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Erin Mendenhall

Salt Lake City Mayor

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Great Salt Lake

Mayor Mendenhall is taking bold action to help save the Great Salt Lake.

The demise of the Great Salt Lake would have devastating environmental, economic, and public health impacts on Salt Lake City, and Mayor Mendenhall — who earned a master’s degree in science and technology from the U and has been an environmental advocate for more than 15 years — is determined to do everything she can to stop it.

Although the magnitude of the problem is so great and its principal causes are not within the city’s control, city residents will bear the consequences of failure the hardest and the fastest. “History will judge us for the choices we make and don’t make right now,” Erin warned in her 2023 State of the City address. “Five years is not a long time, so it won’t be our grandkids who judge us, or even our kids — we will be able to judge ourselves.”

LEADING A HISTORIC CONSERVATION EFFORT

  • As drought conditions in the West intensified, Mayor Mendenhall began an aggressive voluntary conservation effort in the city. That work reduced water consumption by 15 percent in 2022, preventing 2.9 billion gallons of water from being diverted away from the lake.
  • Erin’s team even developed a unique strain of grass seed specifically engineered to be drought-resistant in Salt Lake City’s climate and soil conditions.

  • To further incentivize water conservation, Mayor Mendenhall has recommended to the City Council that the city implement a temporary drought surcharge on the city’s biggest water consumers. This surcharge would only impact the biggest water consumers — typically caused by excessive watering of lawns — and would end when the drought ends and emergency conditions have waned.

GIFTING THE CITY’S TREATED WATER TO THE LAKE

With the city’s water reclamation facility treating 35 million gallons of water each day, Mayor Mendenhall has begun steering that clean water into the lake to try to slow its deterioration. Erin is now trying to make that 13-billion-gallon-a-year gift from the city permanent.

ENSURING THE CITY GOVERNMENT DOES ITS PART

  • On Mayor Mendenhall’s order, Salt Lake City government has had stricter water-conservation standards than it has imposed on the general public.
  • Mayor Mendenhall has also ordered a top-to-bottom review of water usage in every city-owned facility and park, with a detailed assessment of irrigation systems, water fountains, and washrooms identifying new opportunities to do a better job of conserving water.