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MS. EILPERIN: [In progress]--Washington Post. I’m pleased to be joined by the mayor of Salt Lake City, Erin Mendenhall. Mayor Mendenhall, welcome.

MAYOR MENDENHALL: Thank you for having me. I'm so happy to be here.

MS. EILPERIN: Excellent.

Since environmental issues spurred your entrance into politics, could you tell us the story of how you went from air quality activist to the mayor of Salt Lake City?

MAYOR MENDENHALL: Yes. I think everybody has a moment that triggers you to decide you have to do something, and maybe you know that moment for yourself, how you started your career, you founded a nonprofit or something, and my moment was when my now-17-year-old was an infant. He was just a few weeks old. He was a fat nine-pound-one-ounce baby.

[Laughter]

MAYOR MENDENHALL: And I'd studied biology a little bit, but I in no way was an air quality anything. I didn't know anything. And he was born during an inversion. Salt Lake City is an amazing place for so many reasons, but it's in a bowl-shaped valley with mountains on both sides. So we amass pollution, particle pollution, in the winter months and end up with a temperature inversion, sometimes for days or weeks during our winter. And the cumulative impact I learned while listening to a local NPR station holding my fat baby--and I learned listening--that my legislature, our state legislature that day had just received a report that the cumulative impact of breathing these--sometimes in the summer, sometimes in the winter, really a handful of days a year on one's life can take two years off of a person's longevity, just living in this valley. And I felt like I had to leave, like we needed to get in the car before the radio show was over and be gone.

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But really before the show was over, I knew I was going to do something, and so I started by volunteering, learning from physicians and environmental health people who were also compelled to do something and found some mentors. Eventually, I was hired for a little nonprofit that was just starting up. I was the first employee, and we were community organizers. I was activating, putting protests together, getting people to feel like I felt, but I knew I wanted to be inside the meetings that we were outside protesting. And so we founded a new nonprofit that--it's called "Breathe Utah." It's still doing great work but work from a science realm to bring policy proposals forward to our supermajority Republican legislature that would finally start getting some wheels under them. And I found that I really liked that work, and eventually, someone said, "You should run for city council," and I laughed.

[Laughter]

MAYOR MENDENHALL: And six or seven more asks, eventually I said yes, and now I'm in my tenth year in city hall, six years as city council and my fourth year as mayor.

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MS. EILPERIN: Got it. And so if being a mother in many ways kind of drew you into politics, how has that and being a woman shaped both your decision to run--you mentioned it took a few asks to get you to engage--and also how you operate now that you're in office?

MAYOR MENDENHALL: I've only ever been a woman, so I can't--I can't give you the contrast. But when I ran the first time in 2013, only 16 percent of all elected offices in my state were held by women--16. That's pathetic. And at the time, our seven-member city council had one woman, and our mayor at the time was a man, and she was the only one who was retiring. And it was really what pushed me to finally say, "I'm going to try this. I'm going to get into the race," was thinking about an all-male city council and a man as the mayor running our Blue Dot, amazing city that needed more voices at the table. So it was that inequity in representation that was the final straw.

MS. EILPERIN: And have those numbers changed?

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MAYOR MENDENHALL: We're about 25 percent, 26 percent of elected offices now in the state.

MS. EILPERIN: Okay. And tackling climate change by definition involves collective action, right? There's no way that individual countries or states or cities and--or nations can do it and also consensus building. So do you have thoughts on how you and some of the other women leaders you've met approach this somewhat differently compared to, you know, others, or do you feel like there's no real distinction and this is--you know, this is an issue that other--that everyone has been able to, you know, master what it means to address collectively?

MAYOR MENDENHALL: I think that I find myself in rooms with many other women or mostly other women around most of the great challenges that we're facing globally but at a community level as well. I'm talking about the environmental injustice that's on the west side of Salt Lake City, our formerly redlined neighborhoods that are dealing with, you know, absentee issues at our public schools. They're dealing with lack of access to fresh food. We have resident food organizers in our community, mostly women showing up there, transit access, I-15 expansion proposal that UDOT is looking at right now. A lot of women show up, and why that is, I only know for myself.

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But certainly we have allies, and it's not always only the women. But I think that telling your story and the vulnerability of that personal reason, your own tipping point that I told you at the beginning, isn't a gendered experience to tell. You know, men and women can tell their stories alike, but I think that there's something compelling about the authenticity and the invitation, and I see women doing that in both the reason they're engaged but also the inspiration to keep going on an issue that can be as exhausting and frustrating as climate change.

Why are we still in this? Why are we showing up? Because there's tremendous hope and because there's a bunch of kick-ass women that you have on this panel today who are doing amazing work, and I think that authenticity of working together, being excited, of showing the hope that there is, and the reason that we keep doing it is something I see women doing more often than men, which I'd love to see that change.

MS. EILPERIN: And Salt Lake City is booming, obviously, and I'm curious if you could both talk about why it's attracting kind of the investment and the jobs that we've seen in recent years and also what are the challenges, both opportunities and the challenges that it presents when you're committed to conservation and environmental goals, like yourself.

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MAYOR MENDENHALL: Yeah. Utah is the fastest-growing state in the nation, about 18.4 percent growth, 2010 to 2020 census, and we've continued with that growth.

Salt Lake City has grown quite a bit. We hovered around 180,000 residents in our little 110 square miles for decades, and we've added about 20,000 residents in the last two decades. And interestingly enough, we've decreased our water consumption by more than 20 percent over that course of time. So the way that we're growing is, I think, something that other cities around the state of Utah, who are also experiencing growth challenges, are interested in, because the costs associated, the livability of that, not only the environmental reasons but the day-to-day quality of life.

And our growth is very focused, from a city aspect, on the ways that we can leverage the private market to give us more of the solutions that we need. Housing costs are very difficult in Salt Lake City. They've been escalating. Homelessness is a challenge that we see in capital cities, medium-sized cities across the country. We're experiencing that as well. And the threats of the Great Salt Lake and its shrinkage and the dust, toxicity, and the way the wind blows is right into Salt Lake City. So these are challenges that we can address at the local level with things like land use, low-interest-rate loans that we give. And we will not loan any longer for new buildings unless they're all electric and they are climate friendly. So we need those kind of technologies.

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But of course, we can't control the building codes that's set by our state legislature. So we have to put our money on the table or change the land use codes to get the solutions that we need, and the businesses are showing up. It's happening.

MS. EILPERIN: Is there any real prospect? Building codes, obviously, which is super wonky, but has significant implications for energy use for climate. Is there any prospect of that changing in the near future, or is there just not enough support in the legislature for that?

MAYOR MENDENHALL: There has been some incremental change, and just the way that we've been able to improve our air quality is the way that the building codes will also change, which is that the business case becomes very clear. The technologies become actually more affordable than the traditional way of building, and so electricity and creating buildings that are 100 percent electrified is a good business model right now, and I think when the city, our Blue Dot, leads out on some of these new policies, we do see the state both examine what's going on and then sometimes implement at the state level. So we're happy to be that progressive testing ground.

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MS. EILPERIN: Got it. And so let's talk about the Great Salt Lake, which first hit a record low in the summer of 2021, and there was a story just today, right, in the Tribune, saying that the record snowpack was a temporary reprieve but basically for a couple years. So there's a coalition of environmental groups that recently filed a lawsuit against the state of Utah, arguing that officials have pushed the Great Salt Lake to the brink of collapse. Do you think that state officials are doing enough to protect the Great Salt Lake, and what else should they be doing?

MAYOR MENDENHALL: The actions that they took in the last legislative session were phenomenal, and I don't believe that they believe they're done. We hear from them, and we hear from the scientists who led the initial study that said we have five years left of this lake and then the ecosystem is gone. And the legislature responded.

We know that of all the water that could drain into the Great Salt Lake, more than 80 percent of it is going to mining or agriculture, majority going to agriculture, about 72 percent. Cities and local industries, about 9 percent, total. And Salt Lake City is a tiny bit in there. So influencing the big mining industries and the agricultural aspect is a legislative function. I know there's been a lot of attention on Salt Lake City. It is our namesake.

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MS. EILPERIN: Yes.

MAYOR MENDENHALL: But--and we have been doing some pretty aggressive policies, rate increases, but to have farmers pass on that water, not grow their crops and not lose their water rights but be able to receive some funding from the state is new and empowered by a $40 million trust they put together.

We need this action to continue, and the reporting that you mentioned today is based on the work of these same scientists that the legislature has been listening to. So what they suggest, we've seen it come to fruition in the legislative session, and we hope to see more of that in January.

MS. EILPERIN: Okay. And then part of what you mentioned earlier is this idea that toxic chemicals, including arsenic, lead, and mercury that are right now trapped in the lake bed, as it becomes--as the lake bed becomes more exposed, these chemicals are carried into the air and create toxic dust storms. So in terms of--you've talked about how Salt Lake has obviously taken some precaution, some steps to reduce its water consumption. Is there anything that the city can do in terms of restoring it that you feel like is action that's important for Salt Lake City to do at this point?

MAYOR MENDENHALL: There's been some other reporting around lithium extraction--

MS. EILPERIN: Mm-hmm.

MAYOR MENDENHALL: --and this frenzy of businesses trying to figure out how to--especially in the highly saline parts of the lake--

MS. EILPERIN: Yes.

MAYOR MENDENHALL: --extract lithium from the brine that is in there.

MS. EILPERIN: Right.

MAYOR MENDENHALL: And these are typically really water-intensive processes.

MS. EILPERIN: Right.

MAYOR MENDENHALL: More water than we use as an entire city, capital city in a year, much, much more. And the pressures on cities like ours to be able to dedicate the outflow from our water treatment facility, which is just over 13 billion gallons of water a year, it flows into the Great Salt Lake, but it could be forced to be diverted.

MS. EILPERIN: Okay.

MAYOR MENDENHALL: And so we are right now working to finalize our legal assurances with the state of Utah which is only newly available to cities in the last two years so that we control and permanently dedicate all 13 billion gallons to the lake

so that should a big semiconductor manufacturer or a lithium extractor plant come into the state and get them really excited about an industry that we can't afford from a water aspect it will be secured.

MS. EILPERIN: Got it. Well, let's talk specifically. You anticipated my next question, which is that The Washington Post has been doing a series this year about the implications of the expansion of electric vehicles and what it means in terms of, obviously, the critical minerals and components that go into that. And so lithium, you know, is something that really matters, and there's a proposal right now from Waterleaf Resources which says that it will restore billions of gallons of water that it's going to require from the Great Salt Lake. And the question is, can it? Will it? Should this venture be permitted? What's your--do you have a position on that?

MAYOR MENDENHALL: That's the question the state is asking right now. They've also acquired some natural water rights, so not salty water from the lake, but the non-saline water that we're taking from the tap. They're saying that they would put actually more water back into the lake than they take out because they'd be combining it with this fresh water that they flush the process with at the end.

We haven't heard from the Department of Natural Resources at the state whether or not this system, which is a very new and unpiloted, as far as we know, process, is actually going to be able to do that.

So I'm grateful that the state is taking a skeptical look at an unvetted process that wants many billions of gallons of water out of the lake, many times more than our entire city uses. We should be skeptical of this, and we should do nothing that harms the lake.

Every economy, not just mineral extraction, every part of our city, the entire ski industry, everything would be affected if we lose the lake. There would be no Salt Lake City.

MS. EILPERIN: And I'm curious about--you know, we've seen a huge number of extreme weather events, right, occur across the country, across the globe, and I'm curious of whether--how it's--in what ways has it changed the kind of leadership playbook for mayors, for lack of a better term. Has it, you know, provided more opportunities to engage on climate change? Has it strained budgets to an extent that doesn't allow you to devote the resources you want to making progress on some of your goals? How have you coped with this, and what has it meant for you?

MAYOR MENDENHALL: Salt Lake City being a historically Democratic city in our very red state has taken every opportunity to come to the table. Anytime we're invited or anytime we see a conversation that we feel like we should be in, we find a way to pull a chair up.

And the lake and the crisis of the lake has expanded those opportunities, and it's caused other cities, other mayors in the state, to look at what we've been doing and what we're developing in terms of our policy, even our rate structure of increasing over time. And they're asking us, how can we do that? Can you help? Can you share that with us? And at the state level, we are helping to develop the water budget for the Great Salt Lake through our public utilities director, Laura Briefer, who's amazing, not only at directing the public utilities of Salt Lake City but telling the story and the history of water's relationship to the settlement of our valley.

And although agriculture is the main source here and that is not part of what's happening in Salt Lake City, I think that the relationship that Utahns have with the Great Salt Lake has taken a massive turn. People didn't value the lake very much. It can smell funky when the wind blows off of it. You don't take your ski boat out and you don't take your family to the beach and play at the Great Salt Lake. It's a very salty body of water, and it smells funky sometimes.

But now we all love the lake in the last two years because I think that we kind of recognize the lack of appreciation, and now it's over--we're over compensating-- MS. EILPERIN: Got it.

MAYOR MENDENHALL: --with care and concern. And other cities are grateful, I think, to turn to what we've proven out already in Salt Lake.

MS. EILPERIN: And do people think about and talk about water differently now? Again--

MAYOR MENDENHALL: Yeah.

MS. EILPERIN: --this past year was quirky in terms of, obviously, what we saw in terms of the snowpack and rainfall. But obviously, right before that, we were at this unbelievable crisis point, and is that also part of how people are thinking slightly differently?

MAYOR MENDENHALL: Yeah. I was really concerned this winter with the epic snowfall rates that we had that people were going to lose their concern about the lake, and it's--I think everyone seemed to have that same worry.

It's not the case. Yellow is the new green in Salt Lake. People are xeriscaping. We are planting more trees at the same time to help reduce our heat island effect, and people are very inspired.

MS. EILPERIN: Got it. And while there are fewer Americans who, you know, for example, deny how human activity is helping drive climate change, the issue, both in terms of the causes and the solutions, is still polarizing. And the two parties remain pretty far apart, and we've seen that in recent polling that The Washington Post has done and obviously others. How--obviously, you've spent time trying to diffuse that level of polarization as a Democratic mayor in a Republican-dominated state. How do you go about doing that?

MAYOR MENDENHALL: I live in the Southwest, the area of the United States most affected by climate change, and it is undeniable that we've been experiencing incredible impacts already from climate change, extreme weather events, the drought that we have been in and we continue even, despite our epic winter, the crisis of the lake. This is--it's reaching undeniable proportions.

Now, what has to happen with climate change is very acute to Utahns. From an air quality perspective, we are already primed to care very much at the local level about carbon emissions and the impacts on our health, but with that, that coupling with the lake and the crisis of the lake, it has made the climate struggle very personal.

And in--I think that we see this, the water crisis playing out, in all parts of the West, but the lake is--we're talking about months for us to take action, not decades, not 2030. The lake will be gone if we haven't made the decisions by 2030 when we are trying to meet our carbon goals.

MS. EILPERIN: And so how do you hear Republicans in your state talking about climate change that might be different from what people would hear from national Republicans or, you know, the most recent, you know, Republican presidential debate?

MAYOR MENDENHALL: I think that our Utah Republicans talk about it in terms of our livability and preserving our quality of life. They recognize--the majority of our legislature are rural representatives, and agriculture and mining and industry is a big part of those economies. They want to be able to preserve their communities, but they recognize that the resources that they've relied on are dwindling. And this isn't about climate change. You don't hear a lot of Utah Republicans talking about climate change. They'll talk about the Great Salt Lake and the water crisis, and, you know, if in the end, the actions that we take to save our lake are characterized as local and have nothing to do with climate change, from the rhetoric coming out of the legislature, I'm okay with that. We still have to take the action.

MS. EILPERIN: Excellent.

Well, thank you. This has been fascinating. Mayor Mendenhall, we will be watching to see what happens in Salt Lake City and in Utah. Thanks so much for joining us here today.

MAYOR MENDENHALL: Thanks for having me, Juliet.

[Applause]

MS. EILPERIN: And I will be back with you all here in a few minutes as we continue our conversations about climate change with Dr. Katharine Hayhoe and Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson. Please stay with us.

[Segment Ends]

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