…Utahns do seem to care about water, though. In a 2024 Utah Foundation survey, Utahns listed water as their sixth priority and Great Salt Lake as their 16th.
The survey results also showed that there was a willingness to remove half of a lawn or allow it to be brown during the summer months to reduce the cost of Utah’s water infrastructure investments by 30%.
Shawn Teigen is the president of Utah Foundation, and over the years he’s noticed a trend — water is a priority when other factors, like the economy, a pandemic or the political climate aren’t.
In Utah Foundation’s 2020 survey, water supply and quality were of low importance, while health care, state taxes and education were listed as the top three concerns.
Teigen said when there are good snow years, like the 2022-2023 winter, people are also less likely to view water supply as a concern.
Even daily rain showers can change someone’s view about water conservation.
“People still know we are in a drought,” Teigen said. “And if you asked a question about water sufficiency yesterday, people would have probably been more concerned than if you asked them about it today, just because of the precipitation.”…
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