Utah Watershed Councils

Representative Tim Hawkes’s House Bill 166, the Watershed Council Act, was passed in the 2020 legislative session. The purpose of the Act, which was largely drafted by Smith Hartvigsen attorney Peter Gessel in his previous role at the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food with input from Nathan Bracken and others, is to “develop diverse and balanced stakeholder forums for discussion of water policy and resource issues at watershed and state levels.” The Utah Division of Water Resources was tasked with implementing the Act, though its efforts were delayed by a year due to the pandemic. This past spring, the Division awarded a contract to The Langdon Group, headed by experienced facilitator Dan Adams, with assistance from Nathan Bracken and Peter Gessel as policy counsel, to implement the Act.

The Division’s implementation plan calls for the creation of a statewide Utah Watersheds Council, with council members appointed to represent state agencies, counties, cities, special districts, and others from a variety of interests such as agriculture, conservation, and industrial water use. Many of these representatives have already been identified, and the remainder should be selected as directed by statute within the next two weeks. On November 15, 2021, the Division will hosted a kickoff meeting at the Department of Natural Resources to officially organize the Utah Watersheds Council. This was the first major step to implement the Act, though hundreds of hours have already been spent by Dan Adams and others to reach out to water stakeholders across the state and lay the groundwork for this event. We expect that it will take several meetings for the Utah Watersheds Council to be fully organized and adopt policies and priorities for its work, as the Act was written broadly to allow the council to organize and operate as it sees fit. One of the primary responsibilities of the Utah Watersheds Council is to facilitate the organization of local basin-level watershed councils across the state. The Langdon Group has been tasked with organizing some of these basin-level councils, which Dan hopes to start doing in the next few months.

In addition to facilitating and supporting the basin-level councils, the Utah Watersheds Council is designed to help improve communication and understanding between the many state-level entities and interests that far too often are unaware of each other’s activities and responsibilities. By convening these state-level representatives, the hope is that the Utah Watersheds Council will facilitate communication, coordination, and collaboration, particularly between the Departments of Natural Resources, Environmental Quality, and Agriculture and Food, as well as federal agencies (though the federal agencies are not members of the council). As the basin-level councils are created, with each such council appointing a representative to the Utah Watersheds Council, there will be additional opportunities for local stakeholders to identify their unique needs and priorities and communicate those to the state council. The Utah Watersheds Council can use that information in fulfilling its obligation to provide advice to the governor and legislature on water issues.

As the watershed councils are subject to Utah’s public meeting requirements, all state and local watershed council meetings are open to the public. Scheduled meetings and their agendas will be available on the Utah Public Notice website.