The Problem - Water and the Canyon

The Watershed

Protecting our watershed means preserving the health of our community members and the longevity of our communities.

“90% percent of Salt Lake City’s water supply comes from our local Wasatch Mountain snowpack”, Laura Briefer - Director of Salt Lake City Department of Public Utilities.

Bringing dogs and swimming in LCC’s bodies of water are prohibited because they compromise the quality of our drinking water. Ironically, a Ski Utah article (a proponent of the gondola) states ”touching the water negatively impacts public health”. The article also encourages visitors to practice Leave No Trace. You cannot touch the water; however, bring paving equipment, bulldozers, and leaving a trace that would be detectable by satellite is perfectly fine.

Our water supply is dependent on precipitation, so when we get less rain and snowfall, contaminants are more concentrated in our drinking water. In 2021 we are currently in a D4 exceptional drought, which is the most extreme drought classification. Constructing anything in our watershed - roads, gondola towers, etc.. - will reduce our water quality.

In section 19.2.2.5 of LCC EIS, “Excavation, grading, blasting, and other construction activities could increase sediment and pollution (oil, gasoline, lubricants, cement, pollutants from temporary restrooms, and so on) levels in stormwater runoff, and these pollutants could enter nearby waterways used for public drinking water… Any impact to waterways in the Little Cottonwood Canyon watershed could degrade the ability of the Little Cottonwood Water Treatment Plant to process drinking water.”

The only way to avoid water contamination is to utilize existing infrastructure. We should try to take low-cost low-risk solutions before spending $1/2 billion building in the canyon for “solutions” that may not fix traffic - no traffic modeling has been done to show that traffic will be reduced.