Director of Natural Resources
Compass Minerals International
Bio:
Joe Havasi is the Director of Natural Resources for Compass Minerals International (CMP) of Overland Park, Kansas. Joe is responsible for managing real estate, mineral reserves, water rights, and land-use planning. Joe is a geologist by training, having completed undergraduate studies at Denison University, a small liberal arts school in Ohio, completed coursework towards a Masters in Geology at The Ohio State University, and received an MBA in Finance from Youngstown State University. Joe has worked in a variety of roles and capacities, from drill helper, Project Geologist for URS Corporation (now AECOM) before spending five years at Lafarge North America in Cleveland as a Land Manager. Joe joined Compass Minerals in 2010 to lead its Natural Resources function and resides in Salt Lake City, Utah. Joe has two children, Joe (22) and Megan (20). Joe enjoys skiing, hiking and camping.
Title: Salinity Exports for Great Salt Lake
Abstract: The salt content (or salinity) of Great Salt Lake is a defining characteristic of that body of water. As a terminal lake, the GSL is a repository or “bank” for the minerals carried in from historic and ongoing hydrogeologic processes that are carried out over a wide area. Those minerals play important factors related to biologic diversity, economic extraction, local weather and other unexpected processes related to Great Salt Lake. The balance in the “bank account” of minerals however isn’t without withdrawals. Salt leaves the Lake via mineral extraction. Salt leaves the lake system through political decisions. Salts leave the lake in unexpected ways including atmospheric and biological process. Understanding how the minerals of the Lake enter and exit will aid in the management and preservation of Great Salt Lake and enhance life for those living in the area.
Title: Keeping it in the Lake: Compass Minerals' Conservation Water Right
Abstract: The Compass Minerals Ogden Site, formerly known as Great Salt Lake Minerals, Inc., has been operating on the eastern shore of Great Salt Lake at informal boundary Bear River Bay and Ogden Bay since 1970. Compass Minerals produces essential minerals that keep roadways safe in winter months, and sulfate of potash (SOP) that provides an essential plant nutrient to various orchard and nut crops, and turf grasses. Compass Minerals is the largest domestic producer of SOP in the Western Hemisphere and employs more than 300 people and is a valuable contributor to the $1.3B economic engine derived from Great Salt Lake (GSL).
As Compass Minerals developed its evaporation pond footprint incrementally in the 1970s and 1980s, the Company procured a conservation water right that was intended to serve as mitigation for an additional pond in Bear River Bay that was never constructed. The conservation water right would have utilized in Bear River Bay and ultimately donated to the State of Utah, Division of Wildlife. This water right is a positive legacy from the original Bear River Bay expansion planning and has remained idle and not yet put to its intended use. Upon recognition of the potential of this conservation water right, Compass Minerals reached out to FRIENDS of the Great Salt Lake in 2013 to initiate a discussion of how best to protect, apply, and utilize this water right. The participants in the conversation have grown dramatically, including stakeholders from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Utah Division of Water Rights, staff from the State of Utah Governor’s Office, Audubon, and Utah Division of Water Quality. Alternatives considered generally involved moving the Place of Use of the water right to one or more of the various State and Federal Wildlife Management Areas adjacent to, or in, Bear River Bay, including Salt Creek WMA, Harold Crane WMA, Ogden Bay WMA, and Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. In the analysis, consideration was given to the current water rights held by these areas, latent capacity to receive more, and juxtaposition to Compass Minerals’ water right; it is important to not ‘leapfrog’ intervening water rights positioned between current Point of Diversion, and potential receiving areas to avoid impairment of the intervening water rights. From this discussion and analysis, we collectively recognized that the water right may provide a solution to the recognized need for Willard Spur to receive annual flushing flows, and preserving rich wildlife utilization of this valuable sub-basin within Bear River Bay.
Independent of Compass Minerals analysis of how best to manage the conservation water right, a Hydrology Assessment of Willard Spur, 2011 – 2013 (“Hydrology Assessment”) was prepared by CH2MHill for the Utah Division of Water Quality (“UDWQ”) in conjunction with development of water quality standards for Willard Spur. The work identified the need for annual “flushing flows” from the Refuge into the Willard Spur sub-basin to freshen the water and continue to support ecosystem services (namely avian uses which are reliant on the delicate invertebrate microbiology of Willard Spur) while at the same time enabling the Perry/Willard Regional Wastewater Water Treatment Plant (“Perry/Willard POTW”) to increase discharge from its facility into the Willard Spur.
As part of the investigations undertaken for the Hydrology Assessment, UDWQ worked with the USGS and the Refuge to install flow monitoring stations at 11 outlet structures along the Refuge’s D-line Dike. These stations operated nearly continuously from April 2011 through November 2013 and documented flow rates and volumes, with the exception of winter flows. This record period represents both extremely wet years and extremely dry years. Volume and flow of water from the outlet structures can vary greatly from year to year.
Studies and data collection in Willard Spur continued after the Hydrology Assessment was released in 2016. The Willard Spur Conservation Action Plan resulted from a workshop in January 2018 hosted by UDWQ. The Conservation Action Plan built upon the efforts of the Willard Spur Science Panel and Steering Committee and helped to facilitate the transfer of knowledge developed through the study efforts to broader conservation planning efforts for this ecosystem. All of these studies and the work of stakeholders and agencies resulted in the Utah Legislature’s creation of the “Willard Spur Waterfowl Management Area” through House Bill 265 passed in the 2019 Utah Legislative General Session. The WMA is owned by Utah and will be managed by the Division of Wildlife Resources. All studies, and the DWR’s “Willard Spur Waterfowl Management Area Habitat Management Plan,” signed July 1, 2020, discuss the need for both water and water rights in the WMA.
This talk will highlight how the convergence of our analysis and the supporting science generated the Willard Spur Hydrology Assessment has culminated in a plan to deploy and donate the conservation right to meet the important needs of Willard Spur Waterfowl Management Area’s habitat.