Ripple Effect: A Podcast Putting Water In Context
Oct 9, 2026 · 56 min · 12 segments
Send us Fan Mail Jared Stewart, Senior Business Development Manager at EDCUtah, joins us to discuss attracting new companies to Utah, and what that…
Well, I think you just hit on something there very important, Jared, and we'll come back to this kind of pricing and communications about the water rights portfolio.
But, like, I do think you're hitting on something that is a current trending theme in our policy is this kind of concept of large water users and large industrial water users.
You know, like you've mentioned, it's a new Salt Lake ordinance because, you know, Salt Lake is looking at their growth patterns.
Salt Lake's actually very interesting because we're anticipated to see a fair amount of growth, but it's also kind of the legacy city, you know, in the sense that we have a lot of growth and, you know, outside some west side parts of the actual municipal boundaries of Salt Lake City are not that big when you look at it.
But the Salt Lake County, you know, we have a bunch of infill, some open spaces on our west side, but, you know, are pretty developed.
You get down into Utah County and it's a very different story with, you know, in terms of the potential for development based on the amount of open land.
But I think this question of, like, industrial water users, because, you know, unless they have a – it's been hard to track that in the past because, you know, one industrial user might report their water to their local municipality that gets rolled up into general water use reporting for that municipality.
But, like, getting into the individual contracts of who's using what, where, when, how is quite a – a morass and then if it's an independent, you know, industry that's using just well rights or their own water rights, you know, those are also reported through water use reporting at the Division of Water Rights and Water Resources.
And so we have seen some, you know, legislation in the last legislative session to kind of better track and report large water users.
We're seeing the Salt Lake City Ordinance because I do think these are both water right portfolio and water resource management questions, but also public
interest questions.
you know, we do have an ultimate limit on the amount of water we have in the state.
And I think the public is starting to really think about what are the highest and best uses for that.
And you don't really know that until you know who's using what, where, when, and how.
You know, it's interesting to look at the trends and communities have to make real decisions.
So when I was with Tooele, You know, we had this process where you could request, you know, access to water and the city held the water rights.
So, I mean, you could, in theory, go buy them on the market, but to your point, it's a constrained system.
So the city council would have to decide, okay, do we say yes or no to this use? And what are the pros and cons? Are we going to get the jobs that we want from this use? And sometimes they said yes, sometimes they said no, depending on the answers to those questions.
And I think you're going to see that more and more across the state in the future.
Well, I think you just hit on something there very important, Jared, and we'll come back to this kind of pricing and communications about the water rights portfolio.
But, like, I do think you're hitting on something that is a current trending theme in our policy is this kind of concept of large water users and large industrial water users.
You know, like you've mentioned, it's a new Salt Lake ordinance because, you know, Salt Lake is looking at their growth patterns.
Salt Lake's actually very interesting because we're anticipated to see a fair amount of growth, but it's also kind of the legacy city, you know, in the sense that we have a lot of growth and, you know, outside some west side parts of the actual municipal boundaries of Salt Lake City are not that big when you look at it.
But the Salt Lake County, you know, we have a bunch of infill, some open spaces on our west side, but, you know, are pretty developed.
You get down into Utah County and it's a very different story with, you know, in terms of the potential for development based on the amount of open land.
But I think this question of, like, industrial water users, because, you know, unless they have a – it's been hard to track that in the past because, you know, one industrial user might report their water to their local municipality that gets rolled up into general water use reporting for that municipality.
But, like, getting into the individual contracts of who's using what, where, when, how is quite a – a morass and then if it's an independent, you know, industry that's using just well rights or their own water rights, you know, those are also reported through water use reporting at the Division of Water Rights and Water Resources.
And so we have seen some, you know, legislation in the last legislative session to kind of better track and report large water users.
We're seeing the Salt Lake City Ordinance because I do think these are both water right portfolio and water resource management questions, but also public
interest questions.
you know, we do have an ultimate limit on the amount of water we have in the state.
And I think the public is starting to really think about what are the highest and best uses for that.
And you don't really know that until you know who's using what, where, when, and how.
You know, it's interesting to look at the trends and communities have to make real decisions.
So when I was with Tooele, You know, we had this process where you could request, you know, access to water and the city held the water rights.
So, I mean, you could, in theory, go buy them on the market, but to your point, it's a constrained system.
So the city council would have to decide, okay, do we say yes or no to this use? And what are the pros and cons? Are we going to get the jobs that we want from this use? And sometimes they said yes, sometimes they said no, depending on the answers to those questions.
And I think you're going to see that more and more across the state in the future.
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