Though I'm not sure it's a good idea to pipe ocean water to the Great Salt Lake:

the basic idea of piping ocean water inland isn't a bad idea on many fronts if you live anywhere west of Colorado, Utah, Arizona or New Mexico. 

Here in California we already pipe water after creating canals to take it south from northern California which travels in these canals (often called "The American Canal"). It travels south along the Sacramento Valley and if you have traveled from Stockton to around Lebec you can often see the canal driving south or north on Interstate 5. Then they pump it uphill over the coastal range into the Los Angeles County area. I guess how they made this work was to build the piping over the coastal range then close the valves on either side then pump up the water to fill the pipes over the coastal range which goes up to 4000 or 5000 feet in elevation but they probably brought it to Los Angeles over a lower altitude if possible. Once the pipes were filled with water it was possible to use the siphon effect because the water down down the other side would help the water coming up as well. So, the pumps wouldn't have to work as hard with the downward weight of the water on the Los Angeles side helps pull up the water on the Sacramento Valley side. So, what I'm saying is it likely would be possible to effectively move ocean water to Utah. 

The biggest problem likely would be pumping salt water through the pumps because salt water can be corrosive or clogging to water pipes and the pump mechanisms themselves. So, to me, pumping sea water to the Great Salt Lake might not be a bad idea if only to set a precedent in moving water from the sea further inland so it could be then changed into Fresh water at the end point of it's journey, especially because of the droughts we have experienced since around 2000.

So, shipping ocean water into the U.S. is likely necessary at some point from California, Oregon and Washington coasts to as far inland as places like Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Nevada and other states that often have bad droughts (at least since around 2000 AD).

However, the ideal way to move water to Utah or other states from the ocean would be to convert it to fresh water before you sent it there. This would be better for pipes and pumps to keep working by doing this ongoing.