Gov. Cox holds ceremonial signing for water bills at Jordanelle

The goal of the event was to promote state legislators' work to combat the drought in Utah. Photo: TownLift

WASATCH COUNTY, Utah — On Monday at Jordanelle State Park, Gov. Spencer Cox and Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson held a ceremonial signing for water and natural resources bills passed during the 2022 legislative session.

“Jordanelle is only about half-full, and statewide our reservoir storage isn’t much better at a total of 58% of capacity,” Gov. Cox said Monday.

“Water from Jordanelle benefits more than 1.5 million residents in Salt Lake County and northern Utah County. It also provides supplemental irrigation water for Utah farms. When full, it has enough water storage to get us through a six year drought.”

Cox praised the Utah Legislature’s effort to combat the drought.

The governor referred back to last summer, when he asked citizens of Utah to pray for rain. He said it wasn’t his intention to simply wait for God to solve our problems. “All of those people who said – what are you going to do and what is government going to do to fix this? This is the answer.”

To counter, the Utah Rivers Council has said the following about this year’s legislative session:

In the 2022 legislative session, there were some good bills proposed that could have taken some meaningful steps forward. Unfortunately, the substantive measures were mostly gutted, with some notable exceptions, and only a series of relatively weak conservation bills passed.

The bills that were highlighted:

• HB168 Preferences Of Water Rights Amendments

• HB282 Water Wise Landscaping Amendments

• SB110 Water As Part Of General Plan

• HB305 Natural Resources Revisions

• HB33 Instream Water Flow Amendments

• HB121 Water Conservation Modifications

• HB242 Secondary Water Metering Amendments — Legislature allocates grant funds to help secondary water providers accelerate meter installation (TownLift)

• HB410 Great Salt Lake Watershed Enhancement

• HB429 Great Salt Lake Amendments

• HB157 Sovereign Lands Revenue Amendments

• HB232 Utah Lake Authority — Proposed Utah Lake Authority wins Legislature’s approval  (Salt Lake Tribune)

Water proposals trickle through Utah Statehouse in last days