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SUMMARY CHAPTER 3 I-" 00 l'\:) A Utah State Water Plan, to be ~omp1eted by 1971, is underway; 00 it will assess the overall water requirements of the State and opportun- ities for satisfying them. The major munic~pal and industrial water using center in'the State is along the Wasatch Front. Projections of future water use .indicate that the area. will. demand an in~reasing1y grea~er per- centage of the limited water resources available. The present demand for munici~al and industrial.'(M&I) water in this area is approximately 461,009 acre-feet (AFt per year; it is expected to exceed 1,150,000 AF per year.by the year 2000. Various water development projects by Federal, 'State and local authorities aimed at meeting this demand are under construction or being planned. However, the water that can be developed is not unlimited, and the .State is and will continue to be faced with the decision of deter~ mining not only how its resources should be used, but also the best way to meet the grOWing demands. It will need to.consider the problem of water importation into the .State arid/or more complete use of the supply.now available. One accomplishing more complete use, which holds promise of economic viability, is the use of desalting to reclaim water having little, if any, further utility otherwise. Approximately 1,600,000 acre feet per year of water, a substantial part of which is brackish return flows from various sources, now enter Great Salt Lake. Even though the inflow will decrease somewhat as increased upstream uses occur, the inflow will still represent a major potential resource which could be made available for municipal and industrial (M&I) and other. uses through desalting. Desalting technology has made rapid strides in recent years toward the development and application of desalting processes in large and more efficient plants. Commercial application of desalting is increasing rapidly in the United States and elsewhere. In addition to. the increasing water demands along the Wasatch Front, power demands are expected to grow by 300 percent over the current demand of about 800 megawatts (MWe) by the year 2000. Mineral recovery and pro- cessing from the brines of Great Salt Lake are beginning to develop at an accelerated rate. This industry requires an abundance of power and the availability of process steam. In view of the.need of the State to consider.development of its total water resource's and in view of the unique need for water, power and process steam by the developing demands of the population and industry in the Great Salt Lake area, the State requested the Federal Government, through the Office of Saline. Water of the Department .of the Interior (OSW) and the Atomic Energy~mmission (AEC) to eiplol-e wi.th the State the possi- bility of meeting these demands through a desalting, power and process steam production facility utilizing a fossil or nuclear energy source. -5-