Salt Lake City Public Utilities presented the draft 2025 Water Conservation Plan in the council's Nov. 25 work session, saying the update is required under state law and will guide the city's conservation efforts for the next decades. The plan sets conservation goals on 5-, 10- and 40-year horizons, outlines programs (education, utility actions, financial incentives and metrics) and will be submitted to the Utah State Division of Water Resources for review.

"This plan is required by the Utah conservation plan act," Public Utilities staff told the council. The department said it had already submitted a draft to state reviewers and that the Public Utilities Advisory Committee recommended adoption in September. A public hearing on the council's calendar is Dec. 2, with formal council consideration slated for Dec. 9.

Presenters described a long-term gap between supply and demand. "Since the year 2000, we've had a reduction in total demand of about 23%... we save about an average of 21,000 acre-feet of water a year," Water Conservation Program Manager Stephanie Dewar said. Staff estimated current supply roughly in the mid-100,000 acre-feet range and projected demand later this century to be higher, leaving an identified conservation need of about another 20,000 acre-feet by roughly 2060.

The plan breaks water use into detailed customer categories to target programs by sector, including disaggregated commercial benchmarking, irrigation rebates and landscape transformations. Dewar emphasized metrics and program evaluation: the utilities have used studies such as the AWWA M36 water-loss audit and a white paper comparing conservation impacts to rates to shape program choices.

Council members pressed staff on specific impacts and communications. Councilmember Lopez Chavez asked whether conserved water would be portrayed as benefiting the Great Salt Lake; staff replied the administration has requested a study of how diversions and depletion from conservation measures might affect the lake and that scope work is underway. Councilmember Dugan asked whether residential customers are the top users and how to make a 7% per-connection indoor/outdoor reduction attainable; staff pointed to smart meters (two-thirds of meters already upgraded), the water maps program, targeted infographics and outreach partnerships (including Central Utah Water Conservancy District and CALWEP) to raise household adoption of simple outdoor changes.

Staff said the plan will be rolled out with a five-year communications strategy to reach multilingual and diverse audiences and that further data collection is planned to benchmark commercial and institutional use by subtype (for example, differentiating restaurants and salons).

Next steps: staff will finalize the existing-conditions analysis and draft strategies over winter and spring, return to the council with a draft before formal public comment, and bring the plan back for adoption consideration next month.