SALT LAKE CITY – After more than 20 years of bickering, the state of Utah and officials in Washington have decided to bury the hatchet over disputed land bordering the Great Salt Lake.
Under a resolution jointly authored by Utah Rep. Casey Snider (R-Paradise) and Sen. Scott Sandall (R-Tremonton), the state will transfer more than 22,300 acres of wetlands northeast of the Great Salt Lake adjacent to the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge to federal control.
Utah will be compensated for the transfer to the tune of $60 million, which Sandall told reporters will be used to benefit efforts to restore the Great Salt Lake.
Coming just under the wire on the last day of the 2026 general session of the Utah Legislature, Sandall said the terms of the agreement between the federal negotiators and the state’s Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands were finalized overnight on Mar. 5.
Under state law, the approval of the Legislature is required whenever an agreement to sell or transfer more than 500 acres of state land is reached. That approval was granted by House Joint Resolution 30 (House Joint Resolution to Approve the Transfer of Land), which was hastily drafted and passed late on Mar. 6.
During the Biden administration, the federal government had previous offered $15 million for the wetlands in question, to which state officials quietly responded “no deal.”
The logjam between negotiators for Utah and Washington broke, however, after President Donald Trump pledged his support for efforts to save the Great Salt Lake during a meeting of the National Governors Association in February.
Under the terms of HJR30, the previously disputed land will now be federal property, but public access to the area will not change, according to Sandall.