Mormon Church donates reservoir of church-owned water; it hopes many others will follow suit

Farmington Bay, a critical habitat for wildlife, feeds into the
Great Salt Lake. (Photo by James Roh, The Washington Post)

In an unusual move, the Church of Jesus Christ of Lattter-Day Saints has set a pace for helping save disappearing Great Salt Lake. "Last summer, the church began urging conservation and touted its water-saving efforts in the American West. At its fall general conference, which Mormons everywhere follow for speeches considered direction from God, a senior bishop stressed using Earth's resources with restraint," reports Karin Brulliard of The Washington Post. "This spring, another senior bishop delivered what was praised as a landmark address on Mormons' history with water in the valley and outlined an unprecedented move: permanently donating a small reservoir's worth of church-owned water, the largest such gift ever made for the lake."

It's going to take a lot more water to save the damage done to the lake. "Experts say more aggressive legislation is critical. But the church is hugely influential in a conservative state where some 60 percent of residents, and an even larger portion of lawmakers, are Latter-day Saints," Brulliard explains. "Its decision to wade into a subject infused with politicized tussles over climate change has boosted the sense of urgency and underscored the existential threat of the Great Salt Lake's demise, observers say."

Commenting on the church's focus, Jenica Sedgwick, the church's first sustainability manager, "said the impetus was doctrinal, not political," Brulliard writes. Sedgwick told her: "We need to care for the Earth … and we're accountable to God for that," and the lake crisis "is something that we need everybody paying attention to and thinking about." Brulliard reports, "The church hopes other large landowners with water to spare will follow suit, Sedgwick said. It hopes the same of its work reducing the sprawling emerald lawns at the meetinghouses — neighborhood churches used for weekly services — that seem ubiquitous in the Salt Lake Valley."

The lake is a prime revenue generator for the region and "provides a critical way station for 10 million migratory birds," Brulliard writes. "Its evaporated water turns to snowfall in nearby mountains, buoying a massive regional ski industry. Ecologist Ben Abbott, a Brigham Young University associate professor, told Brulliard, "In both figurative and very literal ways, it supports our way of life. . . . [It's] facing a serious environmental catastrophe." Brulliard reports, "Abbott compares the churches donation to about equal to the amount used yearly on all golf courses in the Great Salt Lake watershed — to a drop of water in a bucket, albeit a large one." Abbott told her: "What we need is 20 to 50 of those donations."