Utah Supreme Court dismisses tangle over Great Salt Lake evaporation ponds
SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Supreme Court tossed a suit by environmental groups Tuesday, saying the court lacked jurisdiction to take up their fight over the development of evaporation ponds at the north end of the Great Salt Lake.
Instead, groups such as Friends of the Great Salt Lake, the Audubon Society of Utah and the Utah Sierra Club were directed to start their legal battle at the district court level.
In rejecting the groups' appeal of a state agency's decision to allow development of the ponds and accompanying dikes, the court said the state action arose from an "informal" proceeding, bouncing it out of its purview.
At issue are the 2007 plans by Great Salt Lake Minerals to lease an additional 23,000 acres of lake bed in Box Elder County near Clyman Bay and its intention to build dikes and evaporation ponds on undeveloped but leased land in the same area.
Environmental groups objected, arguing that state agencies had failed to adequately investigate or analyze the potential environmental impacts.
After responding to the groups' complaints, the state agency approved the plans, saying they fit within the Great Salt Lake Resource Management Plan and its categories of land-use restrictions.
In their legal challenge to the decision, the groups countered that state agencies failed to adhere to the "public trust doctrine" in granting the leases. That doctrine is an ancient legal principle asserting that certain natural resources are reserved for public use and that it is the government's charge to preserve them.
The groups argued that to correct that misconduct, state agencies needed to apply that doctrine more stringently, conduct a more detailed, site-specific analysis and correct problems in management plans.
The Tuesday decision does not address the legal merits of those claims.
e-mail: amyjoi@desnews.com
