Utah's Education System Is About to Face Its Biggest Test. How Leaders Plan to Meet It.
| Tech Buzz| April 24, 2026 | Mark Tullis |
“Before anyone talked about demographic cliffs or artificial intelligence, Travis Allred of Envision Utah laid down the data that would anchor everything else: a decade of research into what Utah residents actually want from education.
The short answer is that Utahns want three things, in roughly this order. They want education to create a better quality of life — to lift families, including out of poverty. They want students to gain the confidence to pursue their goals and be agile enough to handle whatever life throws at them. And they want education to produce citizens who contribute to a stronger community.”
New Salt Lake County tool helps visualize water use — and what’s not reaching the Great Salt Lake
| Fox13 Now | April 21, 2026 | Nate Larsen |
“If you haven’t been to the Great Salt Lake lately, the impact is hard to miss. Lower water levels, an expanding shoreline, and ongoing concerns about the lake’s future are all on display. Now, Salt Lake County leaders are hoping a new visualization tool will help people better understand why — and what can be done about it.
Inside the Salt Lake County Government Center, a new display uses blue marbles to represent water. Each marble equals about 10,000 acre-feet, giving a visual breakdown of where water goes across the Great Salt Lake Basin, and how much of it never makes it back to the lake.”
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Envision Utah is focused on bringing awareness on what we need to do to prepare for a big earthquake
| Fox 13 | March 19, 2026 | The PLACE |
“Six years ago a 5.7 earthquake shook Magna and was felt across the Wasatch Front.
Many people consider it a wake-up call to prepare for the "big one".
We know Utah is due for a major earthquake sometime in the next 50 years.
Envision Utah Communications Coordinator Allegra Sturdevant, says when most people think of preparing for an earthquake, they think about individual preparedness.
Envision Utah's campaign, funded by FEMA, is focused on bringing awareness to what we need to do as a state/communities to prepare.”
University of Utah professor launches new air quality app to keep residents informed
| Fox 13 | Jan 12, 2026 | Caroleina Hassett |
“SALT LAKE CITY — It may just look like a haze, but poor air quality is inevitable, especially during the winter.
“I think of air quality almost as the silent killer,” said Professor Derek Mallia with the University of Utah’s Department of Atmospheric Science. "If you're exposed to enough poor air quality over your lifespan, it can definitely impact the quality of your life.”
That haze can be caused by weather-based inversions…
“If we can turn off your car when you're waiting in the carpool line, not idle as much as possible,” said Jason Brown with Envision Utah, "taking TRAX or FrontRunner or even carpooling or working remotely… those things can reduce a lot of the tailpipe emissions that we typically see coming from cars.”
Utah’s 2065 projections see 2M more people, and a birth rate that keeps falling
| KUER | Nov 18, 2025 | Sean Higgins |
“With strong projections, perennial issues like housing affordability, water and quality of life will still be top of mind for many Utahns, something Envision Utah CEO Jason Brown is keeping a close eye on.
“I think it is hard to look at some of these numbers and honestly, not get a little bit worried about, you know, all the change that's going to be coming,” he said. “Utah has always been a pretty rapidly growing place, and we've been able to build a great quality of life in the face of all that growth.”
Utah will also continue to get older. The state has traditionally had big families and a high birth rate, but declining births, longer life expectancies and more people moving here for jobs mean an overall older population in the coming decades.”
Utah on pace to add 2 million people over the next 40 years, but is growth slowing?
| KSL.com | Nov 18, 2025 | Carter Williams |
“Utah remains on pace to add 2 million more people over the next 40 years, but the state's rate of growth may continue to slide over the next few decades, according to a new projection of statewide population trends.
The Beehive State's population, which recently surpassed 3.5 million, is projected to surpass 5.5 million by 2065, per the updated long-term planning projection released by the University of Utah Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute on Tuesday. It's the institute's first update to long-term projections since 2022, when experts estimated Utah's population could come close to 5.5 million by 2060.
The findings can help leaders prepare for growth in a way that preserves the state's current quality of life, said Jason Brown, CEO of the statewide growth planning nonprofit Envision Utah, after reading the report…”