Deputy commissioner highlights strike‑team findings, $50 million water‑delivery program for Great Salt Lake

Deputy Commissioner Hannah Fries told the Great Salt Lake Advisory Council the strike‑team data released last week separates basin water use by subbasin, showing the Bear River Basin remains dominated by agricultural use while the Jordan River basin is largely municipal and industrial.

"The bear, as you can see here, is still largely agricultural water use," Fries said as she walked the council through the report’s graphics, adding that municipal and industrial uses are overtaking agriculture in some basins as development proceeds. She said indoor residential depletions have stayed relatively flat while outdoor depletions — largely landscaping — are increasing.

Fries highlighted work done with Utah State University that modeled temporary impoundment in Farmington Bay to explore effects on dust "hot spots," noting that limited seasonal impoundment could control dust with “very little impact in terms of loss from evaporation.” She also described the Newfoundland Basin, which the strike team estimated accumulates "anywhere from 20 to 50,000 acre feet annually," and said restoring some connectivity or routing inflows from that basin is worth further study.

The commissioner’s office also announced a $50,000,000 Great Salt Lake Water Delivery Program, funded in partnership with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Fries said applications for that program were due Friday and that awards will be announced this spring to allow projects to begin quickly.

Council members pressed for follow‑up clarifications. One asked whether trans‑basin transfers (for example, Central Utah Project deliveries) were represented in the subbasin charts; Fries said the graphs show in‑basin depletions and she would follow up to clarify how inter‑basin transfers were accounted for. On Newfoundland Basin, Fries said existing berms and dikes currently prevent gravity return of water and that converting flow back to the lake would require engineering changes.

The council did not take a formal vote on Fries’s items; the presentation closed with a question period during which members suggested deeper evaluation of trans‑basin accounting and more analysis of engineering options for Newfoundland Basin.