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Great Salt Lake Sentinel Landscape designation aims to link military readiness and lake conservation; Hill Air Force Base wins REPI Challenge study
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Summary
Marissa Weinberg summarized the newly designated Great Salt Lake Sentinel Landscape, its federal partners, its 2.77 million‑acre footprint across nine counties and an early example of REPI Challenge funding for Hill Air Force Base to study water resilience off base.
Marissa Weinberg, the program manager for the Great Salt Lake Sentinel Landscape, briefed the advisory council on the federal partnership that links Department of Defense priorities with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Department of the Interior and (recently) FEMA to protect installations by investing in landscape resilience.
Weinberg said the Great Salt Lake Sentinel Landscape “spans 2,770,000 acres across 9 counties” and centers on four anchor installations: Hill Air Force Base, Camp Williams, Tooele Army Depot and the U.S. Air Force Little Mountain Test Facility. The federal Sentinel Landscapes Partnership, Weinberg said, creates a platform for partners to align conservation, working lands, wildfire mitigation and military readiness objectives without creating a single new federal funding pot.
Weinberg noted the sentinel designation “doesn’t come with a funding package” but gives priority access to certain federal programs and makes defense funding justifiable for projects that improve water security, wildlife habitat and dust mitigation around installations. As a working example, she described a fiscal‑year 2024 REPI (Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration) Challenge award to Hill Air Force Base which funded an off‑base water resilience study; Weinberg said the base, the Division of Water Resources and the commissioner’s office are collaborating and that those findings could expand how REPI funds are used in the basin.
Council members asked about statute and easement authority. Weinberg clarified that language in HB 122 (the Military Amendments bill discussed in the legislative session) allows the Department of Veterans and Military Affairs to hold conservation easements — a tool that could be used to protect land near installations.
Weinberg said the sentinel boundary as submitted focuses on the southern arm of Great Salt Lake to keep the initial service area manageable and that the partnership already lists more than 40 state, federal, local and private partners.
Council members responded positively to the linkage between military readiness and lake health and discussed opportunities to pair federal defense programs with conservation work that supports the lake.
Votes at a glance: no formal votes were taken on Sentinel Landscape items at this meeting.
