53% of Utah Voters Have Changed Their Water Habits, Rural Residents Lead the Way

Water is a topic Utahns can’t avoid.

A spring poll asked voters what they’ve actually done about it, and the answers differed depending on where people live.

Here’s what they said they changed.

Who Ran the Poll and How

The poll comes from the Deseret News and the Hinckley Institute of Politics.

Morning Consult ran the survey.

The survey asked 802 registered voters in May 2026 about their water use. The Deseret News published the results on May 27.

A poll asks a group of people the same questions, then treats their answers as a rough picture of everyone like them.

Each percentage you’ll read here comes from what those voters said about themselves, not from a water meter.

The story on the May results gives no margin of error.

So, we don’t recommend reading much into gaps of a few points.

These are the poll’s findings on who changed their water habits and how, starting with the overall share.

Car Washing and Flushing

About half of the voters polled, 53%, said they changed their behavior to help conserve water.

The Deseret News story put numbers on two of those habits.

A little under half, 45%, reported washing their car less often.

About a quarter, 24%, said they flushed the toilet less often.

Both percentages are shares of all respondents.

If you’ve cut back on flushing, there’s a catch for the Great Salt Lake.

The chair of the Great Salt Lake Advisory Council said saving water indoors makes little difference to the lake.

Water used inside the home mostly goes down the drain rather than being used up.

Outdoors is different.

Water used on lawns doesn’t go back into the city’s water system.

Rural, Suburban and Urban Voters

In the poll, rural residents had the highest share, with 65% saying they changed their behavior to conserve water.

Suburban residents followed at 60%.

Urban residents were well behind at 37%, a 28-point gap from rural residents.

Rural and suburban residents were both well ahead of urban residents, though the 5-point gap between those two groups may not mean much.

If you live in a city, you’re in the group least likely to report changes, while your suburban and rural counterparts reported far more.

Latter-day Saint Voters

In the May poll, Latter-day Saints reported changing their water consumption at 62%, above the average.

The Deseret News phrased this result as changing water consumption, not changing behavior.

That wording differs from the 53% overall figure, so you shouldn’t treat the two as a perfect match.

Next to the location results, 62% is near the suburban figure and a bit below the rural figure.

If you’re a Latter-day Saint, that puts your group above the poll’s overall result.

March Poll Results

An earlier poll from the same partners ran in March, when Morning Consult questioned 800 registered voters between March 6 and 10.

That online poll had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

If you watered your lawn less in March, you were in the majority.

Gen X and baby boomer voters were equally likely to cut lawn watering, at 68% each.

Car washing was a bit higher in March, at 47%, though the 2-point difference is smaller than March's 3-point margin of error.

March put flushing at about 1 in 5, a rounded figure that makes a comparison with May's number hard to judge.

Outdoor Water Use

The March poll's lawn-watering habit targets where much of the state's water goes.

Conserve Water Utah puts the outdoor share at about 60% of the municipal and industrial water used in the state.

That category covers residential, commercial, industrial and institutional use, so your yard is part of it.

The Utah Division of Water Resources publishes a lawn-watering guide with recommendations for your area and lawn type.

The guide assumes you apply half an inch of water with each irrigation event, and its advice shifts weekly with the weather.

Utah State University offers Water Checks on lawn sprinklers from mid to late May through late August.

The service is free.

The program's page lists the Salt Lake City utility service area, which includes Millcreek, along with Sandy City, and points other areas to a do-it-yourself version.

Concern About the Great Salt Lake

Worry about the Great Salt Lake ran well above the 53% who changed their habits.

The poll put concern about the lake's water levels at 86% in May, up from 81% in March.

That included 51% of voters who were very concerned and 35% who were somewhat concerned.

Another 3% said they weren't concerned at all.

Concern was 88% among rural residents and 89% among suburban residents.

Urban concern was 81%.

Between rural and urban voters, worry differed by 7 points, while behavior differed by 28.

The council chair said people in farming communities deal with water constantly and see how it's distributed.

If you're a Millennial, your generation ranked highest for concern, ahead of baby boomers, Gen X and Gen Z, though the story printed no percentages.

Drought and Lake Levels

When the Deseret News reported the March poll, statewide reservoir storage was 68%, just above the median for that time of year.

If you've lived in the state for 25 years, you've seen drought conditions of some kind in 22 of them.

Governor Spencer Cox declared a statewide drought emergency after a warm, dry winter.

He also asked residents to use water carefully over the summer.

The Great Salt Lake commissioner said the lake needs 261 billion gallons of water added to address its 'serious adverse effects' status.

That's 800,000 acre-feet.