Critic's Notebook

Sundance Institute

No irony intended (perhaps) in a documentary about the imminent environmental collapse of Utah’s Great Salt Lake ecosystem and the significant collateral damage to the livelihood of large numbers of locals, premiering at the last Sundance Film Festival to be held in the state before it voluntarily transplants to Colorado. Abby Ellis’s documentary “The Lake” follows ecologists, biologists and politicians involved in what one newscaster terms “an environmental nuclear bomb,” the drying out of the Great Salt Lake as the climate puts less water into it and the citizens of Utah take more out. The lake now contains 70 percent less water than it used to, an alarming number by any standards. Utah’s is not the only saltwater lake in the world facing potential disaster; but it is the largest and has the most people living near it. And no one has managed to fix any of the others.

On top of the water shortages, the uncovering of dry lake bed raises the risk of dust clouds packed with arsenic, cadmium, lead and copper being blown over the population centers. Bonnie Baxter, one of the scientists followed by the film for her expertise in microbiology, is later followed into a doctor’s office for advice about lung problems; the mystery of where she might have been exposed to carcinogens for a decade is easily solved. Ms. Baxter is not a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints but everyone else is. Her scientist colleague Ben Abbott is motivated equally by concern for his children’s future and by religious faith; he feels a responsibility to God to play his part in reducing his community’s water consumption. But at the same time an old farmer likely to be clobbered by environmental collapse has faith that God will sort things out. The documentary doesn’t arrange for these two to debate where agency lays.

The one doing all the debating is Brian Steed, holder of the office of Great Salt Lake Commissioner, a politician weaving a path between the environmental activists and the farmers who think activists should try growing some crops for a while and then see how they feel. Mr. Steed’s pragmatism is tested 100 times per day. When Mr. Abbott embarks on some street-level activism involving supporters dressed as the endangered Wilsons phalarope wading bird while singing and playing the tambourine, Mr. Steed gently ponders if the average alfalfa grower will be impressed. The Governor of Utah, an old acquaintance who throughout the documentary gives Mr. Steed a fraction of what he asks for, has a change of heart at the end. In fact the film ends on a upbeat trajectory. Philanthropists give $200 million toward the rescue effort, while Mr. Steed gets the $1 million he wants to try and spot the arsenic in the air and save a few lungs. Everyone knows the numbers need more zeroes; but you have to start somewhere, especially if you could have started years ago.