Source: CVDaily Feed
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SALT LAKE CITY – Addressing Utah’s water challenges over the next half-century is the task of a committee created by Gov. Gary Herbert.

The State Water Strategy Advisory Team consists of elected officials, conservation leaders, water managers, recreational organizations and business representatives.

Lynn de Freitas, executive director of Friends of the Great Salt Lake, is among the panel members.

She says Utah faces big water challenges including an aging infrastructure.

“The infrastructure that currently carries the water in our cities is in dire need of repair,” she explains. “So there is significant capital costs that need to go into improving the infrastructure for the existing capacity that we’re serving at the moment.”

Commenting on Utah’s water future, Herbert said, “From a growing population to drought concerns and funding problems, many complicated and weighty considerations demand we plan and prepare now.”

De Freitas says another big concern is how to manage limited water resources for Utah’s growing population.

“If we weren’t continuing to grow, putting pressures on the landscape,” she says, “and for municipal and industrial development, you know, we wouldn’t have those kinds of catalysts, or needs, or demands that come with that expanded population.”

The State Water Strategy Advisory Team is expected to come up with potential solutions to Utah’s water challenges and then take public input.