Dust — Basin Evaporative Loss Amendments

The whole bill, in three numbers

Every metered user already has these on file:

the number	where it comes from
water in	your withdrawal meter
water out	your return meter
your water bill	what you actually paid

In minus out is what you destroyed. If your bill already covers that volume at the peak commercial rate or better, you owe nothing and you never hear from anyone. If it doesn't, you owe the difference — to lake restoration.

⭐ It is a floor, not a tax. Nobody is charged twice, nobody buys their own water again, and the people already paying retail are already compliant on the day it passes. The only thing it ends is buying destruction at a discount.

Why evaporation and not "use"

Water that goes into a product leaves in the product. Water that returns to the basin is still here. Water that becomes sky is the only water the lake actually loses — so it is the only water this section charges for.

Which means the definition does the targeting, and no one has to be named:

	what happens to the water	owes
brewer	into the beer; the rest to the drain and back	nothing — and already on peak commercial rates besides
golf course	evapotranspiration, nearly all of it	the gap between rights-price and retail
mine	process and tailings-pond evaporation	the gap
cooling tower	evaporation by design, nothing to subtract	the gap, on every acre-foot

The reference rate, sourced

Salt Lake City Public Utilities, FY27 schedule, effective 1 July 2026: commercial, industrial and institutional customers pay $4.18 per CCF in summer (April–October) and $2.58 in winter. One acre-foot is 435.6 CCF.

rate class	per ccf	per acre-foot
commercial · summer	$4.18	$1,821
commercial · winter	$2.58	$1,124
household top tier	$5.94	$2,586

Source: slc.gov/utilities/fy27rates, read 12 August 2026. A household watering a lawn in August already pays $2,586 an acre-foot for the privilege of evaporating it. This bill asks industrial evaporation to reach the commercial number.

⚠ The other half of the spread is not yet sourced. What a rights-holder actually pays per acre-foot — assessments, secondary district rates, delivery — is the number that makes the gap real, and it is not on this page yet because we have not verified it. Do not quote a spread until both ends carry a URL.

It does not reach a farm, and that is on purpose

Unmetered agricultural diversion is outside this bill entirely. A well, a ditch, a headgate and no meter means no three numbers, and no charge. That is not an oversight and it is not a loophole we hope nobody notices — it is printed here so that nobody has to discover it.

⭐ Agriculture is addressed by the transition programme, with money instead of a charge, on a farmer's own timeline. One instrument takes. The other builds. They are drafted as strangers on purpose: a charge whose proceeds are handed back to a favoured local class is the structure struck down in West Lynn Creamery v. Healy (1994), and this package does not go near it.

Why it survives the Commerce Clause

An earlier draft charged water because of where it went. That is the paradigm dormant-Commerce-Clause defect — Sporhase v. Nebraska (1982) — and it was the plaintiff's opening brief.

This one never asks the destination. It charges destruction at the point it happens, identically, whether the product is sold in Ogden or Osaka. States levy exactly this kind of production-side charge constantly; a severance tax on oil at the wellhead does not become unconstitutional because the oil later crosses a line. §4 forecloses the question in the text.

What it actually changes

The advantage of buying water rights to feed an evaporative process disappears. Divert at your rights price and put it back — nothing changes. Divert at your rights price and boil it into the sky — you pay what everyone else pays. That is the entire economic lever, and it lands hardest on the newest arrivals, who have the most evaporation and the least incumbency.

For a golf course the cheapest compliance is an inch on the mower — taller grass shades its own soil and evaporates less. That is a feature. The bill is content to be answered agronomically.

⚠ Honest about deterrence: commercial water is cheap enough that some payers will simply pay. The first product of this bill is measurement — nobody currently knows what the basin loses to evaporation, by sector, and after this everyone does. Behaviour change is the hope; the ledger is the promise.

The instrument

BASIN EVAPORATIVE LOSS AMENDMENTS

LONG TITLE

General Description:
        This bill enacts a minimum charge for water of the Great Salt Lake basin that is
withdrawn by a metered user and lost to evaporation.

Highlighted Provisions:
        This bill:
        ▸ requires a metered user whose payments for evaporatively lost water total less
than the reference rate to pay the difference;
        ▸ measures evaporative loss as withdrawal, less return, less water embodied in a
product;
        ▸ applies without regard to the destination, ownership or intended market of any
product;
        ▸ applies only to users whose withdrawal and return are measured, and expressly
does not apply to use determined by estimate or coefficient;
        ▸ provides that this bill does not limit, condition, curtail or forfeit a water
right; and
        ▸ deposits collections in the Great Salt Lake Watershed Enhancement Program.

Money Appropriated in this Bill:
        None

Utah Code Sections Affected:
ENACTS:
        73-32-401 through 73-32-405, Utah Code Annotated 1953

Be it enacted by the Legislature of the state of Utah:

Section 1. Section 73-32-401 is enacted to read:

Part 4. Evaporative Loss

73-32-401. Definitions.
        As used in this part:
        (1) "Basin" means the Great Salt Lake watershed as defined in Section 65A-16-101.
        (2) "Evaporative loss" means, for a metered user and a calendar year, the volume of
water withdrawn from within the basin, less the volume returned by that user to the waters
of the basin, less the volume embodied in a product sold or shipped by that user.
        (3) "Metered user" means a person whose withdrawal and return are measured by
device, including a person served by a public water supplier, and does not include a person
whose use is determined by crop coefficient, evapotranspiration model, or other estimate.
        (4) "Reference rate" means the highest volumetric rate charged during the preceding
calendar year by a public water supplier in the basin to commercial and industrial
customers.
        (5) "Amount paid" means the total a metered user paid during the calendar year for
the water constituting that user's evaporative loss, including amounts paid to a public
water supplier, an irrigation company, a water conservancy district, or as an assessment
against a water right.

Section 2. Section 73-32-402 is enacted to read:

73-32-402. Minimum charge for evaporative loss.
        (1) The Legislature finds that:
                (a) water withdrawn within the basin and returned to it remains available to
the basin;
                (b) water withdrawn within the basin and embodied in a product leaves the
basin in that product;
                (c) water withdrawn within the basin and lost to evaporation is not
available to the basin and does not return to it, without regard to where any product
goes; and
                (d) a price that does not distinguish evaporative loss from other use
charges the basin for the difference.
        (2) If a metered user's amount paid is less than the reference rate multiplied by
that user's evaporative loss, the user shall pay the difference.
        (3) The obligation under Subsection (2) applies without regard to:
                (a) the destination, market, or purchaser of any product;
                (b) whether a product is sold, used or consumed inside or outside the basin;
                (c) the product, crop, animal, beverage, container or process involved;
                (d) the residence, citizenship or place of organization of the user; or
                (e) the identity, priority date or seniority of any water right.
        (4) Money collected under this section shall be deposited in the Great Salt Lake
Watershed Enhancement Program created in Section 65A-16-201.

Section 3. Section 73-32-403 is enacted to read:

73-32-403. Measurement.
        (1) Evaporative loss is determined by measurement. A user shall report, and the
state engineer may verify:
                (a) metered withdrawal;
                (b) metered return to the waters of the basin;
                (c) the volume embodied in a product, from the user's own production
records; and
                (d) for an impoundment, evaporative loss determined by water balance from
gauged stage, metered inflow and outflow, and recorded precipitation.
        (2) A person whose use is not measured is not subject to this part.

Section 4. Section 73-32-404 is enacted to read:

73-32-404. Exclusions and savings.
        (1) This part does not apply to:
                (a) water conveyed into the basin from outside it, or the use of that water;
                (b) water used for human consumption, sanitation, or food service;
                (c) fire suppression, including the charging and testing of a system; or
                (d) a use during a state of emergency declared under Title 53, Chapter 2a.
        (2) Nothing in this part:
                (a) limits, conditions, curtails, forfeits or reduces a water right;
                (b) requires a change application under Section 73-3-3;
                (c) prohibits the production, sale, export or import of any crop, animal or
product;
                (d) requires a person to purchase water the person is entitled to divert; or
                (e) authorizes the state engineer to deny an application by reason of this
part.

Section 5. Section 73-32-405 is enacted to read:

73-32-405. Rulemaking and publication.
        (1) The state engineer shall make rules under Title 63G, Chapter 3, Utah
Administrative Rulemaking Act, establishing:
                (a) metering, reporting and verification standards;
                (b) the water balance method for an impoundment;
                (c) the manner of determining embodied volume from production records; and
                (d) a de minimis threshold below which this part does not apply.
        (2) The state engineer shall publish the reference rate on or before January 31 of
each year.
        (3) This part applies to evaporative loss occurring on or after January 1, 2030.

Section 6. Effective date.

        This bill takes effect on May 4, 2028.

⭐ It does not invent a home. Chapter 73-32 is the Great Salt Lake chapter the Legislature built in 2023 and hung a Commissioner off; Part 4 was vacant, verified 13 August 2026. The basin is already defined at 65A-16-101. The money already has a trust, created in 2022. Three of the hardest things in this bill were already law before it was written.

Parked, deliberately

Thirsty — a water right held only by a person, never by an entity that cannot go thirsty. It is a real reform and a much larger fight, and folding it in here would unite every opponent this bill otherwise splits. It gets its own bill.

← Earth and Water · the transition programme → · Polished Boots →

⚠ Drafted by a layman with machine assistance, against the live Utah Code — 73-3-33 verified vacant, all cross-references verified, 12 August 2026. Not legal advice. Published in order to be corrected.