Arsenic dust, salt, and the flight of hope: EB & FLO gives voice to a lake in peril

by Elaine Jarvik

When I moved to Utah from the East Coast decades ago, I was dismayed to discover that the body of water Salt Lake City was named for looked nothing like the lakes I was used to. Where were the trees? Where were the cozy cottages? Instead, I was shocked by how bleak and alien it was — a barren vastness that made me feel small and exposed.

My first excursion out onto the lake itself (the in-laws had come to visit) was a “dinner cruise” plagued by swarms of brine flies; and in the years that followed, the lake periodically offered up what TV meteorologists call “lake stink,” a rotten-egg smell that wafted east, stuffed up my sinuses, and made me want to hide indoors. Mostly, though, the lake was just a vague presence as I gazed west. I ignored it and went on with my life.

Then, slowly, I began to see the Great Salt Lake with new eyes. I took a trip to the bird refuge with writer Terry Tempest Williams; I hiked on Antelope Island; I visited the Spiral Jetty, Robert Smithson’s iconic land art sculpture at Rozel Point on the lake’s north arm. Sure, I still preferred a cozy shore lined by greenery, but I found myself on these occasions less afraid of the emptiness and more aware of the beautiful solitude, the encircling horizon, the life hidden there.

And then came the devastating news that made me really see the lake for what it is: a sustainer of life for humans and other creatures, a vital part of our local and global ecosystem. Three years ago, lake scientists began to send out warnings that the Great Salt Lake was so low that its ecosystem might collapse, the victim of a megadrought, a growing population, and farming practices that diverted water that could be flowing to the lake. Arsenic dust in the exposed lakebed, we learned, threatened to sicken the people downwind. This last news, especially, was the alarm bell that wouldn’t stop ringing in my ears. Now the lake’s fate had become personal — because how could my grandchildren continue to live in a place that could kill them? Was the Salt Lake Valley doomed?

One afternoon two summers ago, when my son was visiting from Portland, we drove out to Antelope Island, home to bison and to rocks that are at least two billion years old. We wanted to see for ourselves how the lake had dramatically diminished in size since he had lived here as a boy. We parked the car at the top of a small rise and began walking down toward the lake, first across rabbit brush, then across hardened sand, walking and walking and walking. It seemed like we would never reach the water’s edge. What had before been abstract now became visceral: we were losing our lake and our way. It left me feeling even more scared. 

Writing EB & FLO has, again, helped me channel my worries, and has added another level of respect for a lake I once disparaged. The challenge in writing a Great Salt Lake play for children is to make the information exciting rather than pedantic. During my 30-year experience as a journalist — much of it doing long-form pieces — I learned how to not only research and distill data, but also to marry facts with narrative, presenting human stories that were at once both dispassionate and heartfelt. I have brought this sensibility to EB & FLO. 

To keep the play engaging and dynamic, I settled on two main characters: a fantastic flamingo named Flo and a sensible seagull named Eb. Flo was inspired by the real-life adventures, 35 years ago, of a flamingo who escaped from Tracy Aviary and landed at the Great Salt Lake, where he wintered for more than a decade and earned the name Pink Floyd. Like Floyd, Flo is a naïve stranger who arrives knowing next-to nothing about the lake. Eb is inspired by the garbage-eating gulls that are Utah’s state bird, which have no business living in Utah, but are omnipresent because of the lake. The two birds search for other flamingos, and along the way learn about brine shrimp, brine flies, and the endangered “bird highway.” They (and the audience) learn about decreasing water levels, increasing salinity, and the dust that could make people sick. The duo comes up with a song to get the message out.

For most of us in Utah, the lake has been easy to take for granted. Luckily, more and more people are paying attention because we can’t count on the weather to save us. 

It’s my hope that, after seeing EB & FLO, students will have conversations with their grown-ups and will grow up trying to keep the lake alive.

Elaine Jarvik has premiered numerous plays at Salt Lake Acting Company, Pygmalion Theatre Company, and Plan-B Theatre. Her latest, EB & FLO, receives its world premiere as Plan-B’s thirteenth annual Free Elementary School Tour, serving 100 elementary schools statewide throughout the 2025/26 school year. Free public performances (free, but tickets required) are October 4, 11, 18, 2025, and February 14, 21, and 28, 2026. Details and tickets at planbtheatre.org/ebandflo