Editor's note: This story is an excerpt from the Great Salt Lake Collaborative's weekly newsletter, Lake Effect from March 11, 2025. To keep up-to-date on water news from around Utah with a focus on Great Salt Lake and the Colorado River, subscribe here for free.
Dear readers,
The 2025 Utah Legislative session is over, and after 45 days of debates and votes, we can share with you what happened and what didn’t related to water and the Great Salt Lake:
Most bills that would encourage water conservation failed. Some money — a sliver of what was asked — was given to monitor dust coming off Great Salt Lake, to lease water for the lake and to protect wetlands. And lawmakers prioritized requests for a visitor center at Antelope Island and cloud seeding.
I attended a Great Salt Lake legislative update hosted by the Wallace Stegner Center at the University of Utah law school on Monday, and speakers were disappointed that dust monitors weren’t fully funded.
Gov. Spencer Cox asked for $651,000 a year and lawmakers ultimately funded $150,000 a year. The full amount for dust control would have paid for additional dust monitors and a full time employee, to answer questions such as: how often is dust coming off the lake, does the dust post health hazards and to which communities? It also would have addressed dust issues related to the dry Sevier Lake in Delta.
Utah has underfunded dust monitors compared to other communities with dying lakes that have smaller populations, according to the Great Salt Lake Strike team report.
Panelist Steve Clyde, a water law attorney who has helped craft recent legislation to encourage water conservation for the Great Salt Lake, said he’s spent his life riding his bike in Salt Lake City’s “filthy air” and now has emphysema. He said his doctors believe his lung disease is “environmentally caused in large part from the dust coming from the lake” and other dust sources. And Beth Parker, a U. law professor who works on Great Salt Lake issues, said four of her five children have asthma and one had a severe asthma attack on the shore of the lake during a fourth grade field trip.
Looking forward, panelists said the lake will only be saved through the help of farmers.
Agriculture takes the lion’s share of water upstream of the lake. But while several laws have been passed in prior legislative sessions to help farmers conserve water and lease it to the lake, no farmers have taken advantage of the split season or water banking programs, according to Clyde and this policy analysis by the University of Utah and Utah State University.
In addition, farmers are being offered a lot of money from developers or cities for their water rights — one water lawyer said $18,000 an acre foot. “We’ve got to get a few farmers who are brave enough to give it a try,” Clyde said of the state programs for the lake. “The ag community feels under attack. … It’s going to take continued effort to educate, to try to encourage and try to change the public dialogue that does not make farmers the enemy but the solution to the problem.”
Keep scrolling for a list of what’s been funded, what wasn’t, what passed and didn’t.
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Fully funded requests
- Deer Creek Intake Project. $4 million toward a $100 million project that will address aging infrastructure at Deer Creek dam, which is part of water delivery system for 1.5 million residents in Utah and Salt Lake Counties. According to KSL.com, lawmakers said funding includes an agreement to send 35,000 acre-feet of water to the lake through a release from Willard Bay.
- Antelope Island Theater & Visitor Center Operations: $500,000 a year for ongoing maintenance, cleaning and staffing at the center set to open in fiscal year 2026.
- Great Salt Lake Basin Water Rights Network: $400,000 a year to “support more efficient water distribution, improved water accounting, and help prepare Utah to meet its commitments under interstate river compacts,” according to the request. The state has built this network in the Upper Colorado River Basin and want to do the same in the Great Salt Lake Basin.
- Great Salt Lake Sentinel Landscape: $1.99 million once in federal funds to promote conservation around military sites. Read more about the program here.
- Great Salt Lake Commissioner Federal Funds Adjustment: $30 million in federal funds for the commissioner's office from the federal Bureau of Reclamation. It's part of a $50 million allocation supposed to be given to the office from the federal Inflation Reduction Act to lease water for the lake. All of the funds remain frozen via executive order by President Trump.
Partially funded:
- Bear River Basin Cloud Seeding Program. $4.5 million requested and $3 million granted once. For an “advanced cloud seeding program to increase precipitation in the Bear River Basin,” according to the request. Goals are to help replenish the Great Salt Lake and bring more water to northern Utah.
- Great Salt Lake Long-Term Water Program. $16 million requested and $1 million granted. For the Great Salt Lake Commissioner’s Office to lease enough water to raise the lake to 4,195 feet.
- Addressing Critical Dust Concerns: $651,000 requested and $150,000 granted a year. To get more monitors to track dust from the Great Salt Lake and staff to analyze the data.
- Sovereign Lands Wetland Enhancement and Infrastructure Analysis: $6 million requested, $1 million granted to enhance Great Salt Lake wetlands and/or suppress dust on the dry lakebed.
Unfunded:
- GSL Wetland Enhancement and Protection Grants; $5 million requested to protect and enhance wetlands at the lake.
- Wetland Restoration and Management: $750,000 requested for GSL wetland restoration and management. A state official said it would help get rid of invasive phragmites weeds at the Great Salt Lake, which suck up water from the lake.
- Waterwise Landscaper Training and Certification. $420,000 requested to create a training and certification program to incentivize and accelerate waterwise landscaping plans. The state has incentivized removing lawns for water-wise plants in order to extend Utah’s water supply. But there is a gap in the number of landscape professionals who can install and maintain the low-water yards.
Bills that passed:
- HB 274 Water Amendments: Allows tiered water rates — charging more for more use — for culinary and untreated (secondary) water to encourage conservation. Supported by conservation groups, it could make excessive water use more expensive by requiring systems to consider water conservation when they set water prices.
- HB 244 Wildlife Management Area Amendments: Creates a new wildlife management area at the Great Salt Lake that the sponsor says was enabled by the Compass Minerals decision last year to give to Utah about 65,000 acres of land that was not being used for mineral extraction. Hunting groups that spoke in support of this bill say it will help protect wetlands around the Great Salt Lake.
- SB 201 Real Estate Amendments: Revise a relatively new law that had required homeowners associations to adopt rules supporting water-wise landscaping in areas for which the association is responsible. Now, the requirement will only apply to areas controlled by unit owners, according to the Great Salt Lake Project at the University of Utah law school. And it allows HOAs to prohibit the conversion of grass to waterwise landscaping in areas greater than 8 feet wide.
- HB 368 Local Land Use Amendments: Meant to ease homebuilding and make housing more affordable, it would make it harder for cities to require water-wise landscaping measures, according to the Great Salt Lake Project. It prohibits cities from withholding building permits if private landscaping plans haven’t been submitted.
- HB 311 Watershed Amendments: According to the Great Salt Lake Project: “It is unclear whether this bill would provide, for example, a mechanism for the state to secure additional water for the Bear River—the major source of water for Great Salt Lake—and the Colorado River for Utah or if, on the other hand, the bill provides a new mechanism to make progress on water development projects—like damming of the Bear River—that could have significant negative impacts on Great Salt Lake.”
- HB 466 Great Salt Lake Amendments: Streamlines the Great Salt Lake Commissioner’s ability to secure water for the lake through market incentives.
Bills that failed:
- SB 305 Water Wise Landscaping: Would have limited grass at state owned buildings in certain locations like parking strips and places that aren’t actively used. Opponents didn’t want to have a “war on turf.”
- SB 131 Water Commitment Amendments: Would have allowed cities to count water saved for the Great Salt Lake in their state-required conservation plans. It didn’t create new flows or diversions. Opponents raised concerns it could be used to stop water development projects.
- HB 328 Water Usage Amendments: Would have limited the use of overhead spray irrigation at new commercial, industrial and multi-family projects in northern Utah on areas that aren’t used for playing, exercise or recreation. Grass farmers opposed it.
- SB 92 Golf Course Amendments: Would have allowed an analysis of water use on publicly owned golf courses to recommend water-saving strategies and eventually create a master plan for state-owned golf courses. Privately-owned courses would have been exempt.
- HJR009 Joint Resolution Regarding Utah's Share of Colorado River Water: Could have had an impact on negotiations between states, tribes and Mexico over the future of the Colorado River, according to FOX 13 News. It called for Utah to use its full allocation of Colorado River water in the upper and lower basins.
- HB 318 Residential Turf Amendments: Would have limited residential lawns at newly constructed single-family detached dwellings located in the Great Salt Lake Basin.
- HB 330: Water Sprinkler Efficiency Requirements: Would have required all sprinkler heads purchased after July 1, 2026 be waterwise.
- HB 536 Water Usage Notification Amendments: Would have required water suppliers to measure and record water usage for users and notify them if their water use spiked significantly.
