alt Hacker NewsTHIS IS A GRIFT.
Joel Ferry, the executive director of Utah's DNR retooled state laws to allow water right leasing and promoted HB187 which allows you to hold water rights without developing them.
He also happens to be a large shareholder in Bear River Canal Company and has been going around quietly buying up water rights from smaller canals and municipalities.
Grow The Flow is closely aligned with Great Salt Lake Rising (ran by the son of Mitt Romney), who plan to solve the issue ahead of the 2034 Olympics by buying up water rights from private owners. They committed $100 million of their own money, but got it matched with $300 million in state funds and a $1 billion budget line item from the Trump administration.
Be wary of environmentalism that is being driven by the wealthiest families in the state.
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Can you spell out how the grift works? All I'm understanding from your post is that wealthy people are connected to the effort.
Not really sure what the grift is here. Great Salt Lake Rising seems pretty reasonable reading their website https://gslrising.org/
To quote: “We are coordinating across 30+ organizations to get water back to the lake. The immediate goal: 500,000 acre-feet of annual water savings by 2027.
- Acquire and retire U.S. Magnesium water rights — 80,000 acre-feet annually
- Aggressively remove invasive phragmites consuming 100,000+ acre-feet per year
- Restore Newfoundland Basin — 30,000 acre-feet
- Partner with agricultural water users through split-season leasing and crop optimization
- Expand secondary water metering for accountability and conservation
- Purchase and lease water rights to permanently return water to the lake
- Refine policy tools to make leasing, delivery, and conservation easier”
Seems to be associated with an all star group of Utah philanthropists. Not seeing what the angle would be other than restoring the lake.