard to make the argument that we're getting less precipitation. So the only thing that can account for these dramatically low levels are really two things. One is that our climate is getting warmer. And as it gets warmer, then it takes more water to keep crops up or keep your lawns green or whatever. So we use more water. But the second way that it affects us is that we are just altering this ecosystem. The best available science suggests that we have contributed about 11 feet of elevation loss. If you took that 11 feet and you put it back into Great Salt Lake today, the lake would be right close to its historic average. 

What are the key water usages impacting the lake?

Agriculture is a big use and then everybody points the finger at agriculture. It is interesting though, because when largely the areas around Great Salt Lake were in agriculture, the lake was fairly healthy. What's changed is a lot of urban and suburban development and that changes flow patterns as well. We all have grass where before there was just sagebrush and we try to keep that grass green even in the middle of the summer, even in the heat of summer. And so we call it municipal and industrial, but basically water that's used for homes and businesses. And the last one I would say is industry. We have a very important mineral industry out on the Great Salt Lake and the way that they get the minerals out of the water is forced evaporation, so they contribute to lake declines, as well. So I sort of say it's agriculture, it's homes and businesses and then it's industry.

If water usage by humans is the problem, how can the legislature act and act quickly?

The pace of change has been nothing short of extraordinary. I've never seen anything like it. It's hard to change water law. But, I'd say in the last two to three years, we've probably seen six to eight major pieces of legislation that have direct effects on Great Salt Lake – really extraordinary bills that provide greater legal recognition for environmental uses of water, that provide greater flexibility in terms of how we share water, and that fundamentally call out Great Salt Lake and try to create legal tools to help fix this enormous problem.

You’ve been in public office for eight years and are now retiring from that service. What motivated you to serve?

Well, I'm one of those crazy idealists that really do try to ask myself, ‘what have I done to make the world a better place?’ That's really what got me interested in public policy. And I was working outside of the legislature on these policy questions. I had sort of written off the idea of running for office, but my wife was the one that actually suggested to me, ‘Hey, Tim, you get really excited when it comes to politics and policy, have you thought about running?’ And so I made kind of a wild haired decision to run. It's been immensely rewarding and gratifying. I'm so grateful for my colleagues at the legislature – many o...