AI-generated summary. We recommend consulting the bill text for important decisions.

Utah's Great Salt Lake has been shrinking for decades, and this bill creates a new state program specifically designed to get more water flowing to it. The bill establishes the Great Salt Lake Preservation Program and a new five-member Great Salt Lake Preservation Board, which is authorized to lease agricultural water — water currently used to irrigate farmland within the Great Salt Lake basin — and redirect it to benefit the lake. The board sets annual lease rates based on alfalfa hay prices, accepts and awards lease applications, and can require farmers who violate lease terms to repay any money they received. The bill also protects leased water in transit by prohibiting other water users from diverting or impounding it before it reaches the lake, and streamlines the state engineer's processing of certain qualifying lease applications. The program sunsets in 2030, and the board must publicly report each year on how much water reached the lake and how much was spent. The bill appropriates $5 million from the General Fund to launch the program in fiscal year 2027.