John Curtis wants to hear any ideas for saving the Great Salt Lake — even the 'stupid' ones

SALT LAKE CITY — When pioneers first settled the Salt Lake Valley in the middle of the 19th century, they set to work building dams and other infrastructure to divert water from City Creek and other rivers to irrigate in the valley.

It was, at the time, a "bold and audacious" strategy, according to Sen. John Curtis, and an example modern Utahns should look to in order to solve the current water issues facing the state, particularly the dwindling Great Salt Lake.

To that end, the Republican senator convened a panel of experts and policymakers at the Wallace F. Bennett Federal Building Thursday to propose a new set of "bold and audacious" ideas for saving the lake. Those gathered, including the new Great Salt Lake Commissioner Hannah Freeze, were told to let their wildest ideas fly, regardless of how impractical they might seem and without fear of judgment.

"When you brainstorm ideas, you don't say 'that's a stupid idea,'" Curtis said. "It probably is stupid, but it then leads to another idea, which leads to another idea, which is not stupid."

The panel delivered several potential ideas, including boosting cloud-seeding technology to deliver more rain directly to the lake and developing water pipelines from other states in exchange for financial help for environmental programs in those states. Louisiana, for example, has more water than Utah, and it was suggested that state or federal money could help the Pelican State restore coastal erosion in exchange for a water pipeline.

A project like that would be costly and complicated, but it fits the billing of Curtis' request.

Two other ideas were novel to Curtis and showed some potential, according to the senator. The first would be to develop better technology to reduce the amount of evaporation that occurs when companies mine for critical minerals. Right now, mining operations sometimes use evaporative ponds to concentrate minerals to the point they can be easily harvested.

Curtis was also intrigued by the idea of engineering ways to deliver "stranded water" — or water that would historically have flowed to the lake — into the Great Salt Lake. Brian Steed, who recently stepped down as Great Salt Lake commissioner, said there are tens of thousands of acre feet of water stranded in the desert west of the lake.

One problem with rescuing that water is that some of it is on land owned by the federal government and used for munitions testing. Some of the land is filled with unexploded ordinance and the state can't even survey the land from the sky, according to Joel Ferry, the outgoing commissioner of the Department of Natural Resources.

"The critical mineral evaporation is a really good example; I had not heard of that," Curtis told KSL, adding that the amount of water lost to evaporation can be "pretty substantial." "That sounds pretty doable, and the stranded water was one I had not heard of."

Curtis is also working with leaders in Washington on funding the $1 billion ask to help the lake proposed by President Donald Trump. He said Sen. Susan Collins, the chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who chairs the spending subcommittee for the Department of the Interior, are supportive, but it remains to be seen where the money might come from.

"That's a legitimate question," he said. "But they understand the issue. They're supportive."

Curtis toured the Great Salt Lake earlier this year with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, and said he hopes to get both appropriators out to see the lake in person.

"To the extent that we can do that, that would be a really helpful thing," he said. "The more we can educate my colleagues on what it is we have here, I think the more support we can get."

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