How the Church Is Responding to the Great Salt Lake’s Water Crisis

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has donated or leased nearly 30,000 acre-feet of water to the Great Salt Lake while reducing water use across thousands of its properties. In a Church Newsroom statement addressing regional drought and the lake’s increasingly critical water levels, the Church also urged Latter-day Saints to conserve water and support the public efforts they consider most effective.

The Church of Jesus Christ described the lake as a “vital natural resource” and acknowledged that its recovery will require more than conservation measures alone. “We recognize that there is no single solution to this situation and that an ultimate resolution will depend on increased precipitation,” the statement said.

Church leaders also expressed support for government entities, community organizations and residents working to preserve the lake. The statement placed the Church’s response within a broader concern for people facing weather-related disasters and environmental hardships throughout the world.

Water Donations and Reduced Use

The Church’s donation and lease of nearly 30,000 acre-feet of water make it one of the largest individual donors of water assets to the Great Salt Lake to date. According to the statement, the transactions protect existing flows to the lake and nearby wetland habitats while also increasing the amount of water reaching the lake.

Church conservation work within the Great Salt Lake Basin saves approximately 1,600 acre-feet of water each year. The Church has pursued those savings through changes at temples, meetinghouses, other facilities and welfare farms, where precision irrigation technology allows operators to manage water more carefully.

Updates to the landscaping at Temple Square provide one example of the Church’s property-level efforts. Once crews fully establish the landscape, the water-wise design should save as much as 20 million gallons annually.

The Church has also installed more than 3,100 smart irrigation controllers on its properties throughout the Intermountain West, including approximately 1,700 within the Great Salt Lake Basin. The Church estimates that those controllers will save hundreds of millions of gallons of water each year.

Smart irrigation technology adjusts water use more precisely than fixed watering practices and forms part of a larger set of conservation methods the Church uses in water-stressed areas. Those methods include hydrozoning, drought-tolerant plants and low-flow fixtures for both indoor and outdoor water use.

Years of Water Conservation Work

The Church traced its intensified conservation efforts in and beyond the Great Salt Lake Basin to 2015, but several water-saving practices began even earlier. In a June 2022 statement issued during serious drought conditions across much of the American West, the Church said it had installed water-wise irrigation and low-flow plumbing systems in newly constructed buildings since the early 2000s.

At that time, the Church was also retrofitting older systems and expanding its use of smart controllers, hydrometers, rain sensors, drip irrigation and secondary or reclaimed water. Property managers adjusted watering schedules to follow local government guidelines and monitored conditions at Church facilities.

The 2022 statement also outlined visible short-term changes at temples, meetinghouses and other buildings. The Church reduced landscape watering, allowed some lawns to brown and enter dormancy, and began identifying permanent landscape changes involving native plants, high-utility lawns and improved water management.

Church historic sites in drought-affected regions had reduced their water use by one-third by the time of that statement. The Church linked those operational decisions to a broader responsibility to avoid waste and use the earth’s resources wisely to care for others.

“We all play a part in preserving the critical resources needed to sustain life — especially water — and we invite others to join us in reducing water use wherever possible,” the Church said in 2022. Its more recent statement renews that appeal by asking Church members to take personal action and support public conservation measures they judge effective.

A Broader Approach to Stewardship

Water conservation forms one part of the Church’s stated environmental priorities across its global operations, which include temples, meetinghouses, schools, warehouses, vehicle fleets, farms, and welfare and educational facilities. Some Church programs have operated for decades, while advances in technology have created additional opportunities for conservation and efficiency.

President Russell M. Nelson connected those efforts to religious stewardship of the earth and concern for future generations. “As beneficiaries of the divine Creation, what shall we do? We should care for the earth, be wise stewards over it, and preserve it for future generations. And we are to love and care for one another,” he said.

The Church first installed on-site solar systems at its facilities in 1986, and more than 750 Church-owned buildings produced solar power as of November 2024. The latest Great Salt Lake statement raises that total to more than 1,000 facilities, while hundreds of additional buildings in several countries participate in utility programs that supply electricity from renewable sources.

Energy-efficiency measures include LED lighting, smart controls for heating and cooling, and battery storage in locations with unreliable electrical grids. A small number of meetinghouses and temples also use geothermal systems to regulate indoor temperatures.

The Church has adopted practices aimed at reducing material waste throughout its operations. It uses sacrament cups made from 100% recycled plastic, collects old electronics from Church buildings in the United States and Canada for donation or recycling, and operates printing facilities with extensive recycling capabilities.

Deseret Industries processed 73 million pounds of recycled goods in 2022 rather than sending those materials to landfills. By 2025, the annual total had risen to more than 80 million pounds.

Other efforts include replacing plastic distribution-store bags with reusable bags in Latin America, sourcing sustainably produced wood for printing operations in Peru and introducing youth conference shirts made from recycled plastic in Brazil. The Church has also adopted fuel-efficiency standards for its global vehicle fleet and installed bicycle shelters or electric-vehicle chargers at selected properties.

Church farms use cover crops, crop rotation, reduced-till or no-till cultivation, grazing management and precision technology designed to reduce water, waste and chemical use. The Church also considers long-term operations, maintenance, materials and site selection when designing and constructing its buildings.

A Call for Collective Action

The Church’s environmental work extends to humanitarian projects that address clean-water access, food security, energy independence, erosion and climate resilience. Its projects have included urban gardens, seawalls and tree planting, with a particular focus on communities that lack the resources to withstand or recover from extreme weather.

In its statement on the Great Salt Lake, the Church thanked government agencies, community groups and individual residents who have joined conservation efforts. It also invited Church members to combine personal water-saving decisions with support for larger public initiatives.

“We express gratitude to our Heavenly Father for His blessings and encourage the preservation and prudent use of resources He has entrusted to our care,” the statement said. The Church also continues to join people of other faiths in prayer and fasting for relief from drought, severe weather and other environmental challenges affecting communities around the world.

What steps have you taken to help conserve water and care for the earth? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Holly Wallace

Holly Wallace is a writer and storyteller drawn to meaningful questions and overlooked details. Her work explores Latter-day Saint life and culture through faithful inquiry, inviting readers to pause, consider, and engage more deeply with what matters most.