The Salt Lake and Church News - August 26th, 2026

[Pyreaux]

https://www.deseret.com/faith/2026/08/26/church-statement-on-great-salt-lake-and-regional-drought/

This is an update in an official statement issued directly by the Church on August 26, 2026, titled "Statement on Regional Drought and the Great Salt Lake." The Church renewed a public call for water conservation to assist the critically low levels of the Great Salt Lake. Officials highlighted ongoing conservation projects, including donating and leasing nearly 30,000 acre-feet of water to the lake and installing smart irrigation controllers across thousands of Church properties in the Intermountain West.

What is the problem, again?

The Great Salt Lake is facing prolonged, severe decline caused by decades of diversion for agriculture, industry, and municipal expansion that became compounded by an ongoing regional drought. The consequences of a shrinking lake are severe.

The lake is a vital stopping point for millions of migratory birds. Reduced water levels increase salinity to levels that threaten brine shrimp and fly populations, which form the base of the food chain. The exposed lakebed contains high concentrations of both naturally occurring and industrial heavy metals, such as arsenic and lead. As the water recedes, winds kick up toxic dust that poses serious public health risks to residents along the Wasatch Front. The lake supports multi-billion-dollar industries, including mineral extraction, brine shrimp harvesting, and ski tourism (which relies heavily on lake-effect snow).

What is the Church doing?

Because the Church owns substantial land holdings, agricultural acreage, and thousands of facilities across Utah, its water rights and usage practices carry significant weight. The Church updated its conservation record and renewed a public call for stewardship. The Church has permanently donated or leased nearly 30,000 acre-feet of water to the Great Salt Lake making it one of the largest single water donors to the lake to date. This includes donating thousands of shares in the North Point Consolidated Irrigation Company to ensure water flows perpetually into the lake and surrounding wetlands.

Across the Intermountain West, the Church has installed over 3,100 smart irrigation controllers (about 1,700 within the Great Salt Lake Basin itself) to prevent overwatering at meetinghouses, temples, and welfare farms.  The Church is actively converting turf grass to drought-tolerant, water-wise landscaping at hundreds of meetinghouses and historic sites. Landscape overhaul projects at Temple Square alone are expected to save up to 20 million gallons of water annually once completed. Church leadership released formal statements urging members to reduce personal residential landscape watering, adopt water-wise habits, and support community conservation initiatives.

Who else is helping?

The Utah State Government legislature established the Great Salt Lake Commissioner’s office and allocated hundreds of millions of dollars toward water banking, split-season leasing, and agricultural optimization. State programs also offer turf-buyback rebates for homeowners replacing grass lawns.

Organizations like the Great Salt Lake Watershed Enhancement Trust (co-managed by the National Audubon Society and The Nature Conservancy) work directly with water rights holders to acquire and direct water into the lake's tributaries.

Local farmers and irrigation companies are adopting precision drip systems and automated piping to reduce runoff and voluntarily lease unused water. Researchers from the University of Utah, Utah State University, and BYU provide hydrological modeling to track air quality and water inflows.

Will it fix the problem?

Current measures are slowing the decline and building critical infrastructure, but conservation alone will not fully "fix" the lake. The influx of dedicated water rights guarantees a baseline volume of water reaches the lake every year rather than being diverted to fields or subdivisions.

Hydrologists and state officials emphasize that human conservation and policy changes can only bridge the gap. Long-term stabilization requires sustained, above-average winter snowpack in the Wasatch Mountains. Any succession of dry winters can quickly offset years of conserved water. Church leaders acknowledged this reality in their statement, noting that while conservation efforts are vital moral and civic duties, an ultimate recovery ultimately relies on weather patterns and increased precipitation.

[The Nehor]

The whole Southwest is in trouble. Lake Powell is approaching critical levels and it is likely to come down to either keeping Lake Mead or Lake Powell viable and it will almost certainly be Lake Mead that survives for a while.

We need to cut water use in all of the southwestern states but everyone largely accepts the need to do that as long as it has no impact on them specifically. It is political suicide to try to make the harsh cuts needed to arrest the problem so the can keeps getting kicked down the road.

[The Nehor]

I put up a short post but thought I could share a little more about Utah in particular.

While that is a lot of water to donate it a minor hedge. The biggest loss of water is just the lake evaporating and there is not that much that can be done about it. I heard there were ideas to try to shade portions of the lake with solar panels or something similar but it is just not viable. Putting metal things and human construction in general near really briny water destroys the thing pretty quickly. Short of arresting climate change not much can be done. The other big drain is agriculture and the biggest water consumer is alfalfa. We should probably grow a LOT less of that. It needs a lot of water and is primarily used for livestock and not human consumption. Alfalfa growth to human calories consumed it is very inefficient.

All the consumer level water conservation of replacing lawns and the like won’t move the needle. The biggest move that can be made is cutting back on the alfalfa growing which would of course mean a bunch of alfalfa millionaires (probably including the Church) would fight tooth and nail against it.

Also the statement saying the only thing we can do is hope for more rain is defeatist and silly. As the Great Lake dries up there will be less rain. Hoping for a miracle or a short term rainfall of extra rain isn’t sustainable.

I also really don’t know how you write a piece like that without mentioning climate change unless you deliberately are trying not to mention it.

Edited yesterday at 05:16 AM by The Nehor

[Stargazer]

On 9/12/2026 at 12:42 AM, The Nehor said:

I also really don’t know how you write a piece like that without mentioning climate change unless you deliberately are trying not to mention it.

And so virtue gets signaled.

I really don't know how you wrote this particular gem as if whining about things totally out of Utah's control is going to contribute to somehow fixing the problem. If we talk about it more than it's been talked about in the past decade this will help, right? I have news for you: Utah can't fix climate change. The most Utah can do is deal with it.

Shouting "Climate change!" is a lot like the disingenuous "stolen land acknowledgement" that certain people like to signal their virtue about. As if this somehow fixes something -- which it doesn't because it's a "Hey! Look at me!" applause stimulator that does nothing more than emotionally reward the virtue signaler. As if the 75 viewers of this topic so far would have been better enlightened if @Pyreaux had written "because of climate change" somewhere in the OP. Would it have made the slightest difference? Do you know what I thought of, first thing, while reading it? Climate change! He didn't need to write it, because we've all been propagandized to death about the subject. It's become Pavlovian conditioning at this stage, and both advocates and deniers instantly know what's up. And then grumble to themselves according to their particular persuasion.

May the Green New Deal be with you.

[marineland]

Several AI data centers are planned for Utah:

Stratos Project (Box Elder County): Backed by celebrity investor Kevin O'Leary.
Delta Gigasite / Project Oasis (Millard County): Proposed by Creekstone Energy
Nine Mile Data Center (Duchesne County): Planned near Myton by Energence Utah

The last link provides others:

https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2026/0901/utah-data-centers-stratos-project
https://www.sltrib.com/news/2026/09/09/delta-gigasite-worlds-largest-data/
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/tracking-where-ai-data-centers-224122248.html