GARDEN CITY, Utah — To a first-time visitor, the waters of Bear Lake shimmer like turquoise glass on hot summer days — a picture-perfect lake surrounded by quaint agricultural towns along the Utah-Idaho border. But residents like Rachael Johnson say this place has seen better days.
She calls it her “home lake.” Raised in Montpelier, Idaho, the 51-year-old remembers when the lake felt untouched and open, when those who called it home could swim, camp and wander unimpeded for miles along its shoreline.
“Now that’s all gone,” Johnson lamented, “and they’re focusing on this almost urbanization of this beautiful, wild lake.”
She isn’t alone in feeling this way. Utah State University’s Community and Natural Resources Institute recently released a survey revealing growing worries about rapid development, environmental challenges and changes to the area’s character as populations and tourism increase. The institute spent months last year interviewing residents of Garden City and Laketown in Utah, and Montpelier, Bennington, Paris, Fish Haven and St. Charles in Idaho.
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