Fall 2022

The Great Salt Lake has always been a strange sight - the red mineral-rich water contrasted with white evaporation pools, and the metropolis of Salt Lake City cozied up right against migratory bird refuges and protected wetlands. But flying over the lake now, it is easy to see that something isn’t right.

The Great Salt Lake has shrunk by two-thirds, reaching the lowest water levels ever recorded.

The receding water creates massive health threats for the two million people living in the surrounding region, which is the most densely populated area in Utah.

  Check out flight passenger Mythili Gubbi of Fox 13’s article: Flights over Great Salt Lake highlight need for action 

Amidst southern British Columbia’s untamed and seemingly undeveloped wilderness lie enormous mining operations - the Teck Resources mines, five massive open-pit coal mines. Large-scale mountaintop removal, and valleys filled with industry, equipment, and buildings just south of Banff National Park stand in stark contrast to the surrounding unaltered terrain. The footprints of the mines are already enormous, but driven by strong economic incentives,

Teck Resources is seeking to develop another large steelmaking coal mine in the Elk Valley.

Beyond obvious surface landscape disruptions, scientists are raising serious concerns about water pollution. Studies show heavy metal contamination from the mines is measurable; downstream near the US border, levels of selenium - a micronutrient that, in excess, threatens fish, birds, and ecosystem health - have been recorded over four times the provincial guidelines for protecting fish and wildlife!

Drinking water wells in the municipality of Sparwood were also found to be contaminated, and the mines pose public health concerns for downstream residents and Tribes.

Our partners, including NGOs and Tribal leaders, along with US governments are seeking stronger regulations and increased oversight of BC mining operations that threaten watersheds, communities, important cultural landscapes, fish populations, and recreation.

The Clark Fork River in southwestern Montana is one of the largest Superfund sites in the US. In 1908, a massive flood hit the mining towns of Butte and Anaconda, damaging mining infrastructure and carrying tons of toxic waste straight into the Clark Fork River. The incident polluted the floodplain for over 120 miles with mine tailings and waste water, devastating ecosystems, nearly eradicating fish, and contaminating agricultural fields and drinking water with heavy metals and arsenic.

The Clark Fork disaster is an eerie tale of caution for today’s world, where mines are only getting bigger.

Our overflights have supported remediation efforts in the Clark Fork for over ten years, and thankfully, after decades of work involving stakeholders like the State of Montana, Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, Clark Fork Coalition, and multiple federal agencies, the river is making a dramatic comeback! Fish runs are beginning to stabilize, large deposits of waste have been removed, dams demolished, and some tributaries and the main stem of the Clark Fork River have been restored!

Beavers - some of the most talented ecosystem engineers in North America - used to be plentiful across Colorado and the West. Today, only a few remain. Most were decimated by the 17th century fur trade. At EcoFlight, we’re helping our partners bring back this keystone species through reintroduction programs. Beavers construct dams and channels - architectural marvels built from branches and mud - that create habitat for fish, birds, and other species. These structures promote wetland growth, improve water quality, and supplement downstream streamflows by storing water. Beavers can even help fight climate change! The marshes and wetlands around beaver dams make watersheds more resilient to drought and fire, and help sequester carbon in plants and soils. We flew scientists and stakeholders over proposed reintroduction sites in Colorado’s White River National Forest that were identified using the GIS-based “BRAT,” or Beaver Reintroduction Assessment Tool. Flights allowed scientists to “air truth” these locations and make sure they are suitable habitat for beavers to thrive. The remote, steep terrain, makes the traditional “ground-truthing” strategy of visiting sites on foot impractical and far more limiting than the aerial perspective. Our flights will help ensure the successful restoration of these remarkable rodents!

EcoFlight’s work is so relational. We fly such interesting and well-informed passengers. We learn about their campaigns on diverse landscapes and watersheds, their issues, their incredible drive and resiliency, their goals. We add value to each mission from our decades of experience, providing the objective big-picture perspective and a platform that unites critical parties in order to reach those goals. 

Our West is changing before our eyes – watching the Great Salt Lake, our largest inland saline lake that was an iconic staple of our geographic knowledge of the West, simply disappear each time we overfly it, is sobering. Lake Powell, Lake Mead, the Salton Sea – all evaporating before our eyes, with big implications for both human communities dependent on these precious water sources, and for birds and wildlife.

This is a time of many unknowns with climate chaos accentuating drought cycles and storm events. But for all the doom and gloom we fly, we also marvel at hopeful and successful aerial missions, like the restoration of the Clark Fork River in Montana, and the reintroduction of beavers in our backyard of the White River National Forest in Colorado, which you can read about in this newsletter.

We are the ultimate optimists, flying for the future.

Jane Pargiter