The Reason Behind the Flooding of Great Salt Lake Essay -- Terry Willi

The Reason Behind the Flooding of outstanding Salt Lake In Refuge, Terry agitation Williams blames a raw(a) disasterthe overflowing of the Great Salt Lake in Utah--for the destruction of the broadcast she loved most in the world, the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. What Williams attempts to explain, however, is that this disaster wasnt really natural at all. Refuge is critiqued by some for being over-dramatized, and Terry Tempest Williams is often criticized for blaming the world and others for the loss of the bird institution. In fact, Williams is correct when she says that human race are responsible for the flooding of Salt Lake, which was caused by the construction of a railroad causeway that split Great Salt Lake into two bodies of water. The author is not a reckless finger-pointer, she is a realist.In describing the bird refuge before the flooding, Williams goes into great detail about the abundance of birds and vegetation that be her paradise Avocets and black-necked stilts are knee deep in water aboard interstate 80. Flocks of California gulls stand on a disappearing rimI inhale the salty air. It is like ocean, even the lake is steel-blue with whitecaps(Williams 30). In a visit to the bird refuge with her grandmother, she describes the refuge as a place full of life, with countless birds among beautiful plants and wildlife. Indeed, the bird refuge was a mental hospital to her there was something magical, she writes, about seeing the thousands of different birds in one place, a sight that kept her going back.The rise of Great Salt Lake engulfed the refuge, and as the flooding continued, the population of birds plummeted, Williams sanctuary turned into a graveyard alter with only memories of the birds she grew ... ...e the ones most affected by flooding, are also those where the poorest residents live. In 1987, three pumps were used to pump 800,000 acres of water into the West consortium of Salt Lake in an attempt to even out the water leve ls on the two sides of the lake. This effort to fix the lakes problems, which cost $60 zillion, became known as the West Desert Pumping Project. The project went on for more than two years, until 2.7 million acre-feet of water, containing 695 million tons of salt, were pumped out.(www.ugs.state.ut.us/online/PI-39/pi39pg08 ) These pumps were successful in balancing the lakes water levels, and remain on standby in case of some other disastrous rise. It remains to be seen, however, whether this corrective measure will revive Great Salt Lakes wildlifeand particularly the birds that Terry Tempest Williams seeto their pre-causeway levels.