Despite Community Objection, the Jordan Valley Water District Raises Its Tax Rate
Over staunch objections from the community, the Jordan Valley Water District Board of Trustees raised its property tax collections on cars, housing, and businesses by 11% this month to keep its water rates low. Because of these property taxes, Utah has America’s cheapest municipal water rates, which is why we have America’s most wasteful water use – a major cause of the collapse of the Great Salt Lake. The water district has already doubled its property tax revenues over the last nine years, thus illustrating the hypocrisy of “fiscally conservative” Utah’s approach to taxes and water. Time and time again, the state forsakes its purported free market values to uphold taxes that cheapen water, harm low-income Utahns, and drain the Great Salt Lake.
Jordan Valley Water District’s public hearing on August 11, 2025. Community members were only given two minutes to speak, but the district’s staff executives were given lengthy speeches to spread misinformation before and after the public spoke.
The rest of the Western U.S. is much more conservative than Utah in encouraging water conservation efforts. We’ve surveyed the audited financial statements of 342 water suppliers in urban areas in 13 western states and found that even left-leaning communities have more fiscally conservative water pricing policies than those in Utah. For example, the water suppliers servicing San Francisco, San Diego, and Los Angeles only get 2%–9% of their revenues from property taxes. Meanwhile, Jordan Valley Water gets a whopping 33% of its revenue from property taxes. By and large, Utah water districts collect taxes at a rate three times that of water suppliers outside of Utah.
How can Utah policy makers claim to be fiscally conservative while continuously masking the true price of water behind these ridiculous and wasteful tax subsidies?