AUCTION BARN STUDIO, FORT WORTH, Texas (RFD News) —Congressional Western Caucus Chair Rep. Celeste Maloy continues her conversation with RFD News on today’s Champions of Rural America, discussing one of the West’s most pressing issues: water.
The Utah Republican is relatively new to Congress, but she brings an agricultural background that includes time with USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). Maloy said that experience gave her firsthand insight into the importance of snowpack and water supplies across the West.
“Creating how much snow we get in the winter is above my pay grade. That one’s up to the Almighty. But you know, I used to work for the NRCS, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, and we did the snow survey. And you know, I got to go out there sometimes on snowshoes and measure the snow depth. Every Monday, take the report on how much snow we had to the local newspaper. And I’ve never seen anything like this year. I mean, if you look at the charts, snowpack’s always really variable, but it stays in this really wide band. And this year we didn’t even get anywhere near that band. And we’re in bad shape. We just don’t have the water we need in the West.
“Luckily, because we’ve been in a drought cycle for a long time, the decision makers in the West have been seeing that this drought cycle is getting worse and worse and have started making a lot of decisions that are going to help mitigate it as much as we can. We didn’t get enough snow. There’s just nothing we can do about that. But we have a lot of municipalities and state agencies that are doing things like recycling water and reuse plans and paying people to conserve. And in Utah, we’re putting metering on all of our water because when people know how much water they’re using, they tend to use less. And so we’re going to have to do the best we can during this drought cycle to get through and make sure that we’re making really long-term plans on water.”
Rep. Maloy also discussed efforts to protect the Great Salt Lake, saying maintaining water levels is critical not only for Utah’s identity but also for public health and agriculture.
“Yeah, it’s kind of a crazy thing. I mean, the Great Salt Lake is such a big part of our identity in Utah. We call it the Great Salt Lake. The people from the Great Lakes states don’t really think it’s that great of a lake. There’s a little bit of a rivalry there. It’s a terminal lake. It’s saline and most of those in the world, they decline and then they’re gone. And we’re trying to make sure that we maintain water levels in the lake.
“One difference between the Great Salt Lake and a lot of the other saline lakes around the world is our big population center is right on the lake. And so as the water levels drop, if we get dust blowing off of the lake, it’s blowing into our most dense urban area in the state. And it’s something that the state’s been grappling with and we’ve been talking to our neighboring states about.
“But then the governor of Utah was at the White House and the president put out a Truth Social post about how we have to make the Great Salt Lake great again and he wants to invest a billion dollars in it. And it’s just not every day that the president of the United States decides to get involved in a regional issue like what we’re dealing with and say, ‘Yeah, this is something we have to address. We need to bring the resources of the federal government to assist the state in solving this problem.’
“And so it gives us a really cool opportunity to make sure that the state has a plan and that the federal government’s supporting that plan. And if we can get some progress on the Great Salt Lake and stabilize water levels and make sure we don’t have toxic dust blowing into people’s neighborhoods and that we can get that lake effect snow that’s so important for our farmers and our ranchers and also for our ski industry, we could have a saline lake success story, and the world needs one of those. Saline lakes have not been doing well. So I’m excited to have the help of the president and the focus that he’s bringing to this issue and be able to work on something that could outlive all of us.”
Maloy says she is excited to lead the Congressional Western Caucus and hopes to bring greater national attention to issues affecting the West, including water shortages and the rural economy.
