Inspired by the parent organization models of O2 Utah and the Rural Utah Project comes the brain child, Stewardship Utah. The merger officially launched July 22 expanding each of the organization’s reach to tackle the environmental crises of the state through policy, rural voter registration and bipartisan environmental law. 

“Before I even heard about the merger, I really liked O2’s strategy, but thought it needed to be bigger than just air quality. We need the whole environmental movement,” said Chandler Rosenberg, Stewardship Utah’s Great Salt Lake policy associate. “Environmental organizations cannot be siloed anymore. We can’t think of state environmental issues as single issues. It’s really all connected. So having this larger organization with all of these different issues under one umbrella is going to show we are thinking in that direction.” 

“The goal is to do the things that we were doing in the past as O2 Utah, working to clean the air and get action on climate,” said David Garbett, the now co-director of Stewardship Utah. “Do the things that the Rural Utah Project was doing with public lands work, voter engagement and democracy work, as well as add some new things like the Great Salt Lake. We will be essentially the exclusive entity using elections to improve policy on the environment and democracy here in Utah.” 

The two organizations had a lot of overlap. Rural Utah Project’s executive director, TJ Ellerbeck, has sat on the board of O2 since the beginning. Both O2 and RUP are 501(c)(4) nonprofits, making them organizations that can endorse candidates, campaign and make donations. Both use policy to make improvements in their respective interest zones across the state.  

“[O2 and RUP] have a similar strategy, the issues and regional focuses are a little bit different, but it makes a lot of sense to come together,” Rosenberg said. 

Saving the Great Salt Lake

There has been an uptick in the peril of the Great Salt Lake in the past couple of years, as scientists have warned of the toxic dust that could be blown in from the lake’s dried bed once the water has completely vanished (mostly from overuse of the watershed before enough water can make it back to the lake). Yet there has also been an undoubted uptick in public awareness of this ticking time bomb. Groups like the Great Salt Lake Collaborative, Rosenberg’s own grassroots work founding Save Our Great Salt Lake and countless others have popped up over the past five years in their efforts to bring attention to the “nuclear bomb” that could—but need not—be on the horizon. 

“When it came down to saying, OK here are our ideas we want to push for, that relationship with legislators and the ability to actually influence them was completely missing,” Rosenberg said. “I think this merger is a perfect bridge.” 

“We thought there was still a space for using those elections, using relationships and being ambassadors and emissaries to carry ideas and sentiments across the finish line with legislation specifically,” Garbett said. 

Looking at the holes in what wasn’t working in both organizations’ respective tactics as well as in the grassroots activism will help direct Stewardship Utah’s objectives. 

“I think a concrete [goal to saving the lake] is getting to a 4,198 feet elevation, which is the bottom level of a healthy range, based on the state’s own science. It’s a level that keeps the ecosystem healthy, keeps industries active at the lake. I think reaching that level would be another 1.5 million acre feet per year. That’s what we’re trying to figure out, how do we across the board save 1.5 million acre feet of water every year,” Rosenberg said. 

The newly appointed Great Salt Lake Commissioner, Brian Steed, released a strategic plan at the beginning of 2024 with short-term, medium-term and long-term solutions for the lake, including if we were to operate on a 30-year timeline to get the lake up to his suggested 4,198 to 4,205 feet range. Suggesting 30% reductions from industry at the municipal level and agriculture. 

“The numbers are pretty clear, but I think the question is how do we do that. How do we convince people to conserve and then make sure it gets to the lake?” Rosenberg said. “We can have our solutions all day and say do this, do that. But we need to talk to our legislators and ask what they are interested in doing, what’s on their mind and see where we can meet in the middle. It’s trying to match what we want for the lake with what our legislators are willing to do, which is the bridge I am hoping to build.”

“There are a number of legislators that have worked in this space with water, both Republicans and Democrats,” Garbett said. “It’s about helping them stay engaged, continuing to follow up, helping them follow through. That’s the part they need help with.” 

That’s where Stewardship Utah comes in. The full-time accountability network advocating for the health of Utah’s precious ecosystems. Creating policy that advocates for the environment first and foremost, with the best interest of the land as the prerogative. Bringing ideas to fruition through collaboration. 

“Yeah, maybe the legislature is not as quick as we want, these things go slowly, maybe they don’t share the same ideas across the board that we have for the lake, but how can we get in there, meet them where they are right now and push them to go a little bit further,” Rosenberg said. 

“We want it so that legislators that want to be good on this issue, and I think there are a lot, are getting some support at a time that’s so important to them,” Garbett said. 

“There are a lot of things in process,” Rosenberg said, “so right now I am trying to understand who’s doing what, what’s not being done. Where is the energy needed?”

Parsing through the laundry list of what could be done to find the most critical changes to the moment now. Like ensuring that the water being conserved through various efforts and initiatives across the state, from agriculture to municipal savings, is actually dedicated to the lake. 

“I think something that we really need to figure out is how do we ensure that yes, we’re saving the water, but we need to go a step further and make sure it’s designated to the lake, and that we have infrastructure in place to see that it gets there,” Rosenberg said. “So that people can really see the returns on these water savings investments they are making.”

Secondary water issues

Tracking water better through secondary water meters, Garbett and Rosenberg explained, can help dedicate and direct more water to the lake.

“Take your home, your apartment, you get a water bill that will show you how much water you use in a month. There is a lot of water use that happens where, especially outdoors in people’s lawns—secondary water—is not metered. So there is no report that says this is how much water you actually use,” Garbett said. “You pay a flat fee and then with that flat fee, you have this water supply that you can use for outdoor landscaping. It’s like going to an all-you-can-eat buffet, once you pay the money, the mentality goes, well, I better eat a lot. I pay this for water, I better use a lot without knowing what it actually costs beyond that. It doesn’t matter if I as a homeowner use a lot or a little, I want to get my money’s worth.”

Only about half the cost of getting that secondary water is actually reflected in a water bill, Garbett said. “The other half is paid through people’s property taxes, people’s state income tax, people’s federal income tax. So what incentive does that provide?” 

Having secondary water meters, better, more improved as well as more in plenty, reduce waste and increase irrigation efficiency. Seeing where water is going to identify where it can be conserved and thus allocated elsewhere, perhaps to the lake. 

Incentives to save

“I think when it comes to water, the history of water development in the West has been creating a system that rewards use. Not conservation,” Garbett said. “Under water law in the West, there is essentially the use-it-or-lose-it principle. Not only is a farmer not rewarded for conserving water, that farmer would lose a water right for conservation and somebody else could go purchase it and use it. We don’t have a legal system that rewards conservation.” 

The lawn irrigation and watering, Garbett said, is some of the most problematic use of municipal water that could make a difference for the lake if those habits were curbed. 

“Having those water fees reflect what it actually costs to get water I think would help a lot on water use,” Garbett said.  

While bringing incentives and rewards to the people for saving water. 

“It’s introducing more ability for people who saved water, be it farmer or homeowner, to have some sort of reward or incentive for that besides a happy feeling in their heart. The same way on the land side, for comparison, people can do conservation easements, there is a robust market, there are groups that work on this, there are land trusts. Mimicking that for water,” Garbett said.  

But it’s ultimately not the individuals that Garbett thinks needs to be targeted in order to make real change. 

“What we’re trying to do is get away from a system that provides no rewards, no incentives, no structure to save water. Agriculture is the big area because it’s the big user, so it’s changing this system from one that is rewarding use to one that is rewarding conservation,” Garbett said.  

“Farmers feel very attacked. The majority of water in the Great Salt Lake Basin goes to agriculture, but I would not say the farmers are the problem because it’s not like they chose that. That’s what we all decided would be the foundation of our state’s economy when we first got here. Everyone wants to critique alfalfa, but we have profit-driven agriculture and right now what’s making money for farmers is alfalfa because big meat and big dairy drive a lot of federal policy,” Rosenberg said.

Restructuring our system to better serve the environment and the community it holds. Creating options for farmers to participate in this improved system and then educating them on those options. 

“Making sure farmers know what we’re talking about when they lease their water, that it’s temporary, it’s voluntary and it’s compensated,” Rosenberg said. 

Creating a system where farmers can sell their entire or partial water right with assurance those savings are going to the lake. A system with assistance in upgrading to a more expensive yet efficient and tracked irrigation system that will save water to be sent to the lake. Taking the load off the individual and looking to change the system on a more holistic scale that can actually make waves. 

“But,” Rosenberg said, “I think we have a long way to go to build trust with farmers.”

Growth and conservation

“These laws and infrastructure were all set up when we were trying to drive growth in this area. But now we have hit a point where it’s like, how much growth can we sustain, what are the limits of our bioregion? Our laws and infrastructure don’t really reflect that,” Rosenberg said. 

“We can have a population here. We can have rich riparian areas, we can have a healthy Great Salt Lake,” Garbett said. “It requires changes, it especially requires systematic changes. I don’t want people to have to figure it out when so much of the problem could be changed or addressed through a system and we have to calibrate that system to address those issues.”

“How are we tweaking our system to reflect this understanding that yes, we can still grow,” Rosenberg said, “but if we’re going to grow, we need to do better on conservation. If we want to keep doing what we’re doing, we need to tighten up.”

Stewardship Utah being those emissaries of change for the interrelated climate action in our state, pushing bipartisan legislation for systematic changes at the benefit to all of us living here in Utah. 

“Right now both sides agree to a large extent that the lake is something we want to protect,” Rosenberg said. “I think when you talk about issues in terms of place rather than the abstract and emissions—things that people don’t understand—I think it’s easier to bring people together over our common values and love of this place.”

Learn more about and get involved with Stewardship Utah, O2 Utah at their website www.o2utah.org or RUP at www.ruralutahproject.org.