Following record low water levels, Utah lawmakers have unanimously supported a bill to limit water usage from the Great Salt Lake utilised for mineral extraction. 

Utah’s Great Salt Lake hosts several mineral extraction operations, including salt, magnesium, and a potential for lithium extraction is also under exploration. Currently, the law does not restrict evaporation volumes, however, the new legislation (HB453) would change the existing agreements between extractors and the state.

Magnesium metal producer US Magnesium, which have operations along the shore of the Great Salt Lake, has indicated its overall support for the bill and intend to collaborate on its implementation. The bill will include better water management system that will allocate water for each application in order to understand the water usage trends in the lake and to determine how much water is conserved. Notably, the highest water volumes are still used for agriculture (~30%), industrial and municipal use, and wetland management, with mineral evaporation representing only 8% of the existing water usage.

Other operations that are also located along the shore are magnesium compound and salt producer Compass Minerals and lithium startup Lilac Solution. In 2022, Compass announced its intention to develop a lithium operation, however, the company recently announced that it will abandon its lithium strategy owing to continued scrutiny faced by the project from US lawmakers that passed bill HB513. Under this bill, extraction companies need to pay a severance tax to a lake fund, along with minimising water usage and implement strategies to resupply water to the lake. The company will also terminate an offtake agreement it was negotiating with Ford. Despite the increasing regulation of water extraction from the Great Salt Lake, lithium startup Lilac Solutions has announced that it has secured US$145M in capital funding to scale its novel direct lithium extraction (DLE) technology along the lake shore.

Current lithium and magnesium metal demand is set to see significant growth over the next decade, driven by trends in the automotive industry. Although the US has many projects under development to stimulate both lithium and magnesium domestic supply chains, domestic demand is still largely supported by imports from the international market. Bill HB453 will proceed to the Utah House for a vote, however, combined with bill HB513 may have far reaching implications for the development of domestic supply chains and future growth potential which may ultimately drive innovation towards more sustainable technology.