Two Water Reports, One Question: What Global Experts Say About Eagle Mountain’s Water Future

Utah’s water challenges are no longer being described as a future risk, they are now being cited as part of a global pattern. A new international study known as the Global Water Bankruptcy report warns that many arid regions have crossed a threshold where water use consistently exceeds what nature can replenish, leading to permanent losses in groundwater, lakes, and ecosystems. The report specifically points to the Great Salt Lake as an example of human-driven system failure and identifies conditions common across the American West, including Utah, that place fast-growing communities under increasing pressure as water-intensive development continues.

These findings align with U.S. Geological Survey research, which has documented long-term groundwater declines and reduced inflows to the Great Salt Lake driven primarily by upstream water use rather than drought alone.

As Eagle Mountain continues rapid growth and attracts water-intensive development such as data centers, two major water studies, five years apart and written at vastly different scales, arrive at a similar conclusion: long-term water sustainability depends on assumptions that are far less certain than they appear on paper.

The first is the Eagle Mountain City Water and Reuse Optimization Study, presented to the City Council in 2020 by engineering firm EMC. The second is the 2025–2026 Global Water Bankruptcy report, produced by international water researchers examining systemic water failure worldwide.

While the reports differ in scope, they converge on key risks — and where they diverge, the newer report raises concerns that sharpen the implications of Eagle Mountain’s earlier planning.

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Both reports agree on the same three arguments.

Both reports converge on three core findings. First, legal water rights do not guarantee long-term physical water availability; both documents warn that allocations on paper can exceed what hydrologic systems can reliably supply. Second, groundwater is identified as the most fragile component of the system, requiring strict sustainable pumping limits and continuous monitoring rather than assumptions of long-term stability. Third, both reports conclude that water reuse is necessary to delay shortages, while cautioning that reuse does not eliminate underlying supply constraints.

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Red Flags raised by the global report

While the two studies agree on risks, the global report challenges several assumptions underlying Eagle Mountain’s 2020 projections.

1. Reliance on Historical Conditions

EMC’s long-range water planning is built on historic groundwater recharge rates and projected water deliveries extending decades into the future. The Global Water Bankruptcy report directly challenges that approach, warning that “historical hydrology is no longer a reliable baseline for future water planning under climate change.” This does not invalidate EMC’s modeling or its underlying methodology, but it does suggest that future conditions may diverge more quickly, and less predictably, than long-term projections assume, narrowing the margin for error in water planning decisions.

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2. Thin Margins of Error

EMC’s own figures show that Eagle Mountain’s water system remains viable only if multiple variables align as planned, including the realization of reuse credits, the availability of imported water, timely infrastructure construction, and necessary regulatory approvals. The Global Water Bankruptcy report cautions that this type of planning carries inherent risk, noting that “water systems fail not when water disappears, but when safety margins disappear.” In practical terms, this reframes EMC’s projected timelines not as guarantees of future supply, but as conditional pathways that depend on sustained performance across several interconnected factors.

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3. Concentrated Industrial Demand

EMC’s analysis treats industrial users, including data centers, as a manageable demand category within its long-range projections. The Global Water Bankruptcy report adds a critical qualifier to that assumption, stating that “concentrated industrial demand in arid regions accelerates systemic water stress, even when individual facilities are efficient.” In other words, while efficiency improvements may reduce water use at individual facilities, the report emphasizes that cumulative demand from clustered, high-use industries can still erode system resilience in dry, fast-growing regions.

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What the Reports Do Not Say

Importantly, neither report calls for halting development, banning data centers, or declaring Eagle Mountain unsustainable.

Instead, both stress management, transparency, and adaptation.

As the global report summarizes: “Water bankruptcy is not inevitable — but it requires confronting limits early, not after systems fail.”

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What This Means for Eagle Mountain

Taken together, the two reports present a consistent message:

• The 2020 EMC study correctly identified Eagle Mountain’s vulnerabilities.
• The Global Water Bankruptcy report reinforces those risks and warns they may materialize faster under climate stress and cumulative demand.
• Long-term success depends less on projections — and more on how quickly assumptions are revisited when conditions change.

The central question raised by both documents is not whether Eagle Mountain has water rights, but how resilient the system remains if growth, climate, or demand shift faster than expected.

That question is likely to shape water policy discussions across Utah County in the years ahead.

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Editor’s note: This article is based on the 2020 Eagle Mountain City Water and Reuse Optimization Study and the 2025–2026 Global Water Bankruptcy report. Both documents are public and were reviewed in full by the Sentinel.

U.S. Geological Survey, Water Use and Water Budget of the Great Salt Lake Basin, accessed January 2026, https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/great-salt-lake-water-use.

Photo by Paul Jewkes on Unsplash