Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, Utah House Speaker Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, Utah Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, and other politicians and officials watch as Compass Minerals CEO Ed Dowling Jr. and Utah Division of Forrest, Fire and State Lands director Jamie Barnes sign an agreement to donate water to the Great Salt Lake at the Eccles Wildlife Education Center on Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024. (Kyle Dunphey/Utah News Dispatch)
The state of Utah formalized a major agreement between a prominent mineral company and land managers on Tuesday that could give the Great Salt Lake a needed boost, keeping more than 200,000 acre-feet of water in the lake.
For context, 200,000 acre-feet is more water than the Causey, Echo, Pineview, Lost Creek and Rockport reservoirs combined. An acre-foot is defined as enough water to submerge an acre of land by one foot.
“This donation will ensure that water delivered to the Great Salt Lake remains in the lake,” said Utah Gov. Spencer Cox on Tuesday, speaking to a room full of politicians, bureaucrats and industry representatives who convened at the Eccles Wildlife Education Center on the shores of the Great Salt Lake’s Farmington Bay.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox announces a water donation agreement between the state and Compass Minerals at the Eccles Wildlife Education Center on Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024. (Photo courtesy of Utah. Gov. Spencer Cox’s Office)
The agreement, between Compass Minerals and the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands, marks a new chapter in what had previously been a fraught relationship. Calling the negotiations hard and uncomfortable at times, House Majority Assistant Whip Casey Snider, R-Paradise, likened it to making sausage.
“The process of making sausage is dirty, bloody and uncomfortable, just ask the pig. And we’re here at the culmination of making sausage. This has been a multi-year effort,” he said.
For the last 50 years, Compass has diverted water in the lake to its evaporation ponds, where it extracts magnesium chloride, salt and other minerals — it has a massive water right, exceeding 200,000 acre-feet, although state officials say it hasn’t been using its full annual amount.
Companies like Compass have such a large water right that each year Great Salt Lake levels noticeably decline because of their operations, said Cox. It’s been a source of heartburn for lawmakers, who passed several laws in recent years incentivizing water conservation in the Great Salt Lake’s tributaries, only to see that water depleted when it gets to the lake.
Now, per the agreement, Compass won’t use its full water right as long as the Great Salt Lake remains below 4,198 feet, the minimum for what’s considered a healthy range. If the lake drops into what the state calls “critical levels” — which it did in Nov. 2022, hitting a historic low of 4188.5 feet — Compass agreed to not use any of its water.
That means when the lake is struggling on the heels of low snowpack and dwindling spring runoff, several reservoirs-worth of water will remain in the lake and won’t be diverted.
“Right now they’re going to cut back a sizable amount of the water that they had been diverting, as well as guarantee that they won’t use any of that additional water right until the lake level comes back to 4,198 feet,” said Great Salt Lake Commissioner Brian Steed. “It’s a big deal, because that means they’ll keep that water in the lake and keep the lake from shrinking even further, making sure we have a healthier lake even in times of extreme drought.”
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Compass Minerals CEO and President Ed Dowling Jr. said in most conditions, the voluntary reductions won’t impact the company’s operations. Drought and declining levels on the lake have already complicated mineral extraction, and he told reporters his company has a financial incentive to ensure the Great Salt Lake’s viability.
“Our lifeblood is the lake. As much as you want to protect the lake for the state, we want to protect it for our business,” he told politicians and land managers Tuesday. “There’s no doubt that it’s an economic engine for the region, enabling companies like ours to produce a number of essential minerals.”
Compass also agreed to permanently hand about 65,000 acres of land that it currently leases around the lake back to the division.
Great Salt Lake levels remain below what’s considered to be healthy, hitting its annual peak in May then declining about two feet. On Tuesday, the south arm of the lake was at just over 4,193 feet in elevation, with the north arm at 4,191.8 feet.
The shores of the Great Salt Lake near Antelope Island are pictured on Tuesday, May 21, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
Tense legislative process results in compromise
Mineral extraction on the lake had been described as the “wild west” by House Speaker Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, who previously accused Compass Minerals and other companies of operating under a different set of water rights that was at odds with the state’s conservation goals, in turn harming the lake’s ecosystem.
The rift between mineral companies and the legislature was clear during the 2024 general session, particularly during a tense House Business and Labor Committee meeting where both lawmakers and mineral companies accused each other of not engaging in productive discussion.
“Most of us have been up here long enough on this committee to realize how the game works. You stall, you stall, you stall. You don’t put forward options, pathways,” Schultz said during the meeting in February, telling a Compass representative it’s “not fair to ask every person in this state to live by a separate set of rules and allow another company to have a different set of rules. It’s just not fair. And especially when we’re talking about a whole ecosystem that could be in jeopardy.”
Ultimately, the legislature passed HB453, a bill that imposed a fluctuating severance tax and tweaked water rights for mineral companies on the Great Salt Lake, an attempt to dissuade companies from using all of their allocated water.
The bill also created a tax incentive for companies that didn’t use their entire water right or voluntarily agreed to reduce water use, which prompted negotiations between Compass and the division shortly after the legislative session.
“You may not be able to see it, but there was a lot of work. And maybe you didn’t want to see some of those days and some of those meetings, because the legislative process is compromise,” said Sen. Scott Sandal, R-Tremonton, hinting at the tension between the company and lawmakers. “There’s one thing about a drought. It will always cause people to think outside of the box.”
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