{"id":147149,"date":"2025-08-15T06:46:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T06:46:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/147149\/"},"modified":"2025-08-15T06:46:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T06:46:15","slug":"church-of-jesus-christ-water-conservation-deseret-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/147149\/","title":{"rendered":"Church of Jesus Christ water conservation \u2013 Deseret News"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article was first published in the ChurchBeat newsletter<\/a>. Sign up to receive the newsletter in your inbox each Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

One small device may help save half a billion gallons of water in the American west at buildings operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s about how much water it would take to fill 750 Olympic-sized swimming pools, according to a news release<\/a>.<\/p>\n

How do you save 500 million gallons of water?<\/p>\n

The church is installing more than 3,000 smart controllers at its properties across the Intermountain West.<\/p>\n

\"\"Landscape managers monitor smart controllers on their mobile devices. | The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints <\/p>\n

That\u2019s the how. Here\u2019s the why:<\/p>\n

\u201cWater is a sacred and finite resource,\u201d according to a church FAQ<\/a> sent with the press release on the project.<\/p>\n

Presiding Bishop G\u00e9rald Causs\u00e9 has said both the church and its members have a responsibility to safeguard the planet they believe God created for humanity.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have received that special responsibility from God to take care of his creations,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd every one of us, collectively and individually, we have something to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Water is under increasing pressure in the Intermountain West, creating problems for communities and nature.<\/p>\n

The church donated 6.5 trillion gallons of water to the Great Salt Lake in an effort to preserve that natural resource in 2023.<\/p>\n

That donation was made two months after an emergency warning<\/a> of \u201cunprecedented\u201d danger to Utah\u2019s public health, environment and economy if the Great Salt Lake did not receive a \u201cdramatic\u201d influx of water by 2024.<\/p>\n

Warnings had predicted the Great Salt Lake could disappear within five years, creating an ecological catastrophe.<\/p>\n

The church donated 5,700 water shares it had used for agriculture to the lake, the equivalent of more than 15,000 football fields covered by water a foot deep.<\/p>\n

The church is encouraging all communities to be wise stewards of the natural resources it believes are provided by God.<\/p>\n

The smart controllers can make adjustments based on weather that save water.<\/p>\n

Rather than sticking to a fixed schedule of watering, a controller might water in more frequent, short bursts, at inconsistent hours or even during a rainstorm, the press release said.<\/p>\n

Those adjustments are designed \u201cto maximize water absorption by plants based on factors such as weather, humidity, and soil composition,\u201d according to the release.<\/p>\n

The controllers and the water donation are not the only things the church is doing to conserve water.<\/p>\n

Water-wise landscaping has been a part of the church\u2019s plans for 20 years.<\/p>\n

The church is phasing out decorative or \u201cnonfunctional\u201d grass at new meetinghouses or renovated buildings, the church release said.<\/p>\n

\"\"A meetinghouse of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Clearfield, Utah, before and after a shift to a water-wise landscape. | The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints <\/p>\n

For example, the church is removing nonfunctional grass completely \u2014 or significantly reducing it \u2014 in notoriously dry southern Utah, Arizona and southern Nevada.<\/p>\n

Drought-tolerant grass mixes have also been introduced in some green spaces to reduce water usage.<\/p>\n

The church is encouraging its members to report leaking pipes or broken or malfunctioning sprinkler heads to local leaders, as well as to reduce water use on their own properties.<\/p>\n

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Studies have largely debunked the idea that there are health benefits to alcohol consumption, and drinking in the United States has hit a new low as health concerns about drinking rise<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Jen Pawol became the first woman to umpire a Major League Baseball game over the weekend. I loved what her crew chief said: \u201cThis is one of the proudest moments in all my career,\u201d crew chief Chris Guccione said. \u201cI\u2019ve been blessed with working playoffs, I\u2019ve worked two World Series, All-Star games, and this is right up there. It gives me chills even thinking about it. And the magnitude, it just hit me just now the magnitude of this thing and how hard she\u2019s worked. This is just a great role model for girls and women out there and I\u2019m just so proud of her. This is a special moment. I\u2019m so proud of her<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Behind the scenes\"\"A water-wise landscape surrounds a chapel in Salt Lake City, Utah. | The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints \"\"A meetinghouse of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in St. George, Utah, before and after a shift to a water-wise landscape. | The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints \"\"In Arizona, water-wise plants are used in landscaping at church meetinghouses in Mesa. | The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints \"\"A meetinghouse of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Castle Dale, Utah, before and after a shift to a water-wise landscape. | The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This article was first published in the ChurchBeat newsletter. Sign up to receive the newsletter in your inbox…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":147150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[746,974,159,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-147149","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-news-feed-national","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115031440865328742","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}