Great Salt Lake is vanishing. Over the last decade, the lake has declined significantly—exposing toxic dust, killing wetlands, upending ecosystems, and threatening everything from Utah’s ski industry to the health of our communities. In 2022, it hit its lowest level ever. And while recent snowpack brought some relief, the lake is still in trouble.
So what can we do about it?
A new report from the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC), a think tank that champions market-based conservation, explores what could be one of the most daring environmental experiments in the country: Utah’s attempt to restore the Great Salt Lake using voluntary water markets, like temporary leases and long term transfers.
Rather than sweeping mandates or forced cutbacks, the state is betting on incentives—paying farmers and other water users to temporarily lease their water for the lake. It’s collaborative, flexible, and politically palatable. But as the report makes clear, getting from theory to reality is much harder than it sounds.
Challenges to Water Leasing
PERC’s report, titled Utah’s Moonshot: Using Voluntary Water Markets to Save the Great Salt Lake, points to three major challenges that are holding the leasing effort back:
- Quantifying what’s actually conserved: To make leasing work, we need reliable tools to measure how much water was truly saved—not just assumed or estimated.
- Shepherding the Water: Even if water is saved upstream, there’s no guarantee it’ll make it to the lake. It can be diverted by others along the way unless there are legal protections and monitoring in place.
- Trusting the System: Many farmers are open to participating—but they worry that leasing water could affect their long-term rights or harm their communities. Without legal clarity and safeguards, even generous incentives might not be enough.
“We have to look to agriculture as partners, as collaborators, instead of pointing fingers toward them,” said Katherine Wright, the report’s author and a senior researcher at PERC. “Ag users have a legal right to use their water in whatever way they want.”
So, What’s the Solution?
PERC offers several key recommendations:
- Develop reliable, transparent measurement tools to quantify saved water and track its flow to the lake.
- Clarify the legal framework around temporary leasing to give farmers confidence their rights are protected.
- Establish clear shepherding rules to ensure water intended for the lake actually gets there.
- Use pilot projects to test and improve the system before scaling up statewide.
- Incentivize “return flows”—the water that comes back to the system after use—so that farmers aren’t penalized for efficient practices.
- Build farmer trust through community engagement and partnerships with groups they already know and respect.
“More broadly, we can also think about how this is a win for the agricultural community—in terms of building them to become more resilient, and allowing them more flexibility and options,” Wright said.
Why This Matters
Despite the hurdles, this approach could set a national example. If Utah can figure out how to make voluntary water markets work—for farmers, for cities, and for a lake that desperately needs saving—it could reshape how we think about water conservation in the American West.
Wright calls this effort a “moonshot” because of its ambition and difficulty—but also because it’s possible. “Yes, it’s not easy. Yes, it’s complicated. But we don’t solve problems because they’re easy. We pursue things because they’re worth attaining. The outcome of saving the Great Salt Lake is worth it.”
If Utah can pull this off, it won’t just be a win for the Great Salt Lake. It could chart a new path for how we restore and protect the places we love—by working with people, not against them.