If farmers can grow alfalfa cheaply enough when the water isn't free, by being more efficient with water usage, then they will continue to do so because it will be profitable. If it's not profitable, then they'll stop growing alfalfa.
We don't need to make laws about agriculture in particular; simply start charging people for the resources they use, and market forces will grind to dust anyone who uses resources inefficiently.
If your great, great grandfather was a pioneer and moved into the SLC valley 150 years ago- a particularly harsh and rugged place, and then started a small farm that was perfectly sustainable, but then millions of transplants moved in, what exactly makes them so entitled to the water under your property? Sounds like theft to me.
Less government wouldn’t prevent this outcome. A more just one that doesn’t ignore the rights of natives would.
I’m actually curious how people make arguments while referring to a completely different period of time with its own problems.
All those low life expectancy numbers were due to high infant- and childhood-mortality rates.
That nitpick aside, yeah gramps’ prior claim should not be given the weight it has.
And if you are going to go "property is theft", well, you're going to have to justify that with more than just the slogan itself, because it's a huge change, and the bigger the change the more justification you need for it. And you're going to have a hard sell, because people like owning stuff.
But also, federal/state/municipal authorities do eminent seizure on private property all the time, when it is necessary for a larger public need. Forcing title holders to sell back their "water rights" and then putting them on level footing isn't that much different, is it?
In theory states could seize those water rights through eminent domain (or a similar process) but under the 5th Amendment the state would have to pay fair market value for this. That would be enormously expensive. States would have to raise taxes on everyone to fund that, which would be political suicide.
Water allocation rights are generally use-it-or-lose-it, so early water rights are incentivized to make even marginally productive use of their full allocation, rather than to leave it for other higher-value use.
Didn't the Nestle CEO say something like this and everyone crucified him?
Alfalfa water usage per acre is not much different than that of spinach, tomato, lettuce, wheat, or corn. As an aggregate it uses more water because (1) there is a lot of acreage of alfalfa, and (2) it can be grown nearly year around.
Furthermore, its water efficiency (how much is produced per unit of water used) is high.
If water costs go up some farmers might be able to make more money then by switching to alfalfa since it is more efficient.
California too. While they were making it illegal for restaurants to hand out drinking water without asking, big ag carried on. It's so silly it can't be a real conservation concern, probably was just some divide and conquer from the industry.
I think the main thing to know is that water is not like electricity. There is not a grid. Every municipal system has circumstances completely unique to it.
30% looks reasonable to me. That is 70% are sold locally.
Does other water-using industries exports around the same percentage?
Alfalfa fed to local cows that are consumed locally keeps the water in our ecosystem, within the bounds of our natural water cycle. Alfalfa fed to cows overseas exports our water overseas, so it doesn't reenter the water cycle locally, and it may never find its way back (on human timescales).
You can think of it as having a trade deficit for water—we're not importing it in sufficient quantities to make up for our exports, and the result is that our local environment gradually dries out. Wetter climates don't have that problem because water that evaporates from the ocean can be treated as unlimited.
Edit: Clarified a few things.
The water doesn't physically go into the final shipped alfalfa in meaningful quantities. 99.9% of the water that is used in growing alfalfa evaporates, or ends up in the ground, and it doesn't matter whether the remaining 0.1% that actually ends up, and stays inside the plant gets exported to Mars, or consumed locally.
When growing alfalfa, 100 tonnes of water is used to produce ~300lb of biomass. When you're sourcing those 100 tonnes unsustainably, it really doesn't matter whether you export the 300lb, or not.
You're blaming a foreign boogieman for a domestic, self-inflicted problem.
My extended family are cattle ranchers in southern Utah, and a lot of alfalfa is grown to feed cattle in the winter. A lot of the weight of a bundle of alfalfa is water - probably most of it when freshly harvested. When processed, it's left to dry for a while, but the alfalfa that gets sold is probably still 10-20% water.
Our ranch doesn't sell the alfalfa we grow, but there are plenty of massive , industrial scale, operations near our ranch that exclusively sell alfalfa on foreign markets. At their scale, not shipping alfalfa overseas would make a meaningful dent in the problem. It wouldn't solve it entirely, but it would likely have a greater impact than people not washing their cars.
And for every liter of water that's left in dry alfalfa, it took ~4,000 liters of water to grow it.
You, like the parent poster, are making a huge mistake, in thinking that that one liter that's getting exported is at all a meaningful part of the water sustainability problem with going alfalfa in a desert. It's not. The unsustainable part of it is the other 3999 liters.
'Don't export alfalfa grown in a desert' optimizes the part that isn't important. 'Don't grow alfalfa in a desert' is what people actually need to be doing.
In my opinion, exporting any amount of water is too much.
Saying that doesn't mean I'm unaware of the other ways in which water could be better managed.
Alfa-alfa is grown here, packaged and shipped to Saudi-Arabia because it's cheaper this way than for Saudi-Arabia to desalinate water and grown their own stuff.
Yet my water bill is going up by 6%.
It's still a problem, but we need to keep in mind that maybe we shouldn't be farming so much animal feed in general. We'd still lose this water if we kept the feed local.
If you used a 1000000 kg of water to grow alfalfa, you'd get around 25000 kg of alfalfa (which would contain 5000 kg of water and 20000 kg of other stuff).
So for every 5000 kg of water that is in that alfalfa when shipped around 995000 kg of water stays.
Not sure we want china firing freshwater ice at utah on a ballistic trajectory?
<this is a funny joke post don’t freak out man>
Both are largely influenced by one overwhelming organization with nearly infinite money. If you live in Utah you know who i'm talking about.
They don't care about the environment and they aren't overly concerned with public health. Yet most politicians in Utah will only get and stay in power with their blessing and approval. Thats why Utah has had the same senator for 42 years.
We need the utah public to wake up and vote with some intelligence to get people in power who want to and can actually make change and care about these things.
I lived in Utah for almost 2 decades (as an adult). I moved out 5 years ago and it was the absolute best decision I ever made.
You can cherry pick anything to suit a narrative.
Orin Hatch served 42 years; his successor is serving only one term. What does that mean?
I agree that it isn't unique, but why does it matter? The point isn't that it is a unique situation, the point is that Utahns are being underserved by their officials.
Example: This recent donation of agricultural water rights that they owned, to divert the water into lake preservation instead.
https://naturalresources.utah.gov/dnr-newsfeed/church-donate...
I live in Oregon where the majority of people live in a tiny corner of the state (the Portland Metro area) which is Democrat heavy. The rest of the state is mainly populated with rural Republican-leaning conservatives. The rural portion of the state is essentially constantly mimicking you about how the entire state government is controlled by Democrats and how “We need the Oregon public to wake up and vote with some intelligence to get people in power who want to and can actually make change and care about these things.” It has gotten to the point where they want the majority of the counties in the state to secede and join themselves to Idaho. Of course, there is no more chance of that happening than you trying to convince the majority conservative Utah population to not vote for conservative candidates. And, the Oregon liberal majority will keep voting for liberal candidates.
Salt Lake City requested that residents reduce usage to keep enough drinking water in the reservoirs. This is pretty separate from the lake and upstream farming issues, no? I think the canyon runoff goes to Utah lake and not GSL? Some places legitimately went very very low on drinking water last year due to low runoff and high usage. I think it’s important to care about both watering lawns and the salt lake.
Depends on the canyon. The canyons in Salt Lake County go to the GSL; the canyons on the Wasatch Back go to either the Provo River (and then Utah Lake) or the Weber River (and then the GSL).
Israel gets over 55% of their water from desalination.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/israel-proves-the...
Water problems are simply a political\planning failure. There is no real shortage of water.
The west coast has a water problem, the tools to solve it, and complete one-party control of politics to make it happen. They are choosing not to though.
You Utah folks obviously don’t have an ocean sitting next to you, but perhaps if the west coast used less of the Colorado river there would be more for you.
Also the GSL water is entirely divorced from the CO river water.
If they stopped using water from the Colorado, there would be more water for Utah to take from it.
States up the river use less water in order to leave some for the states down river. So if the states downriver stopped using it, then states upstream could increase their usage.
I am not suggesting that Utah desalinate the Pacific Ocean or that Utah desalinate the great salt lake. I am saying they should increase their usage of water from the Colorado River.
If California stopped using the Colorado river for water, then Utah could pull more water from the Colorado.
Water can be moved in pipelines or controlled via a manmade river/channel.