Back Channel Utah
Back Channel is a Utah politics, policy, and business podcast hosted by Marty Carpenter.
Every episode is a one-on-one conversation with someone who matters in Utah — an executive, a policymaker, a lobbyist, a community leader. Someone who's in the room when things happen.
The conversation has four parts: who they are before they're a title, the issue they're closest to right now, their read on what's happening in Utah, and a few lighter questions at the end. It's candid, it moves fast, and it doesn't sound like a press release.
Marty's been the one in the room too — as a governor's spokesman, his job was to take complex policy and make it clear, make it compelling, and keep it on message. That's still the job.
Back Channel. Off Script. On Record.
Back Channel Utah
One River, Seven States, No Snow. Water update with Gene Shawcroft
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Utah just came through its worst winter for water in recorded history. What happens next — and who decides?
Utah River Commissioner Gene Shawcroft breaks down Lake Powell’s “3,500-foot line,” the storage and infrastructure Utah relies on, and the seven-state negotiations that could reset Colorado River rules after 2026.
We talk drought whiplash, why the states missed key deadlines, and what Utahns should understand about where their water comes from.
🎙️ Watch and subscribe to stay up to date. New episode every Friday.
Off Script. On Record.
In the West, they say whiskey's for drinking and water's for fighting, and that could not be more apropos for our discussion today. Utah just came through its worst winter for water in recorded history. Snowpack that peaked at half of normal, a state that's now entirely in drought, with inflows to Lake Powell at about 40% of what they should be. And it couldn't have come at a worse time. The seven states that share the Colorado River have been trying for years to agree on new rules for how to divide a river that's already overpromised. And they've now blown past two federally set deadlines with no deal in sight. My guest today is the man in the room for Utah for all of this. He's the general manager of the Central Utah Water Conservancy District. He's Utah's River Commissioner, and he's Utah's representative on the Upper Colorado River Commission. Coming up on this episode of Back Channel, we go off script and on record with Gene Chocroft. This is the Back Channel.
SPEAKER_00Back channel.
SPEAKER_01You didn't hear this from me. Back channel. You're not going to quote me, are you?
SPEAKER_03What channel is it on?
SPEAKER_01Back channel. Off script on record. Gene Chocroft, the River Commissioner of Utah, uh, thanks for being here. We went with sparkling water today because you told us you're a water guy, and that's true in more ways than one. That's okay. Uh so we went soda-free, and at least it was some sparkling water with some favorite to the day. Anytime you need a break or the questions get too tough, just take a sip. It's totally fine. But all right. Um there is so much going on in our state when it comes to water. Uh, not because we have an abundance of it, though we were in that position just a couple of years ago. But before we get into the water stuff, I want to get into your background just a little bit. Um, you are a Coloradan by birth and uh and grew up uh in like a farm town in Colorado, is that right?
SPEAKER_02Right. Small rural community in in southern Colorado. Um population in a little town I grew up outside of, several miles, was about 400. So uh I spent my career my early years in uh in a small high school and working on the farm.
SPEAKER_01So working on a farm, water's a big part of life there, but uh at that time was there like I mean we've been in a drought for so long here. Did you grow up in drought conditions in Southern Colorado?
SPEAKER_02Every year was a dry year. I mean we we never had enough water to do what we wanted to do. We're high elevations, so we usually got a couple crops of hay was about all we got, and uh water was usually gone by the first of July. We'd get a little bit of monsoon uh weather in in later July, but it was uh I never remember having too much water.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. You went to BYU and you studied civil engineering. So what you you grew up on a farm, now you're the water guy. How how's the connection between uh what you grew up around, what you studied, and where you got?
SPEAKER_02Well, for me, the most exciting day of the year was the day we turned the water on. Uh we just got the spring runoff, so when it warmed up enough to melt the snow and put water in the river, that's when we got water. That was more exciting to me than than Christmas because we got to play in the headgates, siphon tubes, irrigation, that whole that whole thing was just fun and and exciting to me. And I thought, you know, if if I could ever make a living playing in the water, that would be fabulous. And uh I started out in chemical engineering and found out that wasn't the way to go, and then switched to civil and uh did all the water stuff I could. Started right after I graduated uh from BYU at uh the Division of Water Resources working for the state. Loved what I did there, spent about six years there. And then when I got uh a little bit of a vision of what the Central Utah Water District did, I thought, man, this is this is big stuff on steroids. This is awesome. And I've loved every day at the district.
SPEAKER_01So you you know, water's been a constant thing in your life. At what point did you realize maybe it was when you were growing up that like I don't know, I I've not grown up on a farm. Uh to me, you you open, you know, you turn on the faucet and water shows up, right? And I think that's the way it is for a lot of people. The more that I've um been involved in the policy side of water, the more I've realized that that's something we definitely take for granted. No doubt. But that gives me stress to suddenly know that, like, oh, it may not always be there, or there's a whole lot that goes into getting it there. Does it stress you out, water and like the availability of water in that same way?
SPEAKER_02Sure. The the one thing about it though is is along the Wasatch front, for the most part, the the majority of the water goes outside. So if push came to shove, which I hope it doesn't, but if it really did, we'd be in a situation where we could stop watering our lawns or watering once a week. They'll still stay alive, they'll look terrible, but they'll stay alive. And uh and that water, if if if we use 60 percent of our water outside and then got to the point where we used only 20 percent of our water outside, we could provide water for a whole lot uh lot more homes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's uh it's so interesting the availability of water, and we've obviously been going through that here in Utah for a while. Tell me about you mentioned uh the Central Utah Water Conservancy District. I always got to make sure that you can see it is C-U-W-C-D in my mind, and I have to spell it back out. Uh tell me what area does that cover? And and for people who don't follow this closely, what does a water conservancy district do other than send me my bill for my water?
SPEAKER_02Well, that's a great question. The uh the legislature a number of years ago created the Water Conservancy Act. And so in the late uh early 60s, the several of the counties within the central part of the state, so that's Salt Lake County on the north, went to Jueb County on the south, so that included Utah County, uh Wasat Summit, um parts of uh in Duchesne, Una counties. The the residents in that area voted on a 93 percent basis to create the Water Conservancy District and tax themselves for the repayment agency of the Federal Central Utah Project.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_02So the State couldn't do that, they didn't have the resources, none of the local communities had the resources, but the Federal Government had the resources to build this large project, and then the district was committed to repaying that, and because we had property tax authority, the government felt confident that we would pay the bill back.
SPEAKER_01Gotcha.
SPEAKER_02And so that's why Reclamation then was willing to come in and build the Central Utah Project, which takes water from the south slope of the Uintas, water that otherwise would go down to the Green River, to capture that water, put it in a pipeline and tunnels, and bring it into Strawberry Reservoir. And then that's how Utah uses a major portion of its Colorado River water. So it's all by gravity, there are no pumps, comes into Strawberry, then through the divide down into Spanish Fort Canyon, and then distributes uh south and north from Spanish Fort Canyon, clear up into Salt Lake. And that Colorado River water is actually new water into the Great Basin. So by bringing that water in, we could exchange Prova River water that was historically used by others into Jordan L. So that's how we we don't put Colorado River water in Jordan L, but by bringing Colorado River in, it allows us to store in Jordan L, which is the drinking water supply for most of the Wasatch Front.
SPEAKER_01You've been at the Central Utah Water Conservancy District for 30 years ago. You're getting better. Uh for like 30 plus years since 1991. Started in 91. Have the problems changed or just morphed in the time that you've been there?
SPEAKER_02No, I think the I think the things have changed dramatically. Um when I started my career, most people uh were very appreciative of water, understood water, recognized it was a finite resource, were much more responsible and concerned about water. It's hard to go on the street today and find people that really understand even where they get their water. Tap comes on, they're happy, end of story, no questions asked. And and the the misunderstanding or the lack of understanding of how we get our water today, in my mind, is a lot different than it was when I started my career many years ago. I would also say though, Marty, that that people are much, much more conscious of conservation than they were back then, too. They, you know, everything had to be green, uh, water was very inexpensive, and so it was used uh in abundance more than it than it really should have been. But today people are much more conscious about how they use water, uh, but at the same time, they're not willing to do a lot other than just make sure that their tap comes on now.
SPEAKER_01You have two jobs essentially. Um the first one we've talked about, but you also have this role as Utah's River Commissioner. I think that's a cool title, first of all. When you got that one, you're like, at the very least, it's a cool title. But tell me what the river commissioner does, and are you the the first one to have served in that role? Was it created when we created the Colorado River Authority of Utah? Or uh walk me through that.
SPEAKER_02No, the uh the the state of Utah was involved in the compact that was signed in 1922. Since 1922, after the compact was signed, each state, each of the seven states in the in the Colorado River basin, so Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Wyoming, Nevada, Arizona, and California are the seven states involved in the Colorado River. In 1922, those seven states agreed to the con to the compact, and since that time there has always been uh a representative of each of those states in in the in the process of negotiating and and working together. In 1948, the upper basin states, so that would be Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming, created the Upper Colorado River Commission. And so since 1948, there has always been a commissioner from each of those four states involved in decisions that are made with regard to the upper basin.
SPEAKER_01And I think that's really important for people to understand for this discussion and and for water policy in general, the division between the upper basin and the lower basin. Has there always been a sort of that break between the two? Why is there an upper? Why is there a lower? And is there animosity between them or like sort of you're competing over the water to a certain extent? So tell me about the relationship between you know the seven states, but the upper and lower.
SPEAKER_02Great question. Yeah. The when in in 1922, when the compact was signed, there was an agreed to amount of water that would be available to the lower division states and the upper. And the the dividing line is near Page, Arizona, a place called Lee Ferry. There's uh that's where the water is measured, and the upper basin states have an obligation to release a certain amount of water past Lee Ferry every year. And it's actually calculated on a 10-year running average. So the the compact was 75 million acre feet over a 10-year period of time. So in many years it was above that, some years it it was probably less than that in in years past. But over the last 20 years or so, we've been in a situation where we've actually been ahead of that 75 over 10. And that is their animosity? Absolutely, because when they put the compact together, they anticipated there would be about 17 million acre feet. And we're down to about 12 right now. And so 17 minus 12 creates some heartburn in a lot of people's minds who are used to using that water, obviously.
SPEAKER_01And especially since most of those places, if you go back even to the 1960s or certainly back to the 1920s, everywhere in the West is bigger. Correct. Maybe not that one little town, maybe not least, but but certainly Phoenix is bigger, LA is bigger, Salt Lake City is bigger, Denver is bigger. All of these places, maybe New Mexico is the one that doesn't have that much of a population.
SPEAKER_02Well, even in my career at the district, there have been conversations early on about Utah will never use its allocation. So why don't we figure out a way to get some some benefit, financial benefit out of that? Well, we've we obviously know now that that's not the case. We use we use our water every year, particularly on dry years, because in 1948, when the the Upper Colorado River Commission was created, it was acknowledged that there wasn't 17 million acre feet of water in the river. There was much less than that. So even though the lower basin states had divided their use by volume, the upper basin states divided their use by percentage. So in years when there was more, we got a little bit more, and years when there was less, we got less. But that percentage is really what's kept us in a situation that keeps us out of as much frustration as there is between the upper and lower when they have a guaranteed volume and we have a guaranteed percent of what's left.
SPEAKER_01And percentage seems like the way to go. Like just the smart policy, if you were to draw it up from zero to say if you don't know exactly how much water you're going to get, we should take a percentage of it and figure out how we divide that percentage.
SPEAKER_02Trevor Burrus, Jr. Had that been done in 1922, we would have a different world right now.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. No doubt. Aaron Powell Can I ask you what may be the dumbest question you'll hear all month? And and maybe it's the smartest question, but I'm gonna guess it may be on the sillier side. I'm gonna guess it's smart coming from where does the Colorado River start? Like if I follow it all the way back, what what is this beginning point for where this water comes, or does it all just come from snow melt along the way?
SPEAKER_02Aaron Powell It's all snow melt uh for the most part in the spring, obviously it's all snow melt, but it it originates in Utah on the south slope of the Uintas. It originates in Wyoming on the upper upper green, up in the wilderness areas up there, and then in Colorado on the west, they call it the west slope. So the Continental Divide runs pretty much north and south right through the middle of the state of Colorado. So anything on the west side of that divide, um Eisenhower Tunnel, if you're familiar with with the freeway. I've been stuck in it many times. That's a fun job. A fun deal is it. Everything west of that drains to the Colorado River.
SPEAKER_01And that's just simply a matter of topography, right? That's the direction the water runs and that's how we do it. Correct. Okay. So it does not like there's just some like gigantic spring at the top that starts it and then we get snowfall that goes through.
SPEAKER_02And then there's a very, very small contribution that comes from New Mexico in the San Juan River. Uh a lot of the San Juan comes out of Colorado as well, but there's a small piece that comes out of New Mexico.
SPEAKER_01So let's talk a little bit about Utah's situation right now. This last winter we had the lowest snowpack on record, if I have that right. We peaked like three weeks early. We had half of what we normally get. Tell me just how bad is our situation right now, because we had s I don't even know if you could say a mild winter.
SPEAKER_02It felt like we had autumn until we had a lot of. We didn't have a winter. Yeah, no doubt. Um the the the one thing that is thrilling about how Utah has managed things in the past is they were wise enough to develop some storage. And the Central Utah Project is a perfect example of a situation that allows us this year to have uh what we call contract water, the amount of water that we anticipate people using in the center from the Central Utah district will be available because we've been able to store in Strawberry Reservoir, in Jordan El Reservoir. And um that really is what's allowed us or will provide for us to have our water this year. Um just Marty, just an interesting thing is three years ago we had the wettest the wettest year on record. Yeah, it was crazy. One in one in less than a hundred percent chance of getting that kind of a winter. Three years later, we get the driest on record, one in three, one in a hundred of chances of getting that dry. So extremely wet, extremely dry within a three-year period of time.
SPEAKER_01So if you were laying money on it, you could have made some big money on wettest and and driest in those two. I I guess what I think a lot of people don't understand, and you mentioned this, like some storage spots. And there are like as you flow down through the state, a number of those. One of those, like at the top of the state being Flaming Gorge, right? Which isn't just it's it is a reservoir, but it's it is a you well, let's think about it this way. You got Flaming Gorge, and then down at the bottom of the state, you've got Lake Powell. Correct. And there's some reservoirs and such in between. Lake Powell isn't just about storing water, though, it's about generating electricity. Correct.
SPEAKER_02Is Flaming Gorge the same? Flaming Gorge, they generate power in Flaming Gorge, but the volume of power there is is significantly less than what they do at at uh at Lake Powell.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And you've got to have a certain level of water to stay in each of those in order to not basically break the machines that make the electricity. Is that a very simplified way, I'm sure of saying that, sure.
SPEAKER_02And and in Lake Powell, the that elevation happens to be 3,500. So that's the elevation of the water above which power can be generated, below which, as the water goes through the pipeline, the pen stocks that go to the generators. If the water gets below 3,500, just like in your when you flush your toilet, you see those the vortices, the same thing would happen with those with those generators. So if they sucked air in, then to your point it damages the machines, the the runners, and they can no longer generate power. So they have to shut the power off. The pen stocks, the pipe that go from the reservoir to those power generators is also the conveyance of water from the upstream to the downstream. And so if the elevation gets below 3,500, not only is power uh unlimited, the opportunity to generate power, but the what they call the river outlet works, the valves that are lower, were now were not designed to operate on a daily basis. They were designed to operate on an intermittent basis because their main purpose was to control the water as Lake Pow was filling for the very first time.
SPEAKER_01So Lake Powell is is important not only for the electrical, I mean you've got to have the water. And the water is sort of where you build it up before you let it go down to the lower basin. And so they're always saying let some of this go out. That was getting low enough that this year we had a release from Flaming Gorge to try to make sure Lake Powell stays above that level. Is that right?
SPEAKER_02That is correct. Uh the Bureau of Reclamation made the decision to release a million acre feet, which is a lot of water. An acre foot is about a foot ball field covered with a foot of water. So that's I don't know why we use such arcade arcade terminology. But but a million acre feet from Lake from uh Flaming Gorge to Lake PAL, and then also they reduced the releases from Lake PAL by one and a half million acre feet. So the the accumulative effect is that there's two and a half million acre feet of water in PAL will be over the next year that otherwise would not have been there. But for that action, we would by this by this summer, we would have dropped below that critical 3,500 foot elevation.
SPEAKER_01Are we at the point then now where we say we've sort of pulled all the magic tricks that we can and we really, really need another great winter this year? I mean, obviously you would take a great winter. Is a an average or slightly above average winter going to be good enough, or do we need the the Hail Mary this winter?
SPEAKER_02Well, it depends on what you say is good enough. Um because if you if you look back in history, 1983-84, those were tremendous years back to back. Those are the the years we built pumps in the Great Salt Lakes. Exactly, exactly. So there was water, there was water everywhere. And and those reservoirs were full. PAL and Mead were both full. And and as you think about those two big reservoirs being that full, it's amazing to understand what it would take today to fill those. They're about 24-25 percent full at this point. So we'd need four or five or six eighty-three, eighty-fours back to back to fill them back up. So to think that we're going to have one good year and fill them up a bunch isn't in the cards.
SPEAKER_01Even if it was a year like we had three years ago.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, three years ago, about 65 feet of elevation came into PAL. So 65 feet, and that has now dropped after these two or three bad years. It's dropped back down to where it was prior to that really, really wet year. And so we would need um average would be fabulous, well above average would be better. What would be awesome is about 10 or 12, 15 years of significantly above normal, and that's about what it would take to fill Lake Powell and Lake Mead back up again.
SPEAKER_01You're a water guy and a civil engineer, not a meteorologist. But uh I know I heard someone say we've shifted from La Niña to El Nino. That's maybe why we're getting a few rain showers through the spring or late spring into the early summer here. Uh is that a good indication for us? Is that one of those things you say there's a glimmer of hope because of that, or is there any reason to think that we are not only Do and overdue for a good winter, but we might actually get a couple of them in a row.
SPEAKER_02Um I I don't give a lot of credence to El Nino, La Niña. Uh several years ago we had uh uh La Niña situation, El Nino, excuse me, El Nino situation, and in Strawberry Reservoir, just within the basin, uh, we got about a hundred and hundred and eighty thousand acre feet of runoff. The next year, same kind of uh El Nino, we got 13,000. So 180 versus 13. And so my my mind all of a sudden said, well, I can check that I don't have to worry about that box when I try to decide how we're gonna manage the system. Yeah. So I don't know. I think the best way to describe the weather is total chaos. Yeah. And there are so many variables and so many situations, even the supercomputers can't model more than two weeks out. And so it's it's hard for me to say, well, I'm gonna start releasing because we're gonna have an El Nino, we're gonna get a whole bunch of water, or or shut the gate because we're gonna dry up. And so that's one of the things that we look at, of course. But as a as a manager, I'm not hanging my hat on El Nino, La Niña. I've got to I've got to see what happens.
SPEAKER_01So it sounds like we need more water in Flaming Gorge so that we can make sure we can keep enough water, but we definitely need more water in Lake Powell. In between there, we'd love a ton of it in the mountains because we have a great salt lake that I was just up uh on the ridge uh this weekend playing golf and said, Oh my goodness, you can almost walk your way out to Antelope Island at this point. That's right. Um that's a lot of water pressure to deal with, like water pressure, I double term, but like that's a lot of pressure when it comes to like something that ultimately you don't control, you just sort of manage the problem. That has to be like a a frustrating challenge to deal with at times.
SPEAKER_02No doubt. And and what brings me solace is the feet people I have around me at the district who live and breathe and and every moment where water's coming from, how it's going, where we're where we're uh going to make deliveries. We have a great relationship with the people that we deliver water to. They understand that that things can be difficult, and they're more than willing to help solve this crisis if if it gets to that point as we move forward.
SPEAKER_01So we've covered some of the basics of how water works and some of our infrastructure and where it goes. We've outlined that it's a really bad situation and how that impacts Utah. I want to talk a little bit about how we're interacting with other states because as you mentioned, um we've got some deals that are expiring. The 1922-1 and the 1961. What was the second year?
SPEAKER_02The the uh the the compact was signed in 1922, there were court cases in 1964, there were uh Upper Colorado River Commission was created in 1948 with an Upper Basin Compact. Many, many other other events occurred between 1922 and now, and we package or call of that the law of the river. And so all of those things come into play when we get to the law of the river. Uh what's happened uh right now is in 2007 uh the states got together with the Bureau of Reclamation and created what they called the 07-2007 guidelines. They were set to expire in 20 years. So practically that is September 30th, 2026, is the end of that 20-year period. So, new guidelines of how PAL and MEAT are operated beyond October 1 are the plans that reclamation is working on right now. They had hoped, as I had hoped, that the seven of us, seven states, could come together for an agreement that would then determine how we move water, how we deal with water in the future. Unfortunately, we have not come to a deal, and so the Bureau of Reclamation is going to have to make decisions as they have, as I mentioned, by bringing a million acre feet from Flaming Gorge and reducing releases out of POW by a million and a half. Those decisions were made by the Bureau of Reclamation to protect that elevation of 3,500 in Lake POW. Now, what happens in 2027 and 2028 is part of the discussion now that we're having with the Bureau of Reclamation. They will put together, they have already put out a preferred preliminary alternative. We provided comments on that last Friday. And what they will do now, between now and the end of June, is they will prepare a draft environmental impact statement that will describe how they're going to do things over the next ten years, but implement them in two-year increments. And then the record of decision, which is a signed document that says this is how it's going to happen, will be done by the end of July. That's the latest schedule we have from reclamation.
SPEAKER_01So what you started out with, as you mentioned initially, was the seven states trying to come to some kind of agreement with sort of the looming um threat, I guess you'd say, of the federal government saying, figure it out or we have to step in. Correct. And they set a couple of deadlines. And there was a November. November of last week. And then there was like a February 14th, right? For some reason they liked holidays. Well, Veterans Day and Valentine's Day.
SPEAKER_02And then there was not a lot of love on the 14th of February. Let me just tell you.
SPEAKER_01No doubt to get to the goal line?
SPEAKER_02No doubt. By by the 11th of November, we we agreed, all seven states agreed that we were making sufficient progress, that reclamation wouldn't have to go on their own to come up with an alternative. Sadly, by the 14th of February, we weren't close enough for Reclamation to say, okay, we understand what you are doing, we can take that and run with it. That did not happen, and they have continued to ask us if we can come up with a consensus alternative. And that ultimate deadline was was last week. So we, Upper Basin, Lower Basin, have submitted all of the information that we hope reclamation will consider as they put together their draft environmental impact statement. And they will consider what they choose to consider. They'll have to sort through some things. They've been very, very clear with us. We will have to operate in a way that you are all dissatisfied. No one's going to like what we have to do, but we're going to have to do it anyway.
SPEAKER_01It sounds like a parent talking to kids. So get in there and get it done. When you started out in the negotiations with the other six states, did you go into that, and not maybe not just you, but you and you collectively, uh this is the whole group, go in thinking, let's come up with a deal that we're going to do for the next 20 plus years, or were you the entire time thinking, let's figure out something that we can do for five years or for 10 years or whatever that smaller number may have been?
SPEAKER_02No, we we collectively agreed we'd be better off if we could have at least a 20, if not a 30-year deal. And when Reclamation put out their notice of intent, in other words, the reclamation said, okay, we're s we're ready to start this process, uh, and these are the these are the guidelines that we want to achieve, they in their in their notice put out 20 years. So even at four years, four and a half years ago, when we s when we started negotiating in earnest post-COVID, there was always an intention that we would go at least 20 years. And and part of the reason for that is if an entity goes to the bond market to uh purchase bonds, they like a firm set conditions so they feel comfortable lending money. And 10 years isn't isn't enough. 20 years is pretty marginal, but they would obviously like 30-year deals.
SPEAKER_01Are those bonds for things that are very specific to water, like hey, we need to bond to accrue pipelines, or is it is it broader than that? No, no, no, it's just we need to build roads.
SPEAKER_02When we're talking about it, it's just bonding for water projects. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Because they want to be able to say, hey, we're gonna essentially lend you this money to go refurbish this pipeline or add this pipeline or whatever maintenance you may need to do. And we're gonna lend you that money, but we don't want to think five years down the road now the entire state is a ghost town because for some reason the water driver.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so so there was an intention that they would be a longer period of time.
SPEAKER_01Is one of the sticking points or even the main sticking point now still the fight between um uh percentage of the allotment versus guaranteed actual like acre feet of uh of how you do it? Like, is that one of the initial points, or is there any kind of agreement there where you say, look, guys, it's a fluctuating denominator, so we have to do a fraction here.
SPEAKER_02Well, when we started back four and a half years ago into serious negotiations, it was obvious to all seven states that that the amount of water we anticipated just wasn't there. Call it climate change, global warming, call it whatever you want to call it. And there was a general acknowledgement that all of the states would have to participate. And um the upper basin has a very small, use a very small portion of their seven and a half simply because we haven't developed it all. And the other thing, many years it's just not there. Whereas the lower basin developed theirs quickly, they got used to the using the amount of water that they had, and then when they got really faced with, okay, we're gonna have to do these kinds of reductions, what does that mean to the people that have historically used that water? That's when things got really serious about, oh my gosh, this is we can't we can't experience this kind of pain. And so let's see if we can find other places to get the water, and the upper basin seemed to be the the closest logical place to try to get additional water.
SPEAKER_01Toward the end, did you feel like all of your fellow commissioners were maybe in the same position you were saying, I'd love to get a deal just so we can be done about the other.
SPEAKER_02No doubt. Um but but there are the the politics and the the technicalities are so complex that it's that it's it seems like it should be an easy solution. In fact, I've had many people say, well, just everybody take a 10 percent cut and you're good. Well, 10 percent of what? You know, we don't know in the upper basin what we're going to get. We could say, okay, we'll we'll contribute 50 percent of this water right only to have that water right produce 10 percent of what the water right actually is. So, in a lot of cases in the upper basin, the water is just simply not there. In the lower basin, their water comes from large storage reservoirs. So they've been able, for the most part, over the years, to use their allotted amount of water. Well, now that the reservoirs are low, that comes into question. How in the world are we going to continue to use the kind of water that we've been using without reservoirs that we have as as bank accounts, if you will, to get us through these dry periods?
SPEAKER_01I don't want to make you a California policymaker here, but it seems like there's only so much water that's coming from Snowpack and that's filtering its way down. Along this way, the only one that has like a major source of water next to it is California. Does desalinization play any role in this where they could say, man, if you could take California out of the mix because we can just desalinate the Pacific Ocean? Yeah. Um, I don't know how realistic that is. I'm sure it's terribly expensive and costs a ton in energy consumption. But is that something that they've even kind of talked about?
SPEAKER_02Absolutely, absolutely. In fact, they they're looking at uh, you know, Los Angeles is looking at capturing all the water from their uh wastewater treatment plants before it gets to the ocean, pumping it up to treatment plants, and then reusing it for outdoor use or or potentially even for um uh drinking water purposes. That is extremely expensive. Desalinization is extremely expensive. San Diego has a desal plant right now that uh has about a 60 uh thousand acre foot capacity, they're only using about 50, but no one can afford to buy the other ten. And so like everything else in life, we try to find the cheapest alternative before we have to come up with dollars that really are really painful.
SPEAKER_01What do you wish that all Utah's better understood about water or water situation or the way water works in our state that they don't know? If you had to sum it up and just say, I got 30 seconds to tell them this, what do you tell them?
SPEAKER_02I would say make sure you understand where your water comes from. Ask ask the person that sends you the bill, where do I get my water? Why does it cost this much? Uh, and and what are we looking for into the future? How do we prepare for the future? And I think that those kinds of questions cause us to think, okay, as I turn on my tap now, there's more connection in my mind than just turning the tap on. If we could appreciate the value of water, uh we'd be in a whole different situation.
SPEAKER_01I do want to get to one other thing. Um not so long ago we decided to meter secondary water. I think that's been implemented pretty much everywhere along the Wasatch Front. I think it has at my house in Davis County. Has that changed consumption behavior? Um, where people can now say, not only I know what I use, but I'm getting charged based on what I use.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I I don't know. I think most for the most part, right now, people aren't getting charged for their for for water that goes through their secondary meter. I don't know that for sure, but I do know that they know that I know that they know what what they're using. And uh it's not too far of a stretch. The technology is there to say, okay, you have X number of feet of grass, this is how much water you should put on it, and then meter that. And if you're using more than that, then your price escalates based on what you're using above what you really need. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Uh I want to wrap up with the lightning round where we're gonna talk less about water and more just a few things to get to know Gene Shawcroft, our river commissioner. How's that sound? You ready for that? Yeah. Uh okay, so quick answers here. Um, what's your uh favorite food? What are you ordering when nobody's watching? Prime rib. Prime rib. All right, we'll take that. Um, what's your favorite sport, hobby, pastime? What do you do when you're on your free time?
SPEAKER_02Uh fishing. Love to go hiking up in the Uintas and take my fishing pole and make sure the water still is there. What kind of fishing? What are you fishing for? Uh just trout, local trout, whatever happens to be there. So you fly to fishing? Just fly in a bubble for the most part.
SPEAKER_01Okay, great. Uh what profession other than your own would you have liked to try since you've been in water pretty much your whole life?
SPEAKER_02Uh I think financial planning would have been a fun thing to do, to uh help people understand what investments are, what they work, what doesn't work. Um I think those kinds of things would have been kind of fun. Just converting million acre feet to millions of dollars. Yeah, but not anywhere close as fun as water. But but that would have been an interesting uh career.
SPEAKER_01Conversely, what is one profession other than your own that you would not like to try even for a day? Probably being a sportscaster. Oh, really?
SPEAKER_02No, I'm just kidding. No, I don't know. Uh I hadn't thought about that. Um I enjoy doing a lot of things, keeping busy, keeping my hands, you know, I love to do things with my hands, but uh I've never really thought about what would be what would be a bad thing.
SPEAKER_01Because you have a really interesting balance between outside job and inside job. You kind of get to do a little bit of both. I imagine when you're at the inside part of the job, you wish you were outside, though.
SPEAKER_02Maybe, maybe an auto auto mechanic. I'd I've never I I can always take things apart, but I end up with extra pieces when I try to put it together. So probably some kind of an auto mechanic. That could be a little bit something I'd shy away from.
SPEAKER_01Well, well, we appreciate you shying away from it if that's the way that works out for you. Uh last question for you. Gene, if you could go back and talk to your younger self, you in your late teens, early twenties, what's the one piece of advice you would give yourself?
SPEAKER_02I would say spend more time developing relationships. Uh you got to get your job done, but but relationships are really what make a big difference. And focus on people's names, what makes them tick, uh, why they enjoy life, and uh and just appreciating that they're an individual and have incredible talents and skills and capacities that I lack. And turn off the tap while you brush your teeth.
SPEAKER_01There you go. Gene, thanks so much. Really appreciate that.
SPEAKER_02Thank you, Marty. Happy to chat.
SPEAKER_01All right, a reminder that Back Channel is a northbound strategy production. You can subscribe to the audio version of our show wherever you get your podcast. You can also find us on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, and X. We are everywhere at Back Channel, Utah. Uh all right, as always in our third segment, I'm joined by the producer of our show, Shalice O'Brey. Shalice is not here in person. And I would say you better have a good excuse, Shalice, but I think you actually do. Tell us why, tell us why you are uh working from the home office today.
SPEAKER_00Um, so I have my first broken bone. Um, I don't know if that's exciting or demoralizing because I need to be mobile. Um, but I got in the middle of a dog scuffle on Saturday morning, fell on the curve and broke my fibula by my knee. So we are working from the home desk in a boot.
SPEAKER_01So this is your first broken bone, but I know you've had kids with a lot of broken bones.
SPEAKER_00First broken bone, but not my first rodeo. Cardin just a couple weeks ago got his brace off from breaking both bones in his lower left arm for the third time.
SPEAKER_01You guys have a punch pass, so like every tenth broken bone gets treated for free. That's the way you should be. I'm gonna knock on wood as I say this. I have never had a broken bone. That's crazy. This was this was your first.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, this is my this breaks my perfect record. So it's a bummer.
SPEAKER_01We must be the most highly coordinated people to have never had it, or just play it too safe all of the time.
SPEAKER_00No, just never take a risk.
SPEAKER_01So, hey, the one thing I wanted to talk about this week. Uh well, uh first let's get to the Gene Shockroft interview. I thought that was a really interesting one because I I really think for most Utons, and even for a lot of Utah's who are in the political policy-making world, water is just something that, as I said during the interview, you turn on the tap and the water comes out. You turn on the shower and the water comes out, and you go to water the lawn and the water comes out. But there's so much that goes into it. I just thought it was a really interesting discussion.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, very relatable to me. Um, I grew up in a farming town in Arizona and had to wait for people to change the water people, the boys to change the water on the cotton fields before we could hang out. But um, so like siphon tubes and playing in the canal and all of that stuff is very relatable to me. But also um, I don't know if there was a time when we didn't think about water. They were always saying, Arizona's in a drought, Arizona's in a drought. And I always wondered, like, are we sure we're in a drought or are we just Arizona? This is just how we are.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Uh it's crazy. And I I was trying to walk through it with them and say, all right, you're worried about water levels at Flaming Gorge and water levels at Lake Powell. Right. And you're worried about, you know, having water for all the people in a growing metropolitan area in Salt Lake and even, you know, parts of uh rural Utah. And then on top of it, you've got the great Salt Lake. And then we've had some battles. I didn't bring this specific thing up, but you know, water becomes sort of a talking point when it comes about uh comes to the data center in Box Elder has been at least a point of contention or one that people have brought up. I I just I I guess I got to the point where it's like your job is really to sort of like manage through this and get us the best deal we can in the negotiations, but also get us um, you know, like use the water that we have as best we can, because there's really nothing he can do to add to the water supply. Right. That's out of his control. That must that feels like that'd be really a frustrating position to be in in a lot of ways.
SPEAKER_00I feel like he's who we'd want in the room, though. He's very like stays very calm, he's very measured, he knows a ton about water, he's passionate about water, like who better to have for the state of Utah.
SPEAKER_01And I I think he's a tougher negotiator than you might think, just based on he's so nice. Yes. Um, but I think he's so nice as a way to help position Utah to get you know, to defend every drop of the water that we're uh supposed to have or that we can't have in all of this. Um hey, just over the holiday weekend, I noticed something that I wanted to bring up with you. I saw a lot more political ads uh on TV than I thought I was going to see, mostly on you know OTT, what they call over-the-top ads that aren't uh on the broadcast channels, but they're on like the streaming services. That's a separate way you can buy these ads. Um I was surprised to see some for uh more like for state legislative races. Like I thought, oh, I'll see stuff for the congressional races, um, but I saw a lot of those. And I've also noticed, Shalisa, I'm wondering if this is the same for you. I've noticed in a lot of the uh social media feeds in particular, but even to a certain extent on on the TV ads, TV ads are harder to target than the social media ads. I'm getting ads for people who I can't vote for, not out of like political reasons, but because I don't actually live in their boundary. And I'm just wondering if you're seeing the same because as a campaign manager, former campaign manager, that stuff drives you nuts when you're spending money to try to get a vote that you can't actually get.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, especially on social media. It's very, it feels very scatter shot to me. I'm seeing the same thing where I'm getting seeing ads, tons of ads for people that aren't even part of my district. So it's yeah, just out of boundary.
SPEAKER_01Do you think you're seeing more of them this time around? Because I I do. I look at it and I'll I'll I've seen more, I think, on Instagram this year than I have in past years where it's almost it's not a video, it's not like a post, it's almost like a yard sign that just. Pops up in my feed and I'm seeing it and it's making an impression, but it's for somebody I I can't vote for.
SPEAKER_00You can't vote for. Yeah. I haven't, I don't remember in in prior races seeing them on social media. So this feels like something new that way.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. The other shift that I have I noticed, it took a minute for it to kind of dawn on me, but as I started to see them on political or started to see the political ads on Instagram in particular, um, it dawned on me I have not gotten nearly as many mailers as in the past, which I as a campaign guy, you know, I would say hallelujah, because it's so much cheaper of an expenditure to buy to make one digital ad and then place it on a social media platform than it is to print physical mailers and send them out. I just to me it's it's like there's been this tipping point for a long time that we've talked about on campaigns. Like when I did them, it was how much do you spend on digital versus how much you spend on traditional? And I feel like I've seen so much more tip toward the digital. And you know, understandably, the last time I ran uh a camp ran a campaign fully in charge was uh six years ago. So a lot can change in that six, but it it feels to me like the transition that we started talking about in 2016, um, that really we weren't talking about that much in 2012. By 2026, it's like I feel like it's like 85, 90% of the way there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And I think, I think you see that in advertising, like just in advertising period, right? Everything has gone so much toward digital, toward having influencers talk about it. I'm waiting to see that shift, right? When we start start seeing influencers plug candidates and not just like lipstick products, whatever it is.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the the really interesting thing for me when it comes to campaign ads is you see the ones that tend to break through the noise are the ones that are more like what we consider content now, right? The funny one or the one that's just a little bit outside the box, or the one now where I'd say, like, if it looks like a TikTok, it's going to get noticed.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And it feels like there's still, as much as we've maybe changed platforms, it feels like there's still a very tight grip on what a political ad should look like. Yeah. Right. And I should dress this way and be dignified this way and make these three points this way, as opposed to just it, it feels like a logical appeal is still the default when we know from the evidence and from the data and from just the track record, and not to mention the psychology of it, that making an emotional appeal is what actually makes a bigger difference.
SPEAKER_00Well, and I think if you're reaching for that younger voting block, then being relatable and being able to be comfortable on camera and be human and make that emotional appeal is more important than ever.
SPEAKER_01That's the one interesting point. When you say reaching for the younger ones, uh every time I've ever been involved in a campaign, someone's been talking about the importance of getting the youth to vote. And every time they just don't. And so the strategy is like the strategy is like, well, you might say it in the meeting, but when it comes down to actually spending the dollars, you're not really targeting the youth because until they sort of have a two or three election cycle track record of really showing up, it's it's not always the wisest expenditure.
SPEAKER_00Do you think it's like reaching them where they are, though? Like people haven't been able to appeal to them because they're not they're not using social media and there's so much social media. Like if you had a candidate that could really relate to younger voters on TikTok, would they come out and vote for them?
SPEAKER_01It's possible. It's possible. I know there was a lot of talk uh over the last uh couple of days that there was a candidate who was, you know, people are saying, well, he's the most popular candidate on the internet.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Who lost. I'm I'm gonna forget the specifics of it while we're talking about it. But it was like, yeah, but that's not you can have broad appeal, but if it's again outside of your district, the same point we were making a minute ago. It's outside of the district where you're running, it doesn't really matter. Like if I've if I'm super popular in Salt Lake County, but I live in Davis County and I'm running in my home district, yeah, then it doesn't really matter if everyone in Salt Lake loves me. In fact, it might actually hurt me if people in Davis County think the people in Salt Lake County love me that maybe I'm not their guy.
SPEAKER_00It may get it may get rewritten, right? Like the campaign playbook may get shaken up a little bit here in the come incoming years.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, things will change over time, uh, but uh we will uh see how it sorts out. Uh it's just interesting to me that at least it's it's kind of ticked in that direction.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Uh all right, that's it for this week. Uh appreciate it, and we'll be back with another guest next week on Back Channel.