Here's what bills the Utah legislature plans to help the Great Salt Lake

Great Salt Lake

Utah farmers, such as Bill White, are participating in new water leasing programs designed to help restore the Great Salt Lake. Under these initiatives, farmers can lease a portion of their water rights to the lake without losing ownership, thanks to recent changes in state law.

The Utah Legislature, through the Great Salt Lake Watershed Enhancement Trust, is preparing additional bills to make it easier for farmers to participate and to ensure that conserved water benefits the lake. Lawmakers and stakeholders emphasize that widespread farmer involvement is needed to address the lake's environmental and economic challenges.

this is the old Huntsville Trappist Monastery and the monks sold the property to me when they were closing the monastery. Bill White farms on this historic property. We've been growing wheat, pumpkins, onions and hay, grass hay and alfalfa. Now he's about to make a big contribution to the Great Salt Lake. We all are affected by the Great Salt Lake and if the bed of the Great Salt Lake becomes exposed and those toxic dust start to pick up and blow in the wind then it's going to be tragic. I'm Ben Winslow in Huntsville. This is one of the first water transactions of its kind designed to help the Great Salt Lake. We're leasing 645 acre feet which is somewhere between a quarter and a third of the water rights that we hold. He's being paid for that water but he doesn't lose his rights to it. The Great Salt Lake Watershed Enhancement Trust created by the Utah Legislature with the goal of buying water for the lake ain't to deal with him. If our farm is like every other farm we have some ground that's really good and some ground that's not very good. It's very rocky, it takes a ton of water to grow crop and it just doesn't make a lot of sense to put you know double the amount of water in an area to grow the same or even a marginal crop of alfalfa. Such deals are very complicated which is why farmers haven't signed up. Historically under Utah water law if you don't use your entire allocation of water then you lose it to forfeiture. Well I'm not sure if the word has gotten out but that law has now been changed through this program so that if you participate in this program you can lease the water to the Great Salt Lake and that counts as beneficial use so you do not forfeit the water. Agriculture is the state's top water user and has faced a lot of criticism as the lake shrinks. It's the single most important lever we can pull to get water to the lake. Representative Jill Koford will be running Great Salt Lake bills in the upcoming legislative session on behalf of the Republican majority. She says she wants to make it easier for farmers to do these kinds of deals and ensure the water that is conserved is actually getting to the Great Salt Lake. It's that delivery mechanism right and we found some areas in the code that we can clarify that we can streamline a little bit. White says he can't do it alone. If it's flexible if it's fair to the farmers then thousands of farmers might want to participate and that's what we need. We need thousands of farmers to want to take some of their marginal grant out of production send that water the Great Salt Lake for it to have a significant impact. I believe that the Great Salt Lake is the single most important issue that we're facing as a state. It impacts our economy, it impacts our environment, it impacts the livability of this valley that we all love. Those water bills will be considered when the Utah State Legislature begins meeting starting month. In Huntsville, Ben Winslow, Fox 13 News, Utah.

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