The Great Salt Lake is drying up, and Utah’s major cities and towns could turn into a toxic dust bowl. This is making some Utahns ask: can we stay here? On Stay Salty: Lakefacing Stories hosts Meisei Gonzalez and Olivia Juarez explore what it means to stay in the Great Salt Lake Basin as we face an environmental and public health crisis. We talk with youth activists, moms, Indigenous leaders, people with disabilities, farmers, brine shrimpers, people who are incarcerated, and more. We ask, Why stay? How do we stay? And who gets to stay (or leave)?
Youth leaders Muskan Walia and Amanda Lee share their groundbreaking work in re-imagining a collective future for the Great Salt Lake, empowering the next generation to drive environmental justice and solutions.
28 Sept 2024
Shifting Culture: Honoring Relationships at Pia Okwai
Pia Okwai, often referred to as the Jordan River, is one of Great Salt Lake's (or Pia'pa's) major tributaries. For generations, the river has been stigmatized and polluted, but in this episode we explore how people are reclaiming and honoring relationships with the river.
We talk with Daniel Hernandez (Wīnak/Urban Diasporic Highland Maya), also known as Arcia Tecun, who is the former director of culture at the Tracy Aviary. Daniel grew up in Rose Park near Pia Okwai, and he has always identified with the river.
Recently, Daniel successfully led the effort to rename the Jordan River Nature Center to the Nature Center at Pia Okwai. Daniel uses Indigenous place names to honor relationships and memory of a place. He also centers the voices and experiences of the urban Indigenous population in his work, including in his film series Stories of Place that focuses on relations with Pia Okwai.
Daniel views the current crisis at the lake as a cultural crisis that requires a shift in cultural consciousness. Listen to learn more about the ways Daniel thinks we can begin this cultural shift.
Stories of Place: An Eco-Justice Film Series (https://tracyaviary.org/blog/post/stories-of-place-an-eco-justice-film-series/)
The Nature Center at Pia Okwai: The Story Behind the Name (https://tracyaviary.org/nature-center/about-pia-okwai/history-of-pia-okwai/the-nature-center-at-pia-okwai/)
4 Sept 2024
Healing the Watershed: How the Northwestern Shoshone are Restoring Wuda Ogwa
The Northwestern Shoshone have called Great Salt Lake and the Bear River home for time immemorial. In 2018, the tribe bought back their land at the Bear River Massacre Site, where the U.S. Military murdered an estimated 500 Shoshone people in 1863. Now, the tribe is reclaiming their land and leading a massive restoration effort, including repairing the waterways and planting thousands of native plants. The tribe estimates that these efforts will return 13,000 acre-feet of water annually to Great Salt Lake — with hopes of increasing that number.
In this episode, host Olivia Juarez talks with Brad Parry, Vice Chairman of the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation, about the Wuda Ogwa project and the importance of Great Salt Lake and the Bear River to the Shoshone people.
Resources and references:
RSVP for the tree planting day at Wuda Ogwa (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd_X2CKo347TrS2dvU6FL7wPMWbcWdDxEG4fyPtVqh-RMjvYA/viewform)
The Northwestern Shoshone are restoring the Bear River Massacre site (https://www.hcn.org/issues/56-2/social-justice-the-northwestern-shoshone-are-restoring-the-bear-river-massacre-site/)[High Country News]
‘You Can’t Erase Us’: Shoshone and Ute Connections to Great Salt Lake (https://www.lakefacing.org/podcast/episode/4306629f/you-cant-erase-us-shoshone-and-ute-connections-to-great-salt-lake) [Stay Salty: Lakefacing Stories, Episode 3]
9 Aug 2024
Working Waterscape: Agriculture
This is part two of our exploration of the working waterscape and landscapes of Great Salt Lake. In this episode, we turn to farming. Farms across the watershed grow alfalfa, fruits, vegetables and raise livestock for meat and dairy that eventually end up on grocery store shelves. These farms use about 80% of the water that is diverted from the Bear, Weber and Jordan Rivers, Great Salt Lake's tributaries. We talk with farmers in Cache Valley about the challenges they face and pathways forward to stay in the Great Salt Lake Basin that work for both farmers and the lake. One major theme: let's localize and reconnect with our food.
9 Aug 2024
Working Waterscape: Brine Shrimping
This is part one of a two-part exploration into Great Salt Lake as a working waterscape. In this episode, we learn about brine shrimping! We dive into the ways the lake and brine shrimp contribute to our global food system. Great Salt Lake contributes over 40% of the global supply of brine shrimp, which are fed to larger shrimp, like prawns, and other fish cultivated through aquaculture. We hear about what it's like to work as a brine shrimper, the history of the Brine Shrimp Cooperative and the ways the industry is adaptively managed to ensure a sustainable harvest and healthy ecosystem. We learn how the health of the brine shrimp industry is inextricably tied to the health of the lake and explore what we can learn from brine shrimping as we find pathways to stay as the lake recedes.
9 Jul 2024
Recreation in the Face of Ecological Collapse
Recreation opportunities are a big reason why people live in Utah. Our mountains and waterways are ideal places to ski, bird watch, bike and refresh oneself. But as we face drought, these activities that bring many of us joy are under threat. In this episode of Stay Salty, we talk with Lulu Avila, a snowboarder, and Frances Ngo, a wildlife biologist and birder, about the ways they bring people into relationship with Great Salt Lake through recreation.
Lulu and Frances both approach this work with a focus on diversity and justice. Lulu breaks down barriers for people of color in snow sports, while Frances hosts birding outings for the queer community. We explore the joy and challenges they both experience as they strive to increase diversity, equity and inclusion in the outdoors while simultaneously confronting ecological collapse.
Find a transcript of the episode on https://www.lakefacing.org/blog.
5 Jun 2024
How to Stay: Disability Justice Lessons for Toxic Dust Storms
If the Great Salt Lake dries up, toxic dust from the exposed lakebed will reach the lungs of millions of Utahns. This would be a public health disaster. People with disabilities will be disproportionately impacted by this crisis, but they also have knowledge, experience and solutions to help us navigate our uncertain future. In this episode, we talk with Flor Isabel, a mom and activist whose family has struggled with asthma from Utah's already poor air quality. We also speak with Nat Slater, an artist and disability justice organizer who shares lessons from the disability justice movement on community care and adaptation.
Episode transcripts can be found on our website: https://www.lakefacing.org/blog
Learn more:
Sins Invalid, disability justice organization: https://www.sinsinvalid.org/
Nat Slater is quoted in this story in Prism on Utah’s discrimination against disabled people: https://prismreports.org/2024/02/12/why-utah-discrimination-disabled-people-matters/
A story in SLUG Magazine about the Embodied Ecologies Project curated by Nat Slater: https://www.slugmag.com/arts/art/embodied-ecologies-where-disability-meets-the-natural-world/
Article in the Salt Lake Tribune about Flor Isabel's struggle with asthma during bad air days: https://www.sltrib.com/news/2024/01/23/reaching-air-there-are-solutions/
6 May 2024
When You Can't Leave: Incarceration on the Lake's Shore
People who are incarcerated at the Utah State Correctional Facility face the impacts of the drying Great Salt Lake firsthand. While some of us may have the choice to leave if Great Salt Lake dries up, those who are incarcerated don't have such freedoms. For this episode of Stay Salty, co-host Meisei Gonzalez talked with Tea, a person incarcerated, and Sunny, a mental health advocate who works with people at the prison. The prison is built on Great Salt Lake wetlands, and it's often forgotten and invisible to society. In this episode, you'll hear challenges and reflections of what it's like being locked between land and lake, from hoards of mosquitos to toxic dust storms.
24 Apr 2024
'You Can't Erase Us': Shoshone and Ute Connections to Great Salt Lake
For time immemorial, the Goshute, Paiute, Shoshone, and Ute people have called the Great Salt Lake Basin home. In this episode of Stay Salty, we learn about Shoshone and Ute connections to Great Salt Lake. We talk with Rios Pacheco, the cultural and history advisor for the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation, and Forrest S. Cuch, a member of the Ute Indian Tribe and former director of the Utah Division of Indian Affairs. Pacheco and Cuch share the importance of Great Salt Lake to their people and how colonization has impacted that relationship.
As we ask who gets to stay (or leave), we must remember this question is not new for Indigenous people who have been forcibly removed from the Great Salt Lake Basin.
CORRECTION: In this episode, Forrest Cuch said the Ute Ouray Reservation was established in 1860, but it was established for the Uncompahgre Utes in 1880.
In this episode, we reference a 2018 article in YES! Magazine by Kyle Powys Whyte, titled "White Allies, Let's Be Honest About Decolonization." We recommend reading the whole piece: https://www.yesmagazine.org/issue/decolonize/2018/04/03/white-allies-lets-be-honest-about-decolonization
You can also learn more about the Indigenous history of the Great Salt Lake Basin by reading Forrest Cuch's book, A History of Utah's American Indians: https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=31200154726&dest=usa&ref_=ps_ggl_17721428148&cm_mmc=ggl-_-US_Shopp_Trade_20to50-_-product_id=COM9780913738498NEW-_-keyword=&gclid=CjwKCAjw26KxBhBDEiwAu6KXt2w-oYA-o29y0L-QfhC6F3MJ69Ag0EB8F98Jd84QN4i11UkDCVbFyhoC5mwQAvD_BwE
9 Apr 2024
Making Love for the Lake Visible
Great Salt Lake is an excellent place for a date. But chances are the lake herself will steal your heart. Two Utahns who outspokenly love Great Salt Lake are Nan Seymour and Sarah May. You may have seen them walking waves or dancing on the capitol steps in brine shrimp and bird costumes EVERY DAY during the Utah State legislative session this year. They also stayed with Great Salt Lake during the legislative sessions in 2023 and 2022, holding vigil and camping out on Antelope Island in the bitter cold. We talked with them in the middle of the 2024 state legislative session in February. This episode also includes date stories at Great Salt Lake and even an engagement story!
25 Mar 2024
What It Means to Stay
Welcome to Stay Salty: Lakefacing Stories! In our first episode, co-hosts Meisei Gonzalez and Olivia Juarez share their personal Great Salt Lake stories and explore their shared identities as queer, Mexican Americans who grew up on the west side of the Great Salt Lake Basin. Meisei talks with his best friend Zakary Cobia, and Olivia chats with their mom Cynthia Lucero. Together, they dive into our show's guiding theme: what it means to stay as we face an environmental and public health crisis.
We are kicking off the show with our hosts' stories so listeners get a chance to learn about the people behind the mic. We also wanted to create reciprocity in the story sharing process.
Until next time, stay salty!
Learn more about the show and view episode transcript on www.lakefacing.org.
Follow us on social media @ofsaltandsand.
19 Mar 2024
Introducing: Stay Salty Lakefacing Stories
The Great Salt Lake is drying up, and Utah’s major cities and towns could turn into a toxic dust bowl. This is making some Utahns ask: can we stay here? On Stay Salty: Lakefacing Stories hosts Meisei Gonzalez and Olivia Juarez explore what it means to stay in the Great Salt Lake Basin as we face an environmental and public health crisis. We talk with youth activists, moms, Indigenous leaders, people with disabilities, farmers, brine shrimpers, people who are incarcerated, and more. We ask, Why stay? How do we stay? And who gets to stay (or leave)?
Music by Amelia Diehl.
Visit www.lakefacing.org for more info and follow us on Instagram @ofsaltandand.
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