WATER IN THE DESERT

By Katharine Biele


Water in the desert. Cool rains and hot springs. A salted lake.  

Stand at the center of Liberty Park and walk along the miniature rivers and creeks that empty into the Great Salt Lake — City Creek, Red Butte, Emigration, Parleys, East Mill Creek, Big and Little Cottonwood. 

The melting snow ripples and flows through the heart of the city, into the once-magnificent Lake Bonneville. There sits the rusting shell of Old Saltair with its vaulted ballroom and ornate onion domes.

All things great are forgotten, even the parlous pumps built to hold the water from the roads. There was no need. 

The water now at bay, the lake recoils from the tendrils of development. Concrete and macadam, trucks and planes and water in the desert.


Katharine Biele was born in Salt Lake City but took a 15-year hiatus while at university and later teaching, studying and working in Hong Kong and Taiwan. She has worked at daily newspapers in the United States, currently contributes to City Weekly, and volunteers with the League of Women Voters of Utah.