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Utah will receive $50 million from the Inflation Reduction Act to enhance ongoing conservation efforts and shepherd more water to the Great Salt Lake, state and federal officials announced Monday.
The federal funds are an “incredible” investment, said Joel Ferry, who heads Utah’s Department of Natural Resources.
The state will also leverage an additional $50 million, officials said Monday, making for $100 million in total investment aimed at ensuring the Great Salt Lake Basin has an ongoing, resilient water supply.
Some of the money will help acquire more water through mechanisms like leases and purchases, Ferry said, but much of it will go toward restoring critical ecosystems like wetlands, removing invasive species like phragmites from tributaries and improving dams.
“It would blow your mind to know the shape a lot of this infrastructure is in,” he said.
The landmark environment and health care bill, passed in 2022, is the country’s largest climate investment to date, and includes $550 million for the Bureau of Reclamation to implement domestic water supply projects and $4 billion for water conservation and ecosystem projects in the Colorado River Basin and other basins, like Great Salt Lake, experiencing similar levels of long-term drought.
The goal of the $50 million funneled through the Bureau of Reclamation to Utah, as announced Monday, is to “slow the decline of a very valuable resource that is the Great Salt Lake,” said Camille Calimlim Touton, who serves as commissioner of the federal agency.
No members of Utah’s congressional delegation voted for the Inflation Reduction Act.
Great Salt Lake remains a “pressing policy issue,” said Great Salt Lake Commissioner Brian Steed.
The salty water of the Great Salt Lake has been up compared to the past few water years, but it’s still a puddle of its former self, rimmed by vast reaches of exposed lake bed.
But two good water years have given the state “a chance to catch our breath,” Gov. Spencer Cox said, and the state has laws and a plan in place to help preserve the lake.
“While we are no longer in crisis,” Steed said, “we are a long way from where we want to be.”
The investment announced Monday is “the type of contribution that will help us get where we need to be,” he added.
The funding will help implement the Great Salt Lake Strategic Plan, focusing on:
Increasing water flows to the Great Salt Lake
Investing in infrastructure to help water users decrease water depletion and facilitate the delivery of conserved water to the lake
Restoring wetlands around the lake
Removing non-native, invasive species from around the lake and its tributaries.
Utah and local government entities across the state have received about $316.5 million through the Inflation Reduction Act, according to a tracker from American Progress.
That doesn’t appear to include a $112 million investment announced last month that looks to achieve cleaner air in the Beehive State by moving the Utah Department of Environmental Quality and the Utah Inland Port Authority away from diesel-powered equipment at Union Pacific’s Salt Lake City Intermodal Terminal and reduce logistics-related emissions statewide.
(Carter Williams | KSL.com) Joel Ferry, director of the Utah Department of Natural Resources, stands near a culvert on his farm property in Brigham City on Aug. 20.
There’s some uncertainty around the future of the federal law providing this funding.
During the 2024 campaign, President-elect Donald Trump vowed to claw back any unspent funds allocated by the Inflation Reduction Act and dismantle the law itself.
But a report from Crux Climate, a digital tax marketplace focused on clean energy development, predicts the new administration and Republican-controlled Congress likely won’t repeal the entirety of the Inflation Reduction Act.
Instead, experts predict, changes will be “surgical” and gradual.
Megan Banta is The Salt Lake Tribune’s data enterprise reporter, a philanthropically supported position. The Tribune retains control over all editorial decisions.
