Ronnie - Water: A Pathway for Connection

When you think about Salt Lake City, how often do you consider the town’s name sake and its association with water? Do you ever think about the various tributaries that feed our Great Salt Lake? Or wonder about the water flowing beneath our Downtown streets? Ronnie Pessetto, the executive director of Seven Canyons Trust, has found herself in a series of synchronistic positions. The flow of life has led Ronnie to work with water communities, provide education, and help with the architectural daylighting of waterways, but this wasn’t always her plan. In fact, Ronnie never saw herself going to graduate school, let alone living in Utah.

Growing up in Kentucky, Ronnie enjoyed being outdoors and playing in water. However, at age 11, she started experiencing headaches and migraines. Untouched by medication and unheard by a number of doctors, a BIPOC pediatrician finally met Ronnie where she was at. The pediatrician requested same-day scans that revealed Ronnie had stage three cancer. Ronnie had Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), a type of head cancer more commonly found in Africa. They had determined that her cancer was caused by playing in non-point source (NPS) polluted waterways. 

Ronnie underwent an intensive bout of chemo and radiation. She completed her treatments in July of 2009. As a cancer survivor, she recognizes those who may currently be battling and acknowledges them for their “champion spirit”. She hopes that people will feel less alone when she shares that she is “cancer survivor just like you.” 

“Not many people, especially from childhood cancer, are able to make it. [Cancer] gave me pause to really reflect and think about how I can make people feel seen and heard.” Inspired to prevent further “environmental injustices”, Ronnie thought that her place to help people would be in the medical field, but she was guided in a different direction. “The more I learned, the more I realized that the structure of a city tells you everything about how people are experiencing things, in their lifetime. If you're able to alter the structure of a city, then you're also able to alter their health outcomes. 
From there, I switched my major from nursing to environmental policy, with the goal of getting my master's degree in city and metropolitan planning.” 

Ronnie has carried on the lessons she’s learned by “meeting people where they’re at” and “taking things a day at a time”. As an urban planner, she loves sitting on the front porch with people in the areas where she’s working, to just chat with them and observe. “Sometimes people can't necessarily tell you exactly what they have experienced or what they desire, but the way that they move kind of tells you.” “I want people from various backgrounds and spectrums of life to have access to [waterways] and have healthy access to it.” 

“[Water] is a form of life and it is a connector; everybody needs it. Regardless of what your background is; we all need water. It's really cool to be part of the collective of water, even in my struggle. Although I slipped through the cracks, I don't want anyone else to slip through the cracks.”  Ronnie reminds us that it took some time for these waterways to be buried and it’s going to take an entire community to uncover them. The water that flows underneath our streets has a direct impact on all of the species that we share a space with. These tributaries also have a direct impact on feeding, or starving, our Great Salt Lake. If you’d like to join Ronnie in the mission to daylight our local waterways check out these resources and remember, “It flows beneath you.” 

Seven Canyons Trust: 

Website: https://sevencanyonstrust.org/

Hidden Waters Installation: https://sevencanyonstrust.org/hidden-waters

Instagram: @sevencanyonstrust