Strike-team summary shows shifting basin water use; commissioner announces $50 million delivery program

Hannah Fries, deputy commissioner for the Office of the Great Salt Lake Commissioner, briefed the Great Salt Lake Advisory Council on the strike‑team Scribe data-and-insights summary and outlined a new $50 million water‑delivery program funded through the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.

Fries said the Scribe team split basin water‑use data by subbasin (Bear, Jordan River, Utah Lake and Weber River) to show differing patterns of depletion. "The Bear, as you can see here, is still largely agricultural water use," Fries said, while the Jordan River Basin shows most use in municipal and industrial sectors and very little agriculture. She and staff emphasized that municipal and industrial depletions are increasing in some basins while indoor residential depletions remain relatively flat and outdoor residential uses — lawns and landscapes — are rising.

Fries described exploratory work with Utah State University on temporary impoundment inside Farmington Bay during cool seasons to reduce dust at identified hotspots while minimizing evaporation loss. She also summarized an evaluation of the Newfoundland Basin — a West Desert basin that historically received pumped water — noting an estimate of roughly 20,000–50,000 acre‑feet of accumulation annually and that existing dikes and canals currently prevent gravity flow back to Great Salt Lake.

Fries announced the Great Salt Lake Water Delivery program, a $50,000,000 funding program supported by the Bureau of Reclamation, and said applications are due Friday; staff plan to evaluate applications quickly and announce awards this spring to accelerate project starts. "Our applications for this program are due Friday," she said, and added that she anticipates providing a more detailed breakdown of applications and requests at the next advisory council meeting.

Council members used the subsequent question period to press technical details: whether trans‑basin transfers (for example, Central Utah Project or Colorado River inputs) are accounted for in the basin depletion graphs, and whether projected future uses (such as planned Bear River diversions) are reflected. Fries clarified the figures show current depletion (use) patterns and offered to follow up with additional accounting detail.

Next steps include follow‑up on trans‑basin accounting, a fuller breakdown of applications for the water‑delivery program at the council's next meeting and incorporation of strike‑team outputs into scenario modelling for basin management.