Why the strip is being flipped outside Utah Governor’s Mansion

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox has pitched water conservation messages for years, which have included converting park strips — the patches of grass between a roadway and a sidewalk — into more water-wise features.

Yet, the Utah Governor’s Mansion in Salt Lake City continued to maintain its own park strips.

That’s no longer the case.

Crews recently ripped out the grass between the mansion and South Temple, installing drip irrigation in its place. Volunteers and state employees will help plant more than 1,800 water-wise, pollinator-friendly native species along the space on Friday.

A “full-perimeter conversion” of the mansion grounds is expected to begin next spring. The governor’s family hopes it sets the stage for more statewide water conservation.

“For years, Utahns have been waiting for someone else to go first, or for the conditions to be just right. But if we’re asking families to rethink what they do in their own yards, we have to be willing to start at our house first,” said Utah first lady Abby Cox.

The mansion project is one of four service projects led by Slow the Flow’s “Week of Service,” which began Wednesday with volunteers adding more water-wise landscaping to a piece of the South Salt Lake Community Center grounds.

Volunteers will carry out similar projects at Coalville City Hall, 10 N. Main in Coalville, on Saturday, as well as Hyde Park City Hall, 113 E. Center Street in Hyde Park, on Sept. 19, as part of the project.

This year’s service week comes as Utah continues to feel the pains of drought.

Over 90% of the state remains in severe, extreme or exceptional drought, per the U.S. Drought Monitor. The rest is moderate drought, despite above-normal precipitation throughout the second half of meteorological summer.

Utah’s reservoir system fell to 50% capacity over the season, between consumption, evaporation and releases for infrastructure projects. It was 63% full this time last year. It’s normally 59% full in September.

The Great Salt Lake has also fallen to its second-lowest level on record. Its southern arm has now fallen to 4,189.9 feet elevation, more than eight feet below its minimum healthy level.

Experts say water conservation can make a difference when the country’s second-driest state deals with even drier conditions than normal.

State water managers say 27,000 gallons of water can be saved annually for every 1,000 square feet of park strip removed. The goal of converting the four government spaces is to show what a water-wise landscape can look like since they can be replicated at home, said Tage Flint, the executive director of Slow the Flow.

That’s becoming more important as Utah’s population grows, especially along the Wasatch Front and northern Utah.

Municipal and industrial water use continues to grow among water usage types within the Great Salt Lake Basin, the Great Salt Lake Strike Team reported earlier this year. It found that over 400,000 acre-feet of water within the basin was used on residential lawns in 2024, accounting for 97% of the municipal and industrial water use.

“Every one of these projects is something a family, a city or a classroom can copy,” Flint said in a statement. “That’s the whole idea. This is a demonstration.”