The boardwalk is bordered by a sea of green — cattails mostly — interspersed with open water where tadpoles zip about. A curlew, startled by approaching visitors, erupts from the cattails and flies off, eventually to circle back when the visitors leave. Other birds rustle invisibly in the reeds. Dragonflies meander through the air.

Being there is an education about how humans and the lake affect the lush habitat. And on the way back, one sees that civilization is all too close.

Because so much fresh water flows into the lake, a series of dikes have been built in various parts of the lake. The dikes and two causeways segregate the salty part of the lake from freshwater parts, said Chris Montague, director of conservation programs for The Nature Conservancy. Now there is a huge salinity imbalance in different parts of the lake, which affects animals and plants in and around the lake.

"It's not a very well-understood system," Montague says.

Because the Great Salt Lake has no outlet, anything that goes down the gutter ends up in the lake and stays there: automotive fluids, grass clippings, fertilizers, pesticides, paint and treated sewage.

Last Monday, Walt Baker, director of the state's Division of Water Quality, took Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. for a three-hour tour of the lake near Farmington Bay. They talked about studies that are under way to determine numerical standards for concentrations of chemicals in the lake.

Those chemicals have already affected birds in the lake's wetlands. Two species of duck, northern shoveler and goldeneye, were the subject of a health advisory issued in September 2005 because of elevated mercury levels.

But Utah residents are beginning to realize the lake's importance.

"It is an ecosystem whose health should be maintained and whose contribution to our state's quality of life is sometimes under-appreciated," Huntsman's spokesman, Mike Mower, said.

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E-mail: jdougherty@desnews.com