How much are you willing to pay to save the Great Salt Lake? Weber State economics professors found out
OGDEN, Utah — Utahns are willing to pay up to $144 annually per household to help bring the Great Salt Lake’s water to a healthy level, according to new research by economics professors at Weber State University.
Professors Matt Gnagey and Therese Cavlovic, along with Earth & Environmental Sciences associate professor Carie Frantz, conducted a survey of 1,050 Utah residents in August 2025, asking them what they would be willing to pay to fund a Great Salt Lake conservation program designed to maintain healthy lake levels.
The goal of the survey was to see how much Utahns value the Great Salt Lake, including both the economic benefit associated with the lake and the value people place on preserving the lake for its own sake and future generations, Cavlovic said.
“The lake gives us value that includes the way people benefit from it, but also the value of simply knowing it exists,” she said.
The survey was built around the contingent valuation method, a technique used specifically for resources like environmental preservation to determine the public’s willingness to pay to save or maintain an environmental feature. A similar study was conducted in the 1980s on Mono Lake in California, a saline lake that also faced collapse due to low water levels, and is frequently cited in discussions about the Great Salt Lake.
“We thought it would be useful to have updated numbers since that study was 40 years ago,” Gnagey said. “We wanted to have a high-quality study that was done here in Utah, specific to the Great Salt Lake.”
Survey respondents were asked if they would pay higher water utility bills or a higher state income tax. Those who said “yes” then rated their certainty on a scale of zero to 10. Researchers took those answers and recoded them to “yes” or “no” based on the certainty level. When being more conservative, Cavlovic said any number lower than a 7 on the scale was considered a “no.”
On the high end, with a full sample, Utahns said they’d be willing to pay anywhere from $370 to $485 annually per household. In the middle, the amount dropped to $113 to $144 a year, and on the conservative end, the amount was $37 to $42.
Surveys like this are useful when it comes to designing and passing public referendums on environmental issues, Gnagey said, because it gives politicians a realistic number to propose when taking an issue to the voters.
“These techniques are designed to replicate how people would actually vote,” Gnagey said. “If I was a politician and I needed this referendum to pass, I would use the conservative number because I’m very confident that 50% of people are going to vote for that.”
While raising the lake levels could cost several billion dollars, Gnagey said the results of the survey are optimistic.
“The takeaway is that we have the resources to save the lake, and people want to,” he said. “We all value it. We all need to play a role both in the payment for funding a project that will increase water to the lake and in reducing our water use, too.”
Jessica Kokesh, Marketing & Communications
801-626-7316, jessicakokesh@weber.edu- Contact:
Rachel Badali, Public Relations Director
801-626-7362, rachelbadali@weber.edu