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SALT LAKE CITY — Utah lawmakers agreed to repeal a law that opened the door for a doomed project to dredge Utah Lake and build man-made islands on the lake and to instead study ways to improve flow from it to the Great Salt Lake, during the last day of the legislative session.
The Utah House of Representatives voted 66-2 Friday morning to approve SB242, a bill that repeals the Utah Lake Restoration Act that the Legislature passed in 2018. The House then voted 70-1 Friday night to approve SB270, a bill that calls for a new study of the lake as a possible solution to the Great Salt Lake's woes.
Both bills were approved by the Utah Senate earlier this week, and have now been sent to Gov. Spencer Cox for final approval.
SB242, sponsored by Sen. Mike McKell, R-Spanish Fork, repeals provisions tied to the Utah Lake Diking Project from the 1950s, but it also undoes the legislation he championed six years ago. His bill helped Utah Lake Restorations advance efforts on a multibillion-dollar plan to dredge Utah Lake and use sediment to build man-made islands to improve the lake's ecology and build new land for development.
While environmental experts challenged the science behind it, the plan ultimately fizzled when the Utah Attorney General's Office found that the project was "unconstitutional" in 2022. The Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands canceled the company's application a few months later and the company dissolved last year.
So McKell called on a redo in the form of SB242, which lawmakers agreed on during the session.
"I think it's important just to repeal that language and give Utah Lake a fresh start," McKell told KSL NewsRadio on Monday. "We're going to find ways to beautify the lake, but let's have a clean canvas as we do it."
Its blank canvas is set to be painted by a completely new study.
SB270, sponsored by Sen. Curtis Bramble, R-Provo, requires the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands to conduct a study of Utah Lake to see if there's a way it can be improved to bring more water to the Great Salt Lake. The two lakes are connected by the Jordan River, which begins at Utah Lake and flows into the Great Salt Lake.
It states that the study will look into ways to improve "the clarity and quality of the water in Utah Lake and conserving water resources, as well as removing invasive plant and aquatic species to promote native ones. It also directs $1.5 million from "non-lapsing" Department of Natural Resources funds to pay for the study, according to Bramble.
The language of the bill also led to some concerns. But when asked by Sen. Nate Blouin, D-Salt Lake City, if the study would rekindle discussions over dredging and other controversial environmental practices that plagued the Utah Lake Restoration Act, Bramble said on the Senate floor Tuesday that the study wouldn't seek to support a specific outcome.
"That's not what this is," he said. "This is meant to be a study and the recommendations will come back and say, 'Here's the scientific and environmentally sound roadmap. Here's an action plan that you can consider implementing.'"
Some local environmental experts were generally supportive of the study when Bramble announced he had opened a bill file on the concept back in January. Ben Abbott, a professor of ecology at BYU, told KSL.com at the time that he would welcome a study as long as it's not used to justify a specific project or harm the natural ecology of either lake.
"In the past, we've sometimes pitted the two lakes against each other ... and that's super counterproductive," he said.
Cox has until March 21 to sign or veto either bill. If signed, both measures would go into effect in May. State land managers would then have until November 2025 to complete the study and report its findings to the Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment Interim Committee.
