Utah Rivers Council

Are your neighbors pouring the Great Salt Lake out on their sidewalks?

For many decades, Utah has been incentivizing people to waste water by using taxes to lower the price of water. That’s why so many homeowners and businesses waste water in our state. The Great Salt Lake has been drying up in large part because of wasteful water use in Utah’s cities. This year’s record low snowpack and high temperatures make this the year to eliminate our water waste.

That’s why we're excited to announce the launch of a new contest to help raise awareness about water waste in Utah’s cities.

Between now and September 15, if you see water waste, we want you to record a video or take a photo to enter our Wastewatcher Contest. If you see sprinklers running during a rainstorm, someone watering a sidewalk, a large institution watering ornamental grass that no one touches, or some other wasteful use of outdoor water in Utah’s cities, respectfully document it and then submit it via the Wastewatcher Contest link in our bio.

Take note of the address where the water waste occurred and the date you captured it so we know where Great Salt Lake water is being wasted. Submissions without this info won’t be considered for the contest.

Please, do not confront anyone about their water waste. We just want to document where waste is happening, so politely record your video and move on.

All videos should be at least 10 seconds long, and you’ll get bonus points if your submission has good shot composition, includes recognizable landmarks, and tells a story of waste in a unique or humorous way, among other criteria. You can submit multiple times.

AI generated submissions will be disqualified.

And remember, you help pay for every drop of wasted water you find because Utah’s property taxes on housing, automobiles, and businesses lower the price of water which encourages water waste. We’ll carefully review all submissions and use the best clips and photos in Liquid Courage, our bi-monthly emails, social media posts, and our website.

Winners in both the video category and the photo category will receive dope prizes.

Visit utahrivers.org to learn more about Utah’s immense water waste and how we must put a stop to it if we’re going to save the Great Salt Lake.

We need to know who is working to dry up the Great Salt Lake inside Utah government. Please, help us bring transparency to Utah by submitting a GRAMA request by downloading the GRAMA request form at this link: https://tinyurl.com/eka8aecv

Complete the form and email it to [email protected] and [email protected]. They may ask you to pay a fee, so we’ve also included a fee waiver form in that link.

When they send you the requested files, please send them back to us at [email protected].

The Box Elder County data center could be just the beginning of a massive industrial park that could grow over time, which would explain why there was interest in drying up the North Arm of the Great Salt Lake last August.

The data center is proposed just a few miles from the North Arm. In October, legislators voted on a bill that in its first version would have completely dried up the North Arm, which represents 40% of the entire lake.

The Legislature also passed House Bill 60, the bill to dry up the Great Salt Lake, before we knew about the data center. This law weakened existing regulations on new water rights. Like we said last time, this law makes it harder to protest the water rights for the data center in court.

Together, we’re going to get to the bottom of this, bring transparency to Utah, and save the Great Salt Lake.

Please help us save the Great Salt Lake and get to the bottom of this critical issue by submitting a public information request (aka a GRAMA request) to find out what Utah legislators knew when they voted on HB 60. This bill made it easier to approve the water rights for this disastrous new data center. Be aware that they may ask for a fee to make copies or find correspondence, which is why we suggest you ask them to waive the fee.

To submit your GRAMA request, copy and personalize the text below, and then email it to your Utah legislator:

Dear [legislator name],

In accordance with the Government Records and Management Act (“GRAMA”), U.C.A. 63-2-204 et seq., I hereby request that you and any other custodian of public records provide all correspondence to you and your intern about House Bill 60 and the proposed Stratos data center during the 2026 Legislative Session.

The terms “custodian” and “public records” are used in this letter as they are defined in the Act. In the event that you or the official custodian of the requested records determines that a particular piece of data or document is not a public record or that inspection and copying need not or may not be allowed under the terms of the GRAMA, please identify the specific data item or document at issue and state in writing the grounds for the decision to deny access for inspection and copying. I respectfully request a fee waiver for this request because this information is in the public interest since the proposed data center will use massive quantities of water and energy and the public should have access to the information used to justify passage of HB 60.

Please provide your response within ten business days after receipt of this request or five days if you determine that the request falls within the expedited public interest timeframe pursuant to U.C.A. § 63-204(3)(a). If the custodian finds that the agency does not maintain the particular record, please notify me where it may be located as provided by U.C.A. § 63-2-204(3)(a)(i-iii).

I believe this information will serve the greater public interest by allowing for better transparency. Thank you in advance for your assistance with this request.

Sincerely,
[your name]
[your address]
[your email address]
[your phone number]

The Great Salt Lake can still be saved, but only through commonsense conservation measures and basic regulatory mechanisms.

On this episode of Liquid Courage, Joe shares the first policy solution from our 4,200 Project: setting 4,200 feet above sea level and 1,600 square miles of surface area as Utah’s official water level restoration goal for the Great Salt Lake.
Establishing a restoration goal would give us a benchmark for measuring restoration progress, and it would help us hold ourselves accountable to the American people for maintaining this critical aquatic ecosystem.

But Utah legislators refused to even have a real debate about this policy after we unveiled it in 2023. The legislation didn’t make it out of committee, and Utah Governor Spencer Cox shot it down by calling it “a dumb thing.”

By refusing to commit to an official lake level goal, state leaders can talk about saving the Great Salt Lake, even while the Legislature creates policies that shrink the lake by making it easier to divert more water upstream and build dikes to push the lake into a smaller footprint.

The new record low elevation and surface area for the Great Salt Lake that is likely coming later this year is the direct consequence of their posturing about protection while they actually undermine the lake’s health.

The good news is that there are many opportunities available to raise lake levels if we have the courage to implement the 4,200 Project’s policies.

Visit greatsaltlakewaterkeeper.org to learn more.