When Giants Step Up — And Why the Rest of Us Need To
Great Lake Watch
By Mountain & Main Editorial Staff
There is a pattern that repeats throughout American history, and it tends to emerge at the moment when a problem crosses from inconvenient to undeniable. The big names show up. Foundations open their checkbooks. Families who built their wealth alongside a community decide that their legacy — and the community's — depends on doing something large.
It happened this week on the shores of a drying inland sea.
"We knew we had to act to preserve the adventures we all treasure."
— Drew Maggelet, Maverik Board Member
On Monday, April 13, three of Utah's most prominent families stood together at the Eccles Wildlife Education Center in Farmington and pledged $10 million each to Great Salt Lake Rising — $30 million in a single morning from the Miller, Maggelet, and Marriott families. The announcement, held against a backdrop of snow-capped mountains reflected in a bay that holds less water every year, was striking not just for the dollar amounts, but for what it signals: the people with the most to lose have decided that waiting is no longer an option.
"We knew we had to act to preserve the adventures we all treasure," said Drew Maggelet, a Maverik board member representing FJ Management, the parent company of Utah's largest convenience store chain. His mother, Crystal Maggelet, the company's CEO, said she wanted the money used to buy water rights or invest in water-conserving technologies — direct, functional investments, not symbolic gestures.
Gail Miller, heading the Larry H. and Gail Miller Family Foundation, was more direct still: "If we don't step up and do something about it? We're not going to have the opportunity, if we wait."
Karen Marriott, representing the Washington, D.C.-based J. Willard and Alice S. Marriott Foundation — whose roots trace back to Utah — framed the moment as something unprecedented in the history of environmental rescue anywhere on earth: "We have the opportunity to become the first place in the world to reverse the decline of an inland sea."
The Organization Behind the Moment
These donations flow into Great Salt Lake Rising, a 501(c)(3) founded in 2025 by Josh Romney of the Romney Group and structured specifically to mobilize private capital for lake restoration. The coalition is not a small-tent operation. Its board includes Great Salt Lake Commissioner Brian Steed, Deseret Management Corp. Executive Vice President Sheri Dew, Eccles Foundation President Lisa Eccles, television producer Mark Burnett, Ivory Homes CEO Clark Ivory, and BYU ecologist and Grow the Flow Executive Director Dr. Ben Abbott.
"If we don't step up and do something about it? We're not going to have the opportunity, if we wait."
— Gail Miller, Larry H. and Gail Miller Family Foundation
To move from ideas to on-the-ground results, Great Salt Lake Rising has established five working groups: Finance and Fundraising, Policy Innovation, Research and Management, Technological Innovation, and Stakeholder Engagement.
The money raised will not sit in an account. GSL Rising coordinates across 30-plus organizations, agencies, and academic institutions with a stated immediate goal of 500,000 acre-feet of annual water savings by 2027 — including acquiring and retiring U.S. Magnesium water rights worth 80,000 acre-feet annually and aggressively removing invasive phragmites that consume more than 100,000 acre-feet per year. For donors of any size, one number matters most: 100% of donations go directly to projects that get water to the lake, with all overhead covered by local businesses.
Monday's $30 million is a meaningful step toward the coalition's larger target. Romney convened local business leaders last year, leading to the coalition's pledge to raise $100 million — designed to at least match the $100 million that conservation nonprofit Ducks Unlimited has pledged over the next decade for wetlands restoration.
The Size of the Problem
Even $30 million — even $100 million — needs to be understood against the scale of what's at stake.
The Great Salt Lake generates $2.5 billion in direct economic productivity every year: $2 billion in mineral extraction, $249 million in recreation, $163 million in ski industry revenue, and $106 million in brine shrimp. More than $1.5 trillion in infrastructure along the Wasatch Front is at risk. The lake drives the lake-effect snow that supplies half the precipitation in the valleys. Less lake means less snowpack, shorter ski seasons, and reduced water supply. And the 800 square miles of exposed lakebed — containing arsenic, lead, and mercury — send toxic dust across a region where three to five million people live downwind.
The human cost of inaction has a global precedent. Communities near dried saline lakes worldwide have seen cancer rates rise 50 to 60 percent and infant mortality climb 60 percent.
To pull the Great Salt Lake out of its currently designated "serious adverse effects" status, it needs an additional 800,000 acre-feet of water annually. The good news — and there is good news — is that the cause of the decline is largely within our control. Tim Hawkes, director of Great Salt Lake Rising and a former state lawmaker, said it plainly: "80% of lake declines are driven by human use. It's driven by the way that we all collectively use water. Each one of us has an impact on the lake."
That last sentence cuts both ways. It means we got here together. It also means we can get out together.
What the Rest of Us Can Do
This is where the story of Monday's announcement becomes yours.
The philanthropists have stepped forward. They have done what large families with generational resources can do — written checks that buy water rights, fund agricultural efficiency transitions, and remove the invasive species that consume what little water remains. That matters enormously. But it is not sufficient on its own.
Great Salt Lake Rising is direct about this: there is no single solution to saving the lake. Protecting it will require action from individuals, communities, businesses, and leaders alike.
For those who want to give financially, gslrising.org accepts donations at any level, with the guarantee that every dollar goes to work in the watershed. For those whose impact will come not from a checkbook but from a garden hose, the math is equally real. In Utah, 65% of residential water use is expended outdoors. That is the single largest lever available to everyday residents. The organization's guidance is practical: water your yard less but smarter, keeping grass at three to four inches to retain moisture; skip watering when temperatures are below 65 degrees; fix leaks immediately; reduce turf where it isn't used; choose plants suited to Utah's climate; and let non-essential grass go dormant during peak heat.
Those who want to engage beyond the yard can join Grow the Flow at growtheflowutah.org — a science-led nonprofit founded by BYU ecologist Dr. Ben Abbott that translates research into action and connects residents to the broader restoration movement.
Governor Spencer Cox, speaking via video from a trade mission in Europe, put it in terms that are both civic and personal: "Utah is serious about protecting the Great Salt Lake, and we are doing it the Utah way — together."
The Millers gave $10 million. The Marriotts gave $10 million. Maverik gave $10 million. The question the rest of the Wasatch Front is now being asked — by the families at the podium, by the organizations doing the work, and increasingly by the lake itself — is a simpler one: what will you give?
"The organization's guidance is practical: water your yard less but smarter, keeping grass at three to four inches to retain moisture; skip watering when temperatures are below 65 degrees; fix leaks immediately; reduce turf where it isn't used; choose plants suited to Utah's climate; and let non-essential grass go dormant during peak heat."
— Grow the Flow
Sources
Deseret News, April 13, 2026: "Maverik owners, Marriotts, Millers, Romneys show up to support the Great Salt Lake"
KSL.com, April 14, 2026: "We knew we had to act: Great Salt Lake gets $30M boost from business community"
Fox 13 / Great Salt Lake Collaborative, April 14, 2026: "Some of Utah's wealthiest families just gave $30 million to help Great Salt Lake"
Grow the Flow Utah / GSL Rising Inaugural Meeting Press Release, October 28, 2025
gslrising.org (Great Salt Lake Rising organization site)
growtheflowutah.org (Grow the Flow)