The Great Salt Lake is experiencing a severe decline in water levels, causing boats to become stranded on dry land and forcing boat owners to relocate their vessels, which threatens the local sailing community and ecosystem that depends on the lake.
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Lakefest draws attention to Great Salt Lake decline as boats leave marina
Added:I'm Sean Moody at the Great Salt Lake, where the number of boats here on dry land are starting outnumber the ones remaining down there in the marina.
Everybody's excited for Lake Fest to celebrate the Great Salt Lake, but they're also well aware of just how dire situation out here is.
There's nothing quite like the love between sailor and boat.
>> The love of the water.
>> I got 10 knots and look at that. It's just beautiful.
>> Evenings on the Great Salt Lake keep the wind in Virgil Gerlones' sails.
>> On a good season, I try to at least get 400 miles in.
>> Since 2018, the Great Salt Lake Marina has been home base for his boat, Salah.
>> It's Arabic for very good.
>> And sunsets aboard Salah are very good indeed.
>> It just makes you feel at peace and like everything's right in the world.
>> But everything in the Great Salt Lake's world >> Did you know back when I was your age the lake used to be this big?
>> is far from right.
>> Sad state of affairs, sir.
>> Lake Fest is focused on education.
>> Did you know there's brine shrimp in the lake?
>> And its signature event, a cardboard boat race.
Soon these kids will pretty much have the place to themselves.
>> 30 years ago when I started sailing here, the water we'd be underwater here.
>> Steve Hardy's on the yacht club board.
>> All these boats, a lot of their keels are stuck in the mud and so that's why we have to pull them out.
>> He moved his boat to California 3 years ago after the last time all these boats had to move.
>> When I pulled this boat out in 2022, >> Mhm.
>> it was harder than my second divorce.
And that was hard.
You know.
Yeah.
It's hard to talk about it.
>> Hard because Virgil is losing his community.
>> Um There's guys here that have been I've been here for 8 years. There's guys have been here for their whole lives.
And it's it's huge.
You know.
>> Virgil's about out of optimism, but Jake Dreyfuss is determined.
>> We're gathering hundreds of Utahns to show them why the lake is worth saving.
>> He's the managing director of Grow the Flow.
>> All you have to do is is take a look at the shoreline behind us to really see the scale of the lake's decline.
Um it's both impactful but also empowering, right? It's it's to say I want to do something about this now.
>> Really need our governor and legislator to step up and say, "Okay, we're going to save this lake."
>> Steve's got some hope.
>> All the people up there, all the different entities trying to help save the lake, advocate for it. It it's a great thing. It's it's that gives me optimism.
>> he could sail these waters once more. At the Great Salt Lake, Sean Moody, Fox 13 News, Utah.
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