Addison Graham is a student at Brigham Young University and is a student scholar at the Wheatley Institute.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints directs its members to be “stewards, caretakers, and guardians” of God’s creations, and it was in that spirit that it announced in March a permanent donation of 6.5 billion gallons of water a year to replenish the dramatically dwindling Great Salt Lake. But the gesture, while sincere and significant, only highlights how much more needs to be done.
The church’s gift comes in the form of water shares — valuable rights to a certain amount of water every year from the melting snowpack of Western mountains. An acre-foot is roughly 326,000 gallons; it is enough to cover an acre (about 16 tennis courts) with one foot of water. The wealthy and powerful Mormon Church owns rights to more than 75,000 acre-feet in the Great Salt Lake watershed. The donation amounts to 20,000 of those acre-feet. That’s a lot of water — but just 2 percent of the amount experts say is needed to reestablish and maintain the lake’s health.
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Will this be the tipping point that begins a long campaign to save the lake, or an excuse to avoid really hard decisions ahead? At a two-day symposium on the Great Salt Lake’s future in March, the answer was up in the air. Though a group of 32 scientists and researchers reported this year that the lake might disappear entirely within five years if current trends continue, certain participants at the event argued for optimism and moderation. The church has taken action, and so has nature: An extraordinarily wet winter dumped a record snowpack on area mountains. But that alone will not subdue a decades-long Western megadrought — or refill the lake.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R), a farmer who grows alfalfa — a very thirsty crop — urged scientists and activists to dial back their “doom and gloom” narrative and be “cautious with your criticism” of lawmakers and water consumers. The governor, who like most of Utah’s legislators is a member of the Mormon Church, defended his 2021 call to his constituents to “pray for rain.” “What I believe and what I understand,” he said, “is people that are praying for more water will use less water.”
But flukes of weather and happy talk will not save the lake. Patrick Belmont, a water scientist at Utah State University, looks past the sprinkle of good news to the huge task beyond and worries about “the shortsighted, wishful thinking that got us in this predicament in the first place.” The governor’s attempt to cast scientists as doom-and-gloom extremists and himself as a moderate reveals his limited grasp of the crisis. It is not a question of extremism or moderation, but of action or inaction.
The Great Salt Lake today is a shrunken remnant of the vast inland sea that Mormon settlers encountered in 1847 when they crossed the mountains into the basin. Having lost 73 percent of its water volume and 60 percent of its surface area by 2022, it is an environmental disaster endangering an essential habitat for 10 million migratory birds and the livelihood of roughly 9,000 workers. It threatens Salt Lake City’s drinking water supply and could result in dangerous air pollution as toxic dust exposed by the receding shoreline is spread by winds to nearby cities.
An occasional wet year in the arid West cannot save the lake. Nor can the efforts of the Mormon Church alone. A broad range of stakeholders — including lawmakers, farmers, landowners, real estate developers and residents — will have to take our stewardship obligations seriously.
That starts with farmers. Roughly 85 percent of Utah’s water shares are devoted to agriculture. Alfalfa, a water-intensive crop used to feed livestock, consumes an incredible 68 percent of all agricultural water to generate a mere 0.2 percent of Utah’s gross domestic product.
The other major drain on the water supply is expanding population. Utah is the fastest-growing state in the nation, and it’s not easy to quench the thirst that waters lush green lawns and brilliant flower beds in the otherwise parched desert.
To save the lake, experts say, Utah lawmakers should appropriate public money to buy private water shares from legions of landowning farmers. While the church has given a chunk of its shares, private citizens should be paid a fair price for theirs. Moreover, the state must install a robust metering system to track the purchased water from the farmland into the lake. Reducing agricultural water use is futile if developers slurp it up downstream.
Next, state and local lawmakers — many of whom are also developers or real estate investors — have a responsibility to zone water-scarce regions in ways that limit consumption. Zoning and other regulation goes against the conservative, pro-business philosophy of traditional Utah Mormon leaders. But what has worked in the past to build Utah is unsustainable in the future.
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And there’s more the influential church can do to point the way to the future. It owns vast lands and properties in Utah, as well as the water rights. Church-led lands should set an example of stewardship for church members to emulate.
A crisis that has been decades in the making cannot be undone by one year of Mother Nature’s generosity or the church’s largesse. Rescuing the Great Salt Lake is an immediate challenge that demands permanent changes, born of diligence, cooperation and stewardship.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints directs its members to be “stewards, caretakers, and guardians” of God’s creations, and it was in that spirit that it announced in March a permanent donation of 6.5 billion gallons of water a year to replenish the dramatically dwindling Great Salt Lake. But the gesture, while sincere and significant, only highlights how much more needs to be done.
The church’s gift comes in the form of water shares — valuable rights to a certain amount of water every year from the melting snowpack of Western mountains. An acre-foot is roughly 326,000 gallons; it is enough to cover an acre (about 16 tennis courts) with one foot of water. The wealthy and powerful Mormon Church owns rights to more than 75,000 acre-feet in the Great Salt Lake watershed. The donation amounts to 20,000 of those acre-feet. That’s a lot of water — but just 2 percent of the amount experts say is needed to reestablish and maintain the lake’s health.
ADVERTISING
Will this be the tipping point that begins a long campaign to save the lake, or an excuse to avoid really hard decisions ahead? At a two-day symposium on the Great Salt Lake’s future in March, the answer was up in the air. Though a group of 32 scientists and researchers reported this year that the lake might disappear entirely within five years if current trends continue, certain participants at the event argued for optimism and moderation. The church has taken action, and so has nature: An extraordinarily wet winter dumped a record snowpack on area mountains. But that alone will not subdue a decades-long Western megadrought — or refill the lake.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R), a farmer who grows alfalfa — a very thirsty crop — urged scientists and activists to dial back their “doom and gloom” narrative and be “cautious with your criticism” of lawmakers and water consumers. The governor, who like most of Utah’s legislators is a member of the Mormon Church, defended his 2021 call to his constituents to “pray for rain.” “What I believe and what I understand,” he said, “is people that are praying for more water will use less water.”
But flukes of weather and happy talk will not save the lake. Patrick Belmont, a water scientist at Utah State University, looks past the sprinkle of good news to the huge task beyond and worries about “the shortsighted, wishful thinking that got us in this predicament in the first place.” The governor’s attempt to cast scientists as doom-and-gloom extremists and himself as a moderate reveals his limited grasp of the crisis. It is not a question of extremism or moderation, but of action or inaction.
The Great Salt Lake today is a shrunken remnant of the vast inland sea that Mormon settlers encountered in 1847 when they crossed the mountains into the basin. Having lost 73 percent of its water volume and 60 percent of its surface area by 2022, it is an environmental disaster endangering an essential habitat for 10 million migratory birds and the livelihood of roughly 9,000 workers. It threatens Salt Lake City’s drinking water supply and could result in dangerous air pollution as toxic dust exposed by the receding shoreline is spread by winds to nearby cities.
An occasional wet year in the arid West cannot save the lake. Nor can the efforts of the Mormon Church alone. A broad range of stakeholders — including lawmakers, farmers, landowners, real estate developers and residents — will have to take our stewardship obligations seriously.
That starts with farmers. Roughly 85 percent of Utah’s water shares are devoted to agriculture. Alfalfa, a water-intensive crop used to feed livestock, consumes an incredible 68 percent of all agricultural water to generate a mere 0.2 percent of Utah’s gross domestic product.
The other major drain on the water supply is expanding population. Utah is the fastest-growing state in the nation, and it’s not easy to quench the thirst that waters lush green lawns and brilliant flower beds in the otherwise parched desert.
To save the lake, experts say, Utah lawmakers should appropriate public money to buy private water shares from legions of landowning farmers. While the church has given a chunk of its shares, private citizens should be paid a fair price for theirs. Moreover, the state must install a robust metering system to track the purchased water from the farmland into the lake. Reducing agricultural water use is futile if developers slurp it up downstream.
Next, state and local lawmakers — many of whom are also developers or real estate investors — have a responsibility to zone water-scarce regions in ways that limit consumption. Zoning and other regulation goes against the conservative, pro-business philosophy of traditional Utah Mormon leaders. But what has worked in the past to build Utah is unsustainable in the future.
ADVERTISING
And there’s more the influential church can do to point the way to the future. It owns vast lands and properties in Utah, as well as the water rights. Church-led lands should set an example of stewardship for church members to emulate.
A crisis that has been decades in the making cannot be undone by one year of Mother Nature’s generosity or the church’s largesse. Rescuing the Great Salt Lake is an immediate challenge that demands permanent changes, born of diligence, cooperation and stewardship.
