The Governor’s Office executes Utah water law & policy by appointing the Director of Natural Resources and the State Engineer who set the  tone and tenor on how the laws & policies are executed and/or administered.

There are two ways to change how water is administered in Utah. Either change water laws or change the personnel who administer the water laws.

Utah’s economy is directly affected by the appointed personnel executing Utah’s water laws & policies.

Top Reform Items:

1-Pass legislation stating that municipalities are subject to Anti-Trust and Un-fair business practices Act on water sold  outside their corporate boundaries.

2-Authorize the current Property Ombudsman Office Land Rights Ombudsman’s Office to handle water right.

3-Phase out chlorine for water treatment.  Require greener cleaners like bleaches based on oxygen or hydrogen peroxide, and ultra violet light.

4-Phase out gas/diesel/oil powered water craft and snowmobiles on all State waters and lands.  Restrict all water craft and snowmobiles to propane or natural gas powered engines.  Interim step, just ban the most polluting of the gas engines, the two-stroke motor, which is known to churn oil and gas into water.

5-Require all Utah Division of Water Rights’ applications to be approved or denied within 12 months like Nevada.

6-Require municipalities and public water suppliers to provide transparent & current water inventories to  the Division of Water Rights public record.   Prohibit the State Engineer from acting on any applications (non-use, change, exchanges, etc.)  filed by public water suppliers which do not have a current & transparent water inventory on file at the Division of Water Rights.

Why are public water departments which deliver the Public’s water to the public hiding their water inventories from the Public?  Because they don’t want their water hoard to be well known.  Hoarding water  makes no sense.  It appears water supplies are regularly understated and water demand regularly overstated.

Using 73-5-8 existing authority, improve the level of detail of questions on the “Utah Water Use Data Form” to include a complete & transparent water inventory of all water direct or indirect owned or claimed by the public water supplier including but not limited to water claims, decreed rights, water shares, water delivery contracts, leases, etc..  This information is available.  The State is simply not collecting meaningful data which would alleviate expensive determinations and re-adjudications.

7-Put every city back in their water box by making every municipality equal with statutory absolute condemnation authority on all culinary water sources and supply systems within their jurisdiction regardless of ownership whether owned by another city, MWD, or Water District.

8-Direct the Department of Natural Resources and Division of Water Rights to restrict “surplus” sales under 10-8-14 to temporary change applications and expressly prohibit permanent applications as a  state policy.  These sales are exempt from meaningful customer oversight and Public Service Commission oversight.  Where the state’s interest and municipal interest are identical for the public’s benefit, the State must not abdicate its water stewardship to cities.  The State must maintain control and offer the public an annual review platform for those “buying surplus” water.”

Why must “surplus” water be incidental and under a temporary application? Because, there can be no such thing as permanent “surplus” water.  If water were permanently “surplus,” then under the doctrine of beneficial use (73-1-3) that surplus water would have automatically reverted to the State.  It follows, that it is illegal for water classified as “surplus” or “surplus sales contracts” to be used to meet permanent & perpetual state water requirement’s of building permits, occupancy or fire protection.

How could fire protection water be terminable and provide for the Public health, safety and welfare?

9-Modifying the protest process to allow for two categories of protestants:  General Protestants with no standing to appeal memo decisions  and  Qualified Protestants with standing to appeal memo decisions.  A Qualified Protestants must pay a $25 fee, submit a transparent water inventory together with proof of beneficial use for the past seven (7) years of the water to be used as the basis of the protest.  Under the Washington doctrine, an impair-able water rights is required for standing.  The number of parties with standing to appeal a memo decision with no impair-able water rights need to be screened out of the appeal process before the appeal door to reduce costs to the State and Utah water users.

10-Require meters and well logs for all wells in Utah with annual reporting and a nominal reporting fee of $25.00 to cover costs.  If this data were readily available, the state could make better and more efficient decisions. After 7 years, the state would have accomplished what general adjudications have not been able to do–provide real comprehensive data for real water management decisions.

11-Instruct the AG’s Office to file pleading with the 3rd District Court to equalize the water duties within the Utah Lake and Jordan River drainage basin to confirm that equal soils, equal crops, and equal climates mean equal water duties in Utah.  All 29 counties in Utah must operate under the identical hydrological science including Salt Lake County, the county with the political science water duty.

Each Utah farmer should have an equal water duty with a neighboring farmer with equal soils and growing conditions.  No farmer should have the arbitrary right to waste 1/3 of  a million gallons of water per acre because a state water employee waived his hand over all of Salt Lake County overturning law and science. Salt Lake County’s irregular water duty erodes the public’s confidence in the Office of the State Engineer and wastes water.

12-Reject all pending applications to appropriate in closed areas across the board.  Treat all the applications equally by rejecting them in mass.  Because public water suppliers are less efficient and provide more costly water, the current bias against private water companies should stop.

13-Direct Governor’s Budget & Economic staff provide the State Engineer with build out figures for all cities and towns state wide and use this scientific data to evaluate more critically applications filed by cities claiming “future need” and only approve applications which meet state standards regardless of a city’s assertions for future need.  No cities needs or should control Utah’s scarce water resources  beyond it build out needs.  Some cities  like Cedar Hills, Murray, etc. are already land locked with predictable future water demand figures and don’t need to bank  excess water for “future need.”

14-Reduce the current 400 gallon per day State requirement (.45 acre-feet annually per domestic unit) to 250 gallons per day (.28 acre-feet annually per domestic unit) which is 45 gallons over the state actual average of 205 gallons per day.

Purpose: Cities and Counties can not reduce official state water requirements. If the actual average use is 205 gallons per day, then the excessive requirement of 400 gallons per day artificially builds waste into Utah’s water system.

15-Establish a drought policy which discourages water hoarding by old and rich cities.  Just because a city is rich and politically connected does not give it the right to hoard water.

Example, if the Governor declares drought conditions, then the State Engineer is authorized to set aside the priority system and stop non-essential water uses.   All municipal water rights shall be equalized. Water hoarders which have impaired Utah’s water commerce should not benefit in time of drought nor take comfort in their excessive water supplies which have adversely impacted the state.

Purpose: Every Utahan is entitled to their pro-rata amount of state water resources in time of drought. They should not be disadvantaged by amount of water or cost of water because they live in a new city. Water is the public’s commodity. A citizen’s need for water is universal and transcends the priority system during drought.

Benefit: City water departments are less likely to waste public water dollars to purchase hoard water if their hoarded water rights are inaccessible during drought if their is no incentive to hoard then it is less likely that hoarding will occur. Hoarding water increases public water rates, and operating costs on state, local and private levels of Utah’s water commerce.

16-Direct the Division of Water Rights to streamline the water application process to prevent wasting water.  All water applications should be completed within a year. Temporary Applications should be completed in 14 days. Applications should not pend for 40+ years which is currently the case.  Unequal processing of applications has eroded the public’s confidence in the Office of the State Engineer.

Example of the interest cost on home building: A developer buying 5 million dollars worth of water by borrowing money from the bank at 10% interest.  The interest on the loan is $1,370 per day.  If the application sits around the State Engineer’s Office for an extra year, then there is a carrying cost of an extra $500,000 which cost is passed onto the home buyer and multiplied again by 3 with a mortgage.

17-Cancel newspaper advertising for Notices and use the Division of Water Rights website for all water notices–Save money and increase public awareness.

18-Declare “surplus” water sold under U.C.A. 10-8-14 after 7 years to be owned by the City using the so-called “surplus.”  Cities hoarding water should not reap economic benefits.  All cities new and old must be water independent.

19- Restore a lands right to a little water.  All land in Nevada has a right to a little water without a state permit.  Utah with double the rainfall of Nevada has no right to any water without a permit.  This is not in the public interest, because it allows cities like Salt Lake City to control planning and zoning of vast tracts of land outside SLC boundaries using its water card.