EH student, Tiana Birrell Published by Salt Lake Tribune

Tiana Birrell, a first-year student in the Environmental Humanities program, is passionate about water and the issues surrounding it. Her recent piece “Letter: Mike Noel is muddying the waters of our local watershed,” published in the Salt Lak Tribune, alerts readers to Mike Noel’s HB135 which “transfers responsibility for our watershed to the state, threatening Salt Lake City’s ability to protect our water quality and disrupting a century of stewardship.” Noel’s proposal would open the Wastach watershed, the major source of Salt Lake Residents’ drinking water to grazing, putting public health at risk.

Birrell argues that this is not Noel’s first “pitfall” proposal and sees his willingness to muddy Wastach waters for the sake of cows and their ranchers as a sign of his profit-first political tendencies. She writes that “Noel shows he’s more concerned for the pockets of a few speculators in a canyon five hours from his own district than he is the drinking water of millions who rely on the Wasatch watershed.”

This piece demonstrates Birrell’s commitment to reach beyond the world of academia and fight for both political and local action as water issues seep into multiple facets of her life and work. As an intern with Save our Canyons, Birrell is tuned into proposals for troubling legislation that too often surround canyon regulations and watershed protection.