THE GOOD. THE BAD. AND THE UGLY.

Good: Ullr, the mythical Norse God of Snow, has been gifting the Wasatch Mountains with a record-breaking amount of snowy goodness.

Bad: With a snowpack above 500 inches, wildlife (elk, moose, mule deer, etc.) are having to move lower in elevation to find food. Since development regulations aren’t at the forefront of Utah’s priorities, wildlife are getting pushed into areas where they shouldn’t be. In February, 50 to 60 elk moved into the mouth of Parley’s Canyon. Two died in collisions on a Friday morning and a third was euthanized after it was injured by a car.

Ugly: With extreme weather patterns due to climate change, it could get muddy and ugly as the snowpack above 500 inches starts to melt. Will the rivers and streams flood? And the real question is, how much of the water will make it out to the drying Great Salt Lake? Or is the solution to the water crisis still to pray for rain?

Good: Over 35,000 comments were sent to Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) during 2021-2022 across two comment periods in response to the proposed gondola in Little Cottonwood Canyon with 88% in opposition of the gondola being built. This community engagement is exactly what has slowed this process down and your continued involvement in this process is exactly what protecting Little Cottonwood Canyon needs. Not only have individuals spoken out against the gondola, but Salt Lake County, Salt Lake City, Cottonwood Heights City and County Council have passed resolutions supporting a common-sense solutions approach to the UDOT Little Cottonwood Canyon Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).

Bad: We are not at the end of this process. Not even close. UDOT will continue trying to figure out how to fund a $1.4 billion project that only serves two private resorts and does not alleviate transportation issues across the valley. UDOT will release their Record of Decision (tentatively) in Summer 2023.

Ugly: Politicians are headed down a path of replicating historical mistakes, rather than learning from them. This talk of cutting down trees to save water highlights the lack of critical thinking skills amongst those who have sought office to protect the public, the public’s trust, and wild spaces. It is a crisis greater than the shrinking of the Great Salt Lake. Trees are essential in the shared ecosystem that is the Wasatch. Trees reduce ambient temperatures, they provide a complex network in the soil that supports biodiversity of life that leads to water retention, and they purify our watershed.

Good: We need legislative action to slow the effects of climate change - less pollution, less water use, and not deforestation. Thank you to Salt Lake County for hosting a meeting on Feb 7th for bringing together scientists on this issue to amplify the importance of conservation.

And thank you to Laura Briefer (Director of Salt Lake City Department of Public Utilities), Ben Abbott (Professor of Environmental Science and Global Hydrology at Brigham Young University) and Ph.D. student Brian Brown, and Rebecca Hotze (District Ranger for the Salt Lake Ranger District with the Forest Service) for being part of this conversation during the meeting.

Bad: This whole cancellation of bus service in the midst of a comment period, when local officials and organizations are encouraging people to ride the bus to help protect our canyons from damaging projects like a gondola, doesn’t smell right to us.

Good: Rep. Stratton proposed a bill to expand mining operations across the state while dodging local regulations. It likely would have shifted the ongoing lawsuit between Tree Farm LLC and Salt Lake County in favor of Tree Farm and its proposed 634-acre gravel pit for Parley’s Canyon. Thanks to your engagement, HB527 didn’t make it out of the House Rules Committee. Hoorah!

Ugly: Last summer, Cardiff Canyon landowners decided not to renew their permit for reciprocal access for motorized access across public land, to their properties in the canyon. While we must respect private property rights, the land owners have hired mercenaries to harass the public using public lands. If you are approached by these individuals particularly if you are on public lands, it is important to notify law enforcement. Some areas of the Wasatch are a patchwork of public and private lands so it is important to know land ownership when enjoying your public lands.

Ugly: Rep. John Curtis’s bill to rejigger wilderness boundaries passed. The Wasatch is riddled with Wilderness quality lands deserving of the nation’s highest protection — lands that are likely to otherwise be converted to condos, parking lots, ski chalets, gondolas, and gravel pits. Yet, the best Utah’s Delegation could come up with was designating the former Boy Scouts of America Camp Tracy up Millcreek Canyon as Wilderness. Gobblers Knob, White Pine, Mineral Fork, Bear Trap, Silver Fork, Days Fork, Grizzly Gulch, Flagstaff, Mill D — all overlooked. Finishing the Bonneville Shoreline Trail (BST) should not come at the expense of collaboration and certainly not at the expense of conservation and with a loss of Wilderness.

Good: Our 50th Anniversary Celebration Presented by KÜHL has come and gone and we want to take a moment to express our gratitude. This was without a doubt, the most memorable and successful fundraising event Save Our Canyons has hosted. Working behind the scenes we see our members’ names on emails, donations, or in our database, but don’t often have the opportunity to interact face to face. It was a pleasure having an evening with our community, and celebrating the protection of wilderness in the Wasatch Mountains.

Utah’s Olympic Legacy

Written by Executive Director, Carl Fisher

• A climate positive games

• Water resource management in Mountain Zones

• Conservation and enhancement of biodiversity and cultural heritage

• A commitment to human rights for all aspects of the games

• Commitments to gender equality, inclusion, and diversity

These are areas Utah has struggled with, but the sky is really the limit for how we can rise to these challenges. We are not anywhere in the vicinity of the podium today, but we recognize these critical issues that confront our community. Perhaps the games and coaching of the IOC can help Utah not only get on the podium, but can ignite the flame within ourselves to strive for gold.

We are encouraged to report two commitments that we’ve worked on that show they are taking these priorities seriously. First, as we were hosting our listening sessions, Fraser Bullock, President and CEO of the Salt Lake City - Utah Olympic Committee, promised there would be no Olympic venues in the Cottonwood Canyons!

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Your tax deductible donation enables us to continue protecting the beauty and wildness of the Wasatch Mountains. Become a member by donating online or by mailing in a check to: 3690 E Fort Union Blvd STE 101; Cottonwood Heights, UT 84121. Join Save Our Canyons relies critically on the support of individual members and local businesses. Join today for only $35: https://saveourcanyons.org/join!

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Save Our Canyons has had a bit of a sordid history with the Olympic Games being in Utah. Yes, there were a few scandals that plagued the 2002 Winter Games, there was a hyper-politicized land exchange at Snowbasin, efforts to burn rings into Salt Lake City’s Foothills, and attempts to put Olympic venues in the Cottonwood Canyons. Some of these came to fruition yet others were squashed.

Our concern wasn’t ever about the spirit that the games invite or the accomplishments of these athlete’s pursuit of greatness, it was and is today out of an abundance of concern for what the Olympics would invite into our Wasatch Mountains, the infrastructure that is required to host the world in our relatively small range.

As Utah looks at the 2030 or 2034 Olympic Games, we’ve been engaged with the Salt Lake City - Utah Committee for the Games, which has included Save

Our Canyons in meetings with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to learn about their expectations for host cities. We also partnered with Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall to host listening sessions on the games.

As we worked to prepare for these games while being transparent with our concerns, we also stated to both the Mayor and the Utah Olympic Committee that with the infrastructure we already have, the major benefit we see to hosting the games is if we could go for gold on social and environmental issues that our region faces.

Not only were we encouraged by how our partners received this idea, we were further encouraged to see the IOC’s requirements for environmental, social, and economic responsibility include things like:

As you are also aware, there is a massive mine being proposed in Parley’s Canyon, which we believe should be designated as Utah’s Olympic Legacy Corridor. The world will travel this corridor as they come from SLC to venues on the Wasatch back. Yet, Granite Construction and developer Jesse Lassely are aggressively pursuing this mine, and even working to alter Utah’s already abysmal environmental policy framework to remove local communities from having any say or jurisdiction on mining proposals. Again, Fraser Bullock came through powerfully stating, “We must NOT allow this tragic marring of this beautiful canyon—we owe it to our children, our reputation in the Olympic community, and to ourselves.”

Without the Wasatch, there would be no Olympic Games in Utah. While Salt Lake and Utah are looking to host the games, the Wasatch Mountains cradle them. We’ve got a lot of work to do, and we look forward to working with partners to take these sentiments and put them to work, helping give the Wasatch, and our communities, the respect, protection, stewardship, and compassion they are more than deserving of receiving.

Membership Benefits

• Connection to a community passionate about conservation

• Discount on ALL Save Our Canyons event tickets

• Direct access to our brightest conservation leaders

• Ability to serve on a Save Our Canyons advisory committee

• An exclusive Save Our Canyons membership event

• Quarterly newsletters delivered to your door or via email (your preference)

• Action Alert emails that focus on direct actions to protect the Wasatch scan