It’s been three years — and three legislative sessions — since the Great Salt Lake and Lake Powell hit record lows due to years of drought and chronic overuse.
Public fervor to save the two bodies of water soared in response, and Utah’s elected officials reacted with new laws to keep more water in the embattled lakes. Mother Nature, too, replied — with two above-average winters that staved off dire straits.
This session, though, Utah lawmakers took a noticeably different approach.
“From a legislative standpoint, we had a relatively quiet year from where things have been in previous years,” Brian Steed, the state’s Great Salt Lake Commissioner, said during a recent media panel.
Before this year’s legislative session began, House Speaker Mike Schultz asked lawmakers “to take a break” from passing major water laws to see if current water policies are working. “When you make such huge policy changes, it’s important to take a minute and make sure that you’re getting the intended outcomes,” he said in a recent interview with The Salt Lake Tribune.
Lawmakers honored Schultz’s ask for a pause, which coincided with a mixed bag of water conditions across the state.
The Colorado River system continues to suffer from climate change and overuse; hydrologists predict Lake Powell, the country’s second-largest reservoir, will top out at just 35% full after this year’s spring runoff. The Great Salt Lake’s elevation remains below its healthy target of 4,198 feet.
Snowpack across the state is about 82% of normal and Utah’s reservoirs are 20% more full than they usually are this time of year, according to the Division of Water Resources. Still, parts of southern Utah are stranded in extreme drought — with persistent drought forecasted across the West this summer.
“A decision like that is made for political reasons, not because anybody knew it was going to be a good winter or a bad winter,” said Jack Schmidt, a watershed sciences professor at Utah State University and Director of its Center for Colorado River Studies, referring to the Legislature’s pause. “It’s not like they knew that we were going to be in a crisis or out of a crisis.”
Sen. Nate Blouin, D-Cottonwood Heights, said this year wasn’t the right time to take a breather from addressing Utah’s water woes.
“There’s a real need to focus on some of the stuff we’ve done to make sure it’s working,” he said. “But we’re certainly not out of the woods yet as it comes to the Great Salt Lake and other water issues.”
“The Legislature is absolutely the place to make these changes,” Blouin continued. “We have the authority. We just don’t have the political will.”
Past strides
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) The bathtub ring is visible at Lake Powell on Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023.
The Legislature in recent years enacted laws that changed how Utah manages its limited water resources — particularly with the Great Salt Lake in mind.
“When you look at the body of work the Legislature’s done over the last three or four years, it’s pretty remarkable,” Steed said, “and I would say it’s certainly the leader in the Western United States of adaptive plans to manage watershed resources.”
The Great Salt Lake’s record low imperiled the saline lake’s delicate ecological balance and exposed areas of drying lakebed, which produce toxic dust events. Legislators responded by changing the law to allow the state to buy water leases and rights to bring additional water to the Great Salt Lake. They established a trust to get more water to the lake and support its wetlands. And last year, lawmakers took aim at the lake’s water-intensive mineral extraction industry.
The Legislature also allocated $276 million to the state’s Agricultural Water Optimization Program, which helps farmers across Utah switch to more water-efficient irrigation equipment.
All of these changes, Schultz said, now need room to breathe. “We can go pass all the policies we want, and if they don’t get implemented, it doesn’t matter,” he said.
Rep. Casey Snider, R-Paradise, said recent wet winters have also cooled the water lawmaking frenzy.
“Public sentiment drives a lot of policymaking at the state Capitol, as it should. We’re elected to represent people and be responsive to the voices of our constituents,” Snider said. “Sometimes, it’s hard to advocate, or at least explain, that something is going to dry up when you have years of flooding. Those two narratives don’t easily mesh together.”
“Certainly, it has pulled the pressure off by having precipitation,” he continued.
Blouin said that lack of pressure was evident in the bills not passed this session.
He pointed to one of his own proposals, which would have allowed municipalities to commit water to the Great Salt Lake in their water conservation plans. The bill passed the Senate, but it didn’t make it to the House floor.
Another bill this session intended to improve water-efficient landscaping at public facilities but died in committee. A proposal that would have directed municipalities and counties to restrict lawn or turf at newly built residences also failed to advance, as did a bill that would have created a study analyzing how to maximize stormwater runoff into the Great Salt Lake. A Democratic representative requested $651,000 in ongoing funding to examine air quality and health impacts resulting from the lake’s dust storms, but got just $150,000 approved by the Legislature.
“The need to continue to find innovative solutions for continued conservation never stops,” Schmidt, from Utah State, said. “We need to continue to push on that, and every legislature is an opportunity to explore even additional ways to conserve water. When we lose momentum and save it and wait for the next crisis, we’re not getting the jump on the situation that we want.”
“We’ve got a real crisis,” he continued. “In that sense, why not have at least one significant conservation bill each session?”
What changed with water this year
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) The Great Salt Lake near the Spiral Jetty, on Tuesday, Jan 14, 2025.
Though fewer than in recent years, lawmakers this session passed water-related bills that made administrative changes and supported conservation.
One bill sponsored by Snider gave more power to Utah’s “water agent” to look for water supplies from the Bear and Colorado rivers. Another successful Snider bill directed water providers to contemplate changing water rates to encourage conservation.
Lawmakers also passed a bill that changed the state’s water policy by promoting groundwater quality, watershed monitoring and water reuse. And Steed noted the passage of two bills: one that clarified the Great Salt Lake Commissioner’s Office’s leasing authority and one that moved the office under the state’s Department of Natural Resources.
“On the whole it was, I would argue, a relatively successful legislative session for the Great Salt Lake,” Steed said during the recent media panel.
Looking to future sessions, Snider said he would like to implement better water tracking to nail down exactly how much of Utah’s conserved water is reaching the Great Salt Lake. And Schultz, despite asking for a pause this year, said he doesn’t think the state is finished changing and improving its water laws.
“An area where the state can still look to expand upon is water conservation,” he said, “but we need to make sure we’re doing it the right way, methodically…versus just throwing darts at the dart board and seeing what sticks.”
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Boaters recreate on Lake Powell near Page, Ariz. on Thursday, July 13, 2023.
Sarah Porter, who serves as the director for Arizona State University’s Kyl Center for Water Policy, said that conservation measures are important, but not always as effective as they might seem.
“Conservation is a limited option,” she said. “People often go to conservation, which almost always requires either financial investments or doing without, and often both.”
“Because of that,” Porter continued, “it’s important to be clear about what kind of benefits conservation is going to bring. And very often, it’s not going to bring the benefits that people envision.”
This year, forecasters predict inflows into Lake Powell will be less than last year’s. And while the National Resource Conservation Service reports the Great Salt Lake’s elevation could rise by as much as 1.5 feet after this year’s spring runoff, other factors, like soil moisture and evaporation, could cut into that increase. Snider said he expects the Great Salt Lake’s elevation will fall this year — a reversal from the last few years of healthier runoffs.
“I am expecting to go into the annual legislative session with a downward trend,” he said, “and we are responsive to that.”
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