[HN Gopher] Emergency measures needed to rescue Great Salt Lake ...
___________________________________________________________________
Emergency measures needed to rescue Great Salt Lake from ongoing
collapse
Author : Kaibeezy
Score : 206 points
Date : 2023-01-06 16:17 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (pws.byu.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (pws.byu.edu)
| ianbutler wrote:
| Maybe because I can conceptualize "in 5 years" a lot easier than
| some other ecological disasters we have ongoing on the scale of
| "in 100 years" but I found reading this to have a more profound
| impact on me than other pleas.
|
| Hopefully it will have the same impact on those in charge.
| nerdponx wrote:
| Sounds like it's basically too late already unless Utah pulls
| the e-brake on water use.
| BuffaloBagel wrote:
| Utahn here. We don't have a water problem so much as we have an
| alfalfa problem. It consumes most of our water with very little
| economic benefit to the state as a whole.
| moloch-hai wrote:
| Likewise, California: alfalfa and almonds, with a side of
| pomegranates.
| goldmint wrote:
| [dead]
| csharpminor wrote:
| There are many reasons this is bad, but personally I find the
| arsenic release to be the scariest. If I were starting a family
| in SLC I would be thinking hard about if it's where I want to
| stay long term.
|
| Really hope the policymakers are able to find a path forward
| here.
| lost_tourist wrote:
| Arsenic release is more scary than running completely out of
| water? Both are solved by the same mechanism, water
| conservation and prioritization over profits of 3% of the
| farmers. Seems like a no-brainer, but right wing christian
| conservatives in Utah won't realize that until it's too late.
| csharpminor wrote:
| Where does the report say that lake collapse would cause the
| region to completely run out of water?
| thenerdhead wrote:
| One of the things you learn about Utah history is prehistoric
| Lake Bonneville which used to cover majority of Utah. The Great
| Salt Lake is the remnant of it and many of the popular tourist
| attractions have names representing the high shoreline as it
| continued to lower in its regression phase.
|
| Ever since I was a kid I was taught that the Great Salt Lake
| would eventually dry up(not in my lifetime). But each year I
| lived there and would drive by or fly in a small plane across it,
| I would see more flats and less water. Just last June I visited
| and much of Utah seemingly is becoming a dust bowl.
|
| I think it is way too late to save it. But we will see plenty of
| people point fingers at those in charge today, those growing
| crops, and residential usage when the reality is that this was
| hardly talked about in terms of sustainability decades ago when
| it was at its highest.
|
| Also see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea
| troyvit wrote:
| This reminds me of another recent news story where the state of
| Kansas finally admitted that a) their plan had always been to
| completely drain the Ogallala aquifer and b) as of December
| 2022 maybe that wasn't the best plan.
|
| https://kansasreflector.com/2022/12/15/its-time-to-deal-with...
| 1auralynn wrote:
| Yeah I watched Ken Burns' Dust Bowl series, curious to find
| out how the dust bowl was resolved. Long story short, it was
| solved by pumping water from the aquifers which will
| eventually run out.
| tremon wrote:
| I think you're right. I was struck by this line in the article:
|
| > The choices we make over the next few months will affect our
| state and ecosystems throughout the West for decades to come
|
| That's a big bag of wishful thinking. What they're actually
| saying is "the choices we have made over the past decades have
| effected the current state of the ecosystems in this area, and
| there's only a few months left to undo those decisions."
| mysterydip wrote:
| Reminds me a bit of football games where one team plays
| poorly the whole game, then complains they lost because the
| kicker missed an impossibly long field goal on the last play
| of the game.
| garbagecoder wrote:
| This is what they voted for.
| [deleted]
| fzeroracer wrote:
| Unfortunately, I doubt they'll take any sort of actual action to
| fix the problem. Most of the water is used for agriculture and a
| significant voting bloc that will block any solutions that
| involve water rationing or reducing. The local government being
| entirely in the pocket of business-oriented Republicans also
| means they're not likely to do anything that would significantly
| affect the bottom line of agricultural businesses. Or anything
| that would affect the middle upper class that uses a lot of cheap
| water for their gardens and what not.
|
| So I don't see much hope for this until the storms of toxic dust
| from the now empty lakebed spur people into action. By then
| though it'll be too late.
| Peritract wrote:
| > We recommend setting an emergency streamflow requirement of at
| least 2.5 million acre-feet per year until the lake reaches its
| minimum healthy elevation of 4,198 feet
|
| Targeting recovery at reaching - not even sustaining - the
| minimum level just means that the problem will continually
| reoccur.
| lazide wrote:
| It's a bit like setting a budget target at at 'doesn't
| hemorrhage cash'. Better than 'rapidly increasing flood of red
| ink' I guess?
| londons_explore wrote:
| Luckily the rename will be easy.
|
| We just change maps from "Great Salt Lake" to "Great Salt
| Plains".
| irrational wrote:
| What dam? Are you thinking of Lake Powell on the border of Utah
| and Arizona?
| monkaiju wrote:
| The GSL wasn't formed from a dam. Its the remnants of Lake
| Bonneville
| Kaibeezy wrote:
| Salt flats all over the place in that basin. Once were lakes.
| "Great Salt Flat" seems most likely.
| barbazoo wrote:
| This is not a lake created by a dam, is it? It seems to have
| existed for thousands of years so I don't get the implication
| that this lake is returning to it's former state.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Salt_Lake
| lazide wrote:
| Well, it kinda is - if the dam is 'the mountains'. It's
| trapped by geology.
|
| It's varied from 'nothing' to 'massive inland lake larger
| than most states' over 10's and hundreds of thousands of
| years.
| brudgers wrote:
| Yes, the Great Salt Lake is an effect of an endorheic
| watershed.
| fallingfrog wrote:
| Along with Lake Mead, the ogalla aquifer.. That whole area is
| turning from semi-arid to desert. Time to start moving people
| away. If I was in charge of those areas, I'd start by buying up
| and closing farms in order to perform a controlled shutdown of
| the agricultural sector in those states. The people would leave
| on their own without the industry there. Without agriculture, the
| water inputs and outputs would be balanced, at least for the
| present.
|
| There really isn't a choice here between shutting down
| agriculture in the southwest vs not shutting it down. The only
| choice is between doing it in a planned, gradual way, or in an
| unplanned, chaotic way. Do you want this plane to crash, or do
| you want it to land?
| grapescheesee wrote:
| Water resources are the ultimate control vector. Its not parties,
| or states, its power. It is very real how little is being done,
| and scapegoats are everywhere.
| NorthOf33rd wrote:
| The reality is that Utah is a theocracy, and BYU (the LDS Church)
| publishing this is actually a huge step toward positive change.
| Now the First Presidency can take a stand. If they do take a
| strong stand I'd expect to see radical changes. If, on the other
| hand, the LDS Church continues to remain silent, I would expect
| the environmental catastrophe to continue to lurch forward.
| sphars wrote:
| They also made a statement last year[1], about needing to
| conserve water a lot more and be responsible. They've also
| taken the steps to reduce water usage at their facilities and
| allow grounds to become brown and dormant, and use better
| solutions for future use. A lot of the buildings in my area
| stopped watering the lawns (I live in Utah).
|
| It's not much but a step in the right direction.
|
| [1]: https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/drought-
| wat...
| Kim_Bruning wrote:
| It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. If Utah pulls
| back from the brink, possibly there is hope for other situations
| too.
| denvaar wrote:
| I live in Salt Lake and most of the time when I mention this
| issue to friends or family it isn't even on their radar, but this
| is likely going to cause my wife and I to move somewhere else.
| It's too bad because this is such a great place to live and its
| where our family is at. We usually have a really bad inversion in
| the winter time, and it seems like the summers for the last few
| years have been filled with wildfire smoke. I'm sick of
| constantly worrying about the quality of the air I am breathing.
| NorthOf33rd wrote:
| The giant dust storms are new too. I was just driven out myself
| and it was with a heavy heart, but I couldn't take the air
| quality anymore. I was there because I loved the outdoors, but
| there were just too many days I couldn't even be outside.
| codazoda wrote:
| I'm also from North of SLC. I once read that this area was
| originally called Smokey Valley by Native American tribes that
| roamed the area but who usually avoided the valley because of
| the smoke pollution. It has something to do with how air moves
| through the area protected by the mountains and the lake. That
| was before the industrial revolution. I'm sure that the quality
| of that smoke has degraded with the burning of fossil fuels,
| but it is interesting that the area has been known as the
| "smokey valley" for at least a couple hundred years.
| gremlinsinc wrote:
| Wife and I moved down to Cedar City/Enoch area, it's nice here
| but airbnb is making rents horrible, we need a housing boom or
| something to lower housing rates but that's another issue and
| prevalent all over the state. The air here is much easier
| though, except sometimes during fire season.
|
| We were in provo, and I like the cities up there, but I don't
| think we'll ever go back. I definitely wouldn't want to live
| there when the arsenic clouds kick up.
| alexwasserman wrote:
| "...driving salinity to levels incompatible with the lake's food
| webs" - this is a fantastic was of saying everything will die.
|
| Although in a doc titled "Emergency Measures Needed" it might
| more useful to have less euphemism.
| Kaibeezy wrote:
| The title of the CNN article that alerted me to this paper is:
| _Great Salt Lake will disappear in 5 years without massive
| 'emergency rescue,' scientists say_
|
| That's a lot more blunt. Is "will disappear" editorial? I'd be
| OK with that one as an academic journal EIC.
|
| It's a variously slippery/tractive surface, sloped in many
| directions.
|
| ETA: I'm puzzled how my comment above is a detriment to
| conversation. If you see it differently, why not engage?
| shampto3 wrote:
| > Is "will disappear" editorial?
|
| It's not editorial - it's lifted from the report:
|
| > If this rate of water loss continues, the lake would be on
| track to disappear in the next five years.
| lazide wrote:
| It's quite a lot of extra salinity too considering it's already
| the great salt lake, and more salty than the oceans.
| jimmar wrote:
| Utah settlers took pride in making the "desert blossom as a rose"
| [1]. In new developments you can drive by lush green lawns, and
| see the natural, arid land on the lots right next to those lawns.
| It's going to take a massive cultural shift for people in Utah to
| take this seriously. They have to embrace the desert and stop
| trying to turn Utah into one gigantic, English garden.
|
| [1] https://zionnationalpark.com/zion-national-park/the-
| desert-s...
| shampto3 wrote:
| While I agree that Utah needs to change its ways regarding
| their green lawns, it is worth noting that according to the
| report this use case is only accounting for ~8% of water usage
| from the Great Salt Lake [1]. This is not insignificant of
| course and should be brought down to a more appropriate
| proportion; however, it appears to be the category with the
| lowest percentage [2].
|
| What needs to happen, according to the report, is that we give
| the lake back the proportion it needs to survive and then
| adjust the amount of water that everyone is using. Overall
| usage needs to go down, not just what is used for decorative
| plants.
|
| 1. From the report: "Cities and industry account for the final
| 9% of consumptive water use, of which 90% is outdoor water use
| (irrigation for lawns and other decorative plants)". 9% of 90%
| is about ~8%.
|
| 2. The report lists "reservoir loss" as 8%, but it also
| generally refers to that as indirect loss from agriculture use
| so I lump that 8% into the agriculture category.
| marze wrote:
| Reducing residential water use is a nice symbolic gesture, but
| the vast majority of available water is used to grow alfalfa
| and a few other crops.
|
| Symbolic gestures are good, but careful analysis and
| appropriate changes are needed to really make a difference.
| Sevii wrote:
| 85% of water use in Utah goes to agriculture but people focus
| on lawns because they can see them. Most water issues in the
| west are caused by contracts made back when nobody lived
| there and there was tons of water to go around. Now those
| contracts are in effect a water subsidy to legacy
| agricultural interests.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| There wasn't even as much water to go around back then as
| the contracts stated. They divided something like 20% more
| water than existed. They knew at the time that everyone was
| promised too much, but no one cared because they never hit
| the real physical limit.
| masklinn wrote:
| And weren't the measurements also based on a very wet
| year or somesuch?
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| The argument against this is that food is needed to survive
| and provides jobs for the community. Lawns are nothing but
| a nice to have.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| People focus on cities use efficiency because it is a way
| to do more with what water the cities have.
|
| If people use half as much, you can have twice the
| population with the same water budget.
|
| The only viable alternative is to purchase more water
| rights for the cities, which is generally a political non-
| starter
| nostromo wrote:
| This is partly true.
|
| The other reason is because lawns are ornamental and food
| is utilitarian.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| I'm not sure that's true, or at least not true any more. In
| the watershed that feeds the Great Salt Lake, there isn't all
| that much agriculture. There's some along the Bear River, and
| there's some around Heber. But I'd bet the lawn area in Salt
| Lake, Davis, and Utah counties is larger than the
| agricultural area.
|
| I haven't seen actual numbers though. If you have them, I'll
| listen.
| mrchucklepants wrote:
| There is much more agriculture in Utah County, particularly
| in the southern portions, and the Great Salt Lake is fed by
| the Jordan River flowing from Utah Lake.
| lazide wrote:
| See links above in this thread. Residential use (including
| lawns) is a pittance compared to agricultural use.
| jeffbee wrote:
| I think what they are arguing is looking at aggregate
| usage isn't important if that water wouldn't flow into
| the lake.
|
| We also have this disconnect in the debate around water
| in California. You could stop watering every almond grove
| in the state and that wouldn't change anything about
| major urban water supplies, because the watersheds aren't
| related.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Yeah, as lazide said, this is different. All the water
| for Salt Lake City, Ogden, Provo, and suburbs (plus
| agriculture in Salt Lake, Utah, Davis, Weber, and Summit
| counties) _would_ flow into the Great Salt Lake. It 's
| all the same watershed.
|
| Next question: Does anyone have statistics on how much of
| the precipitation in that watershed is due to the "lake
| effect"? (For those not in the know: When storms cross
| the Great Salt Lake, they pick up evaporation, which
| increases the precipitation of the storms when they get
| to the Wasatch Mountains. That precipitation then flows -
| or would flow, if not diverted - back into the lake.)
|
| If the lake dries up, so does the lake effect. That could
| reduce the amount of precipitation that we get. If it's a
| major effect, it could be big trouble for the environment
| and the economy.
| lazide wrote:
| Based on the paper, and some other comments I ran across
| [https://www.mdpi.com/2225-1154/7/5/67], it has to be
| pretty negligible overall.
|
| Evaporation has been decreasing as salinity increases and
| surface area have been shrinking, and total precipitation
| has been staying roughly the same.
|
| Which makes sense - most inflows are via precipitation on
| several large mountain ranges nearby (and relatively
| infrequent storms), and unless air movement was
| limited/locked to be solely within the great salt lake
| basin (in which case precipitation should be noticeably
| dropping, but it isn't), the air volumes from daily
| evaporation would only rarely overlap with the air
| volumes causing the large rain and snow storms in the
| mountains.
|
| Definitely still some effect though! And worth asking
| about for sure:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Salt_Lake_effect
| lazide wrote:
| Most of the issues with the Great Salt Lake are directly
| due to diverting water for agricultural, industrial, and
| residential use - in that order. See figure 5.
|
| From the paper " Agriculture dominates water use in the
| Great Salt Lake watershed (Fig. 5)25,26,69. Irrigation of
| alfalfa and other crops directly accounts for around
| three quarters of total consumptive water use..."
|
| Agricultural diversions of stream water that would
| otherwise go to the Great Salt Lake account for 74% of
| the water used.
|
| Industrial and mining, 18%, evaporation 8%, and cities
| and residential use 8%.
|
| This isn't like California.
|
| [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/366876763_Emerg
| ency...]
| woodruffw wrote:
| I've only been in the SLC area, but this is my observation as
| well -- I saw a _lot_ of lush gardening and extensive
| "beautifying" water use, including to ridiculous ends (the
| parking lot of the hotel I was in flooded because they couldn't
| be bothered to put the sprinklers on a schedule).
|
| Combined with an extractive rather than preservative
| agricultural tradition, it doesn't bode well for Utah's future.
| deet wrote:
| As a recent transplant from California to Utah, watching the
| discussions of this situation play out locally has been
| interesting.
|
| If water were well managed here, the area is potentially blessed
| over the long term compared to most of the West because there are
| large amounts of precipitation that fall on the nearby Wasatch
| and Uinta mountains. These mountains and their snow melt combined
| with the Great Sale Lake form a somewhat contained water cycle.
| It's a different situation than most southwestern metro areas
| (Vegas, Phoenix, LA) that rely on distant sources like the
| Colorado river, and the problems northern Utah faces are more
| amenable to local solutions.
|
| The culture of water use in the urban areas really is surprising
| compared to say, Southern California or Arizona. There is plenty
| of water wasted, little restrictions on sprinkler use, etc. This
| is changing though and many of my neighbors are visibly switching
| to more sustainable landscaping, with local government
| incentives.
|
| However, urban water use is not the problem even if it's what
| people see every day. The cities do not really need to stop
| growing (as a NYT piece earlier this year seemed to suggest). The
| urban areas account for only 9% of diverted water (per the
| report).
|
| The problem seems to be agriculture and trying to grow water-
| intensive crops in the arid areas west the Wasatch range. 74% of
| the diverted water is going to agriculture, and cutting that
| usage by 50% would basically meet the cited amount needed to
| restore the lake.
|
| At this point, it seems to be just a political problem: can the
| state find the political willpower to force conservation on or
| buy-out the water rights of the agricultural sector?
|
| I'm hopeful. Although the agricultural sector seems to have
| plenty of political power historically, other local industries
| have been growing far faster in economic influence and
| maintaining the health of the cities will hopefully take
| priority.
| lend000 wrote:
| This is a common trope, and while true, it should be mentioned
| that we need the food produced by this water, too. Perpetually
| drought stricken California produces more food (by value) than
| any other state in the country [0]. Sure, some of that is
| water-intensive crops like almonds and pistachios, but that
| accounts for less than 20% of the gross receipts. It isn't like
| people in urban areas aren't responsible for water that goes to
| farms -- if you eat, you are part of that cohort as well.
|
| [0] https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/Statistics/
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Water intensive crops accounting for just 20% of gross
| receipts is evidence in favor of agricultural water reform,
| not against it. These states can continue to have successful
| agricultural industries without their disastrous water usage.
| Just switching the most water intensive crops and requiring
| efficient irrigation would lead to huge water savings.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Water intensive crops is a meaningless distinction. Almonds
| and pistachio produce more calories per gallon then most
| fruits and basically all vegetables. Don't even get me
| started on grapes and wine.
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| >urban water use is not the problem even if it's what people
| see every day
|
| Urban water use (e.g. your lawn and your golf course) generates
| almost no taxable activity. Agricultural water use magically
| something that was of no value to the state into revenue.
|
| I have no hope the state curtails agricultural use before
| everything falls apart. It will however, curtail urban water
| use long before they get around to anything serious about
| agriculture. Look at how fisheries have historically been
| managed. First they make it hard for the small time operators
| who are of no concern to the state. Then they let it run until
| it collapses. Then with that revenue already gone they finally
| get off their butts and implement something. Then 30yr later
| things maybe start working again.
|
| I hope I'm wrong, but in the absence of hardliner ideologues
| following the money is a very accurate predictor of how large
| sociopathic entities comprised of many humans who are "just
| doing their jobs" (e.g. states) act.
| toofy wrote:
| > I hope I'm wrong, but in the absence of hardliner
| ideologues following the money is a very accurate predictor
| of how large sociopathic entities comprised of many humans
| who are "just doing their jobs" (e.g. states) act.
|
| i was with you until the bit about "the state".
|
| from what i understand of the situation, the government isn't
| watering the rocky, dry, dusty chunks of land that are being
| used as farms. these are privately owned individuals and
| companies throwing water away.
|
| if the state (whether utah, or federal) declares that its
| absurd to waste water attempting to grow crops in _the
| desert_ then certain people will declare the government is
| unfairly throwing its weight around.
|
| the coming water wars are gonna be such a mess unless steps
| are taken now to mitigate.
|
| _related sidenote_ : i vaguely remember reading a few years
| ago that oil barons were buying up land all over, separating
| the water rights and reselling the land minus the water
| rights. does anyone know of any good recent studies or
| reading on this?
| masklinn wrote:
| > Urban water use generates almost no taxable activity.
|
| Aside from _the entire urban economic activity_?
|
| It's rather difficult to have a city without water.
| 8note wrote:
| You can have a city with brown lawns though
| Someone1234 wrote:
| The Church and Utah governments are also the biggest
| waster there too. That is also political.
|
| The whole messaging around this is disingenuous. Urban
| water usage is a small subset, and even within that
| category individual citizens are a small subset, but yet
| most of the PR/"make changes" have been focused on a
| minority of a minority.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| The focus is on the Urban water users because they are
| the ones that are facing the problem and need a solution.
| They can do that either by reducing water usage or
| procuring more water.
| masklinn wrote:
| Urban utahn are not "the ones that are facing" the loss
| of the great salt lake. The state is.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| In terms of the salt lake, I think you are right. In
| terms of access for urban use, I think it is their
| problem to solve.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| Urban users cannot reduce water usage enough to solve the
| problem.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I think that is debatable. A lot of urban water is wasted
| on lawns, pools, and parks. It is not unthinkable that it
| could be reduced by 25-50% per person if you banned these
| things. Church and government water use you mention also
| fall under the control of the urban governments.
|
| That said, there is always the 2nd option of purchasing
| more water.
| masklinn wrote:
| > I think that is debatable.
|
| It's not. Saving the great salt lake requires a water
| consumption reduction larger than total urban consumption
| in Utah. You can't get 1.5 million acre-feet out of a box
| which contains half a million.
|
| > A lot of urban water is wasted on lawns, pools, and
| parks. It is not unthinkable that it could be reduced by
| 25-50% per person if you banned these things.
|
| That's literally pulled out of your ass with no
| supporting evidence, and even if it were true it'd
| _still_ be _nowhere near_ what 's needed.
|
| > That said, there is always the 2nd option of purchasing
| more water.
|
| No there is not _always_ the option of purchasing the
| thing everyone lacks.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I think we are talking about two different subjects.
|
| I was talking about ensuring enough water for urban users
| to live and you are talking about maintaining the great
| salt lake.
|
| This seems to be the confusion.
| thebooktocome wrote:
| Maintaining the Great Salt Lake is the topic of the
| article.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Yes, but much of the discussion is of urban vs
| agricultural usage, and which group should bear the
| burden.
| toofy wrote:
| > The focus is on the Urban water users because they are
| the ones that are facing the problem
|
| they are facing _the repercussions_ of a problem largely
| caused by someone else.
| malandrew wrote:
| They did cause it by moving there and building a life
| there (including building their gardens). If the city had
| remained a small backwater town, this problem wouldn't
| exist because the farms are 75% and the 25% consumed by
| the city today would end up as surplus each year
| replenishing water supplies.
|
| The farms predate all the new usage. The new usage from
| urbanization caused the deficit.
| lost_tourist wrote:
| It's a literal "solve the 90% problem first" but right
| wing people like to blame democrats pointing with one
| finger while pocketing cash from their industrial, eco-
| killing practices with the other hand. That's the way it
| has always been. They will have enough money to move out
| of Utah when it goes dry. The other 99% who were dumb
| enough to be duped by them will suffer and starve.
| jorblumesea wrote:
| Politics, those who own much of the political capital and
| connections are farmers or have farming interests.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I strongly disagree. In the West, the urbanized population
| generally have the political power, but the law happens to be
| on the side of the farmers. Most of the difficulty we see is
| the conflict between these two facts.
| jorblumesea wrote:
| In Utah? Nah, farmers own the water rights, the land, and
| have really strong interests in power to support them.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| 90+% of the population in Utah is urban. The idea that
| the <10% of voters run the show is absurd.
|
| Owning the water rights and the land are separate issues
| from political influence. That is a legal matter, not
| political.
| NorthOf33rd wrote:
| Rural voters absolutely do run the show though. SLC has
| approximately no power in the state legislature.
|
| https://www.zipdatamaps.com/politics/state-
| level/districts/m...
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Not true. Utah house and senate districts and seats are
| allocated based on population.
|
| It is not like the Federal senate where each state gets
| fixed representatives, independent of population.
|
| For example, Salt Lake country has 12/29 senate
| representatives.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_State_Legislative_dist
| ric...
| NorthOf33rd wrote:
| That'd be true if there were fair maps. But the metro has
| been diluted so significantly with rural voters that I
| stand by it, SLC has approximately no power in the
| legislature.
| gremlinsinc wrote:
| The governor is one of (if not) the biggest alfalfa
| farmers, do you think he's going to cut off his own arm
| to save utah, hell no!
| ejb999 wrote:
| Correct - its not that farmers have outsized voting
| influence - they don't - what they do have is contracts
| and rights that can't just be taken away without
| compensation.
|
| The longer states wait to buy back those water rights,
| the more expensive it is going to be.
| terr-dav wrote:
| I also strongly disagree with this. In most places, the
| wealthy have the political power. The power in voting is
| diluted significantly when the choices are gate-kept by the
| wealthy.
| ejb999 wrote:
| correct. The law is on the farmers side, water rights that
| were negotiated over 100 years ago can't just be canceled
| because of a current need - only way out is likely to use
| taxpayer money to buy back those rights from farmers that
| are willing to sell, but my guess is it won't be cheap.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I agree that that's the only long-term vible solution.
| Some states like California are trying to work around
| buying the rights by simply making it illegal for some
| people to exercise their water rights but not others. I
| don't think this will work out in the long run and they
| will eventually be forced to come to the table with cash
| offers by the courts
| masklinn wrote:
| > water rights that were negotiated over 100 years ago
| can't just be canceled because of a current need
|
| They absolutely can, but the will is completely absent.
| ejb999 wrote:
| what is the legal mechanism for taking someone's
| properties (in this case water rights) without
| compensation?
| tremon wrote:
| Asset forfeiture.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Does not exist in the US outside of the criminal context
| terr-dav wrote:
| Cops don't need a criminal conviction to conduct civil
| asset forfeiture. They don't even need to arrest someone.
| They just have to claim that the property itself is
| suspected of being involved in a crime.
|
| Have a lot of cash on you? Cops can steal it without a
| warrant :)
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I am aware and think it is a travesty.
|
| It is however within the criminal context, with at least
| the thin pretext if criminal wrongdoing.
|
| This is a far cry from the idea that the government can
| simply take what they want because they want it.
|
| The idea that politicians can (or should) just make a law
| dissolving property rights and take whatever water or
| land they want without compensation is misguided.
| terr-dav wrote:
| >dissolving property rights and take whatever water or
| land they want without compensation...
|
| Not that I disagree... but this is roughly describes how
| the US was established.
| YarickR2 wrote:
| Oh come on, Russian "oligarchs" have their property
| seized without so much as a trial or any kind of a
| criminal charge thrown to them
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| not US citizens
| jarsin wrote:
| > If water were well managed here, the area is potentially
| blessed over the long term compared to most of the West because
| there are large amounts of precipitation that fall on the
| nearby Wasatch and Uinta mountains.
|
| I grew up in park city. They get that snow because of the great
| salt lake. It's called the lake effect. No telling what happens
| if that lake is not there.
| RC_ITR wrote:
| https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/wefo/8/2/1520-043.
| ..
|
| Luckily, the impact of lake-effect from the Great Salt Lake
| is much more of a talked about thing than a practical thing.
|
| Lake effect is real, the Great Salt Lake makes it happen, but
| it's a lot smaller and rarer than you'd think (partly because
| the lake is much smaller than the Great Lakes, which cause
| places like Upstate NY to be _very_ dependent on the lakes
| for their precipitation).
|
| I honestly wonder if the Rochester <> Salt Lake City Mormon
| connection is part of why it became such a meme.
| adastra22 wrote:
| Urban (and suburban) water use isn't the problem anywhere. In
| California it's about the same percentage. It is agricultural
| PR campaigns that try to make water conservation a personal
| issue, since this diverts attention away from wasteful
| agricultural water practices which are really to blame.
| Karellen wrote:
| See also "your carbon footprint" - a fossil fuel industry PR
| campaign to try to make CO2 emissions a personal issue,
| diverting attention away from the systemic structural
| practices which are the root cause of the problem.
| terr-dav wrote:
| Don't forget "recycling" [plastics] - another fossil fuel
| industry PR campaign!
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Plastic recycling... what an unbelievable fraud.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| My backyard faces a farmer who basically flooded his property
| continuously throughout summer. Every time there's a
| government plea to reduce water usage I just point and laugh
| at the backyard.
| throwaway742 wrote:
| Yep it's called furrow irrigation and I see it used
| extensively here in the CA desert. It is one of the
| cheapest, but least efficient forms of irrigation.
| RC_ITR wrote:
| >However, urban water use is not the problem even if it's what
| people see every day. The cities do not really need to stop
| growing (as a NYT piece earlier this year seemed to suggest).
| The urban areas account for only 9% of diverted water (per the
| report).
|
| This is honestly one of the few 'good news' things that so many
| people ignore when talking about things like climate change.
|
| People like to imagine SLC/Vegas/Phoenix abandoned in the near
| future because there's no drinking water, when really for most
| places (Sedona and some other aquifer-dependent small towns
| excluded), it will only force us to stop growing alfalfa in the
| desert and cows will have to be fed something else (or not
| raised at all).
| mrchucklepants wrote:
| The governor is from rural Utah and his family owns a farm. His
| deep roots in that culture will be a challenge.
| umvi wrote:
| Well maybe Utah needs to vote in a technocrat from "Silicon
| Slopes" as their next governor.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| Utah is already experimenting with this solution on their
| NBA team if you care to look into it.
| lost_tourist wrote:
| Having lived in Utah rural areas for "a while", they will
| have to have a dust bowl 2.0 in the ag area to be brought
| to their senses, it's that simple. No amount of logic or
| begging from liberals will change that. Reality has to set
| in
| timmytokyo wrote:
| You see a similar effect in California, where farms
| continue to grow almonds and pistachios, highly
| profitable crops that require ridiculous amounts of
| water. Although some farms have starting switching away
| from these crops as water prices have soared, you can
| still see nut orchard after nut orchard as you drive
| through the central valley. Moreover, Big Ag is fighting
| tooth and nail to prevent any restrictions on water
| usage, claiming that dams are the only answer. Maybe try
| switching to a more sustainable crop? But that would mean
| less profit.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > almonds and pistachios, highly profitable crops that
| require ridiculous amounts of water
|
| I thought that was a bit overblown, that there are
| several common crops worse than almonds? Such as alfalfa,
| if I'm remembering correctly.
| lazide wrote:
| The Antelope Valley Aquifer in California has had
| _thousands_ of feet of ground water depleted growing
| Alfalfa. It's part of the Mojave Desert.
|
| There used to be artesian springs over much of it, now
| the ground water is over 2500 feet below ground, and
| starting to be widely contaminated with arsenic.
|
| It's pretty mind blowing, frankly. This was generally all
| done via wells sunk on private property.
|
| There has been ongoing litigation to get this under
| control for several decades that is starting to finally
| result in action.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| It seems like the way we handle water rights has to
| change.
| zahma wrote:
| I don't see why being a farmer is implicitly linked to
| waste.
|
| Sure he has farm interests in mind, but farmers will be
| among the first to really feel the affects of a dying lake
| ecosystem.
| walnutclosefarm wrote:
| It's only because agriculture is the big user, and the
| most dependent on overdrawing water resources. Farmers
| are no different from other people, and the oft-quoted
| line of Upton Sinclair that "It is difficult to get a man
| to understand something when his livelihood depends upon
| his not understanding it," answers your question. Farmers
| who have built a livelihood on irrigation are resistant
| to the notion that their water use is the problem,
| because if they admit it, they have to drastically
| change, or maybe give up, their way of making a living.
|
| It's really no different from trying to convince a tech
| mogul that social media is harmful to children and
| adolescents. They can't see it, because they won't see
| it, or they won't see it, because the can't see it, since
| seeing it invalidates their business model.
| scarmig wrote:
| I'd extend a bit more sympathy to farmers. When they
| purchased the land, they were also purchasing bundled
| water rights; land without the related water rights would
| have been a fraction of the price. And the property,
| inheritance, etc taxes they pay on the value of the land
| are assessed at a price that includes those rights. And
| all of a sudden when those rights become much more
| valuable, people want to take it from them?
|
| It's a bitter pill to swallow, particularly when the
| farmer (not without reason) sees it as an attack on their
| way of life.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > I'd extend a bit more sympathy to farmers.
|
| Yes, but I'd temper my sympathy with the knowledge that
| small farmers have mostly been pushed out by extremely
| large corporations. I have considerably less sympathy for
| them.
| scarmig wrote:
| Farm economic class by sales values (USD annual) | number
| 1k-10k 11000 10k-100k 5100 100k-250k
| 900 250k-500k 520 500k-1M 310 >1M
| 270 Total 18100
|
| Source: https://ag.utah.gov/wp-
| content/uploads/2019/09/2019-Utah-Agr... (see page 27 of
| the PDF/page 25 of the document)
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Most of the first tier and probably some of the second
| are rich-people tax-dodge "farms", I bet. The rest of the
| first category is hobby-farming--my family probably
| counted as among that group, at times, because my dad
| grew up on a farm and liked doing some farm-stuff on
| farm-zoned land as an adult, but it represented almost no
| actual income--he worked an ordinary job, the farming was
| a hobby with books that just happened to sometimes be
| slightly in the black.
|
| [EDIT] Oh my god, wait, that's _revenue_ , not profit? I
| take it back, the entire second tier is tax-dodges and
| hobby farms, too.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| What I'm getting from that is chart is... yes, farming is
| completely dominated by large companies. Something close
| to 90% of farms by number comprise as much as (but
| probably less than) 25% of the economic output. This is
| making a wild (but I would guess conservative) assumption
| of what ">1M" translates to.
|
| If I'm reading that wrong, I would appreciate the
| correction.
| scarmig wrote:
| You're right in terms of economic output, but that's not
| the only measure, particularly when it comes to politics;
| small farmers might not do much for the economy, but they
| still vote.
|
| I'm supportive of doing something about how water is
| allocated, but a strategy that writes off the meaningful
| number of marginal farmers as economic noise is a
| strategy that results in tons of opposing ads with
| genuinely sympathetic characters.
| suresk wrote:
| > but farmers will be among the first to really feel the
| affects of a dying lake ecosystem.
|
| How is this so in the case of the Great Salt Lake?
| masklinn wrote:
| Historically farmers (and most people really) have sucked
| the area dry before getting worried.
|
| US farmers are certainly doing that right now, the
| incentives encourage it, and they're quick to lobby
| against changes in incentives.
|
| That's also what you get from a prisoner's dilemma, a
| farmer switching to conservation will increase their
| production prices and / or lower their yields (as they'll
| at least need to invest in new farming methods, probably
| new hardware, and will have to learn those), and they'll
| fall behind their neighbours to say nothing of the market
| as a whole.
| zahma wrote:
| You make a good point, but perhaps that one "their own"
| is at the helm can make a difference in ensuring trust so
| as to break the prisoner's dilemma (see point 6 in the
| executive summary).
| devmunchies wrote:
| Let's turn Utah into California. Drought and all.
| zahma wrote:
| The real problem here is not seeing that nature doesn't
| draw arbitrary lines in the soil. What affects Utah will
| make its way to California. Keystone ecosystem disruption
| is very bad news.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| > Drought and all.
|
| I never thought Democrats would be blamed for the drought
| as well.
| yongjik wrote:
| Have you driven I-5, going through CA's central valley?
| They have such lovely signs as "Congress created dust
| bowl."
|
| People will absolutely blame Democrats for the drought
| (or Republicans, it doesn't matter) if that means they
| are absolved of responsibility.
| devmunchies wrote:
| You're grasping at straws. It wasn't a political comment.
|
| Utah already has the the drought, now it just needs the
| urban technocrats.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Sorry, I thought the comment was associating politics
| with environment.
|
| Utah is already one of the most urban states (90%). And
| "conservative technocrats" mostly run things at the state
| level (SLC itself is very Democrat), so I'm a bit
| surprised the governor comes from a farm.
| masklinn wrote:
| > Sorry, I thought the comment was associating politics
| with environment.
|
| It absolutely is and they're lying through their teeth.
| devmunchies wrote:
| You people who see everything as a demo vs repub battle
| are tiresome. I couldn't care less about political
| parties. I know that concept is unthinkable to you.
| masklinn wrote:
| Yep, sure, which is why you went with good ol' tired
| dumping on california. Very believable, thank you for the
| laugh. Have a nice day. But maybe try avoiding the
| obvious tell if you're trying to keep your ideological
| affiliations hidden?
| devmunchies wrote:
| I was born and raised in CA. Give me a break. If
| anything, I see myself as more inline with the classic
| Berkley-style, free will, spiritual esotericism of the
| 60s/70s. But like I said, political dispassion is beyond
| your comprehension, does not compute.
| Alupis wrote:
| While it would obviously be ridiculous to blame a
| political party for the weather... we can indeed lay
| blame on a political party for refusing (and blocking
| attempts) to build new water reservoirs in an ever-
| expanding, highly populated and frequently dry state.
|
| Because that is a political decision, for better or
| worse.
|
| California is currently drowning in water from the recent
| storms... and an awful lot of it will run straight out to
| the ocean. During the summertime... we deliberately open
| upstream dams so that downstream rivers can be full
| enough to support Tubbing, Boating and Recreational
| Fishing... which is kind of weird if you think about it.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| California isn't one region, and the monsoon season does
| the same thing to Arizona as it does to Southern
| California. The opening of dams to support sports is
| usually a bipartisan decision (conservatives as well as
| liberals like their electorates to be happy).
| Alupis wrote:
| You're right about the sporting uses... it's just absurd
| given California's dry history.
|
| However, the lack of sufficient reservoirs is indeed a
| real problem. The population and it's water needs have
| greatly eclipsed the state's storage capabilities, which
| creates a negative feedback cycle during dryer
| seasons/years.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| There are plenty of underground aquifers that need to be
| recharged, I assume the limiting factor is that when the
| rain comes all at once (during a monsoon) it can't be
| absorbed quickly enough before running into the ocean.
| Usually snowpacks build up and then release gradually
| (that's how the Colorado river works), but the drought
| and global warming have been reducing those (and the
| ability to build them back up) at a very quick rate.
|
| I'm sure people who are more knowledgeable about the
| problem are trying to work out solutions, and there is
| probably a straightforward answer to why we don't have a
| working solution already?
| keneda7 wrote:
| Here is an article from 2014 that talks about it. It was
| recently on HN.
|
| https://www.mercurynews.com/2014/08/31/california-
| drought-wh...
|
| Here is a more recent article talking about the proposed
| Sites Reservoir the other article mentions.
|
| https://www.ktvu.com/news/a-new-mega-reservoir-in-final-
| plan...
| bobthepanda wrote:
| California has strong local governments captured by
| NIMBYs which makes intra-jurisdictional projects hard and
| inter-jurisdictional ones nigh impossible.
|
| As an example, the LA River is a giant concrete channel
| that rushes water into the Pacific. There is some support
| for restoring it into a more absorbent wetland state but
| it will take decades and doesn't cover the whole river.
|
| As a more farcical example, the recent storms have downed
| a tree across the Caltrain commuter rail line. They are
| slow on removing it because the jurisdiction the tree
| fell in consider it a historic tree despite the fact that
| it is eucalyptus, a species invasive to California.
| Alupis wrote:
| In California, specifically, there is an impressively
| strong opposition to building new above-ground reservoirs
| (think dams, tanks, lakes, etc). The opposition usually
| cites environmental reasons, but in California we're
| effectively a One-Party state so there is no meaningful
| pushback.
|
| That's not to say environmental reasons aren't good
| reasons (with a certain balance of course).
|
| However, in California, this has become the "go-to"
| excuse for blocking most new public-works projects, often
| tying up projects in decades of litigation and studies...
| which typically means the project is dead before it even
| starts. Californian's have become skeptical of these
| weaponized "studies" as a result.
| keneda7 wrote:
| Yup this is a huge problem in CA. We simply have not been
| able to get any new meaningful reservoir projects done.
| Take a look at the Sites Reservoir. It is probably the
| closest to actually doing something.
|
| https://sitesproject.org/sites-news/
| thenerdhead wrote:
| > Iran is the only country where the government has promised to
| fully eliminate the problem of a drying lake. The government
| has stated a full reversal of the problem as the goal. However,
| thus far, it is the government that has achieved the least.
|
| https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/12/3/749
|
| I can't agree with you that this is just a political problem.
| Utah has been in a drought for majority of the last couple
| decades. This is instead a natural disaster. Not everything has
| to be reduced to politics.
|
| https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/
|
| https://www.drought.gov/states/utah#:~:text=Drought%20in%20U...
| .
| bitxbitxbitcoin wrote:
| Is it a natural disaster or an inevitable natural phenomenon
| over a long enough period of time.
|
| When it comes to water rights - yes everything can be reduced
| to politics.
| terr-dav wrote:
| It's not a natural disaster, nor an inevitable (& naturally
| occurring) phenomenon. The decades-long drought is a direct
| result of a century of burning hydrocarbon deposits that
| have been in the ground for millennia.
| cptskippy wrote:
| Exactly, it's not a drought if it's over 3 decades long. It
| shouldn't be treated as an exception with temporary
| measures.
| [deleted]
| cogman10 wrote:
| > This is instead a natural disaster. Not everything has to
| be reduced to politics.
|
| It's a complicated issue. However, politics (or really, the
| lack of government involvement) is exacerbating it.
|
| The problem? We are, and have been, in a sustained drought
| made worse by global warming. So, what should happen? Water
| conservation efforts across the board that, at a minimum,
| minimize the draining of things like the snake river aquifer.
|
| Nothing has stopped farms from pulling up more and more
| groundwater. Nothing has pushed farmers into farming more
| drought tolerant crops. There is no market force strong
| enough to enable water conservation. Without intervention,
| farmers are simply going to draw groundwater until there's
| none left to draw. At which point, a LARGE number of farms in
| the region will collapse.
| prpl wrote:
| Even with a drought you could have sustainable urban and
| agricultural practices - the reality is there hasn't been and
| Utah is highly allergic to many sustainable environmental
| efforts.
| fargle wrote:
| I've heard the rule of thumb is that an acre of carrots uses as
| much water as an acre of tract homes.
|
| I just did a little math and it's about right: an average crop
| irrigation might be 2-acre-feet water per-acre (imagine water
| 2ft high covering the field) which is 651800 gallons. It's
| almost double that for alfalfa. Most crops are in between and
| it varies depending on how many harvests per season are done.
|
| Now, at 7 homes per acre at average of 12,000 gallons a month
| is 7 x 12 x 12000 = 1008000. About 50% of that goes to
| landscaping/pools/etc., btw. and with better management could
| be significantly reduced if people, as a whole, gave a hoot.
|
| So ballpark, it's pretty accurate. The difference isn't that ag
| is so wasteful. It's whether you have 10 taxpayers and a whole
| bunch of carrots per 640 acres or two thousand taxpayers.
| krab wrote:
| Growing carrots in an arid area is wasteful, because you
| could grow them at a place where water is more abundant.
| Then, carrots can be transported and they don't need almost
| any water anymore.
|
| Doing the same with taxpayers would be problematic.
| fargle wrote:
| highly problematic also for the agencies collecting the
| taxes.
|
| it's odd that you focus on "growing carrots" is wasteful
| when if you got rid of lawns and golf courses in the desert
| you'd immediately save enough water to fix the problem in
| this article. at least when you grow carrots you have a
| product. a suburban lawn produces nothing whatsoever.
|
| suburbia is, in it's current form, far more wasteful of
| water and also produces far less carrots. but far more tax
| revenue.
| hervature wrote:
| > if you got rid of lawns and golf courses in the desert
| you'd immediately save enough water to fix the problem in
| this article
|
| That's simply not true. 75%-80% of the water use in the
| southwest is used for agriculture [1]. Even if "lawns and
| golf courses" are the remaining 20-25%, it is a minority
| of the water use. Furthermore, food doesn't have to be
| grown there. Bananas come from South America, oranges
| come from Florida, why does alfalfa (the food for
| livestock) need to be grown there? The answer is it does
| not but the current water is so cheap that people don't
| care salting the earth to line their personal pockets.
|
| [1] - https://geochange.er.usgs.gov/sw/impacts/society/wa
| ter_deman...
| gremlinsinc wrote:
| All home water usage in Utah amounts to about 2% of the
| total use state wide. Literally you could get rid of
| every residence including lawns, and you'd still have 98%
| of the water use from farms, industrial, and commercial
| enterprises. Alfalfa farming I believe is at least 80% of
| the total water use and there's zero need to keep farming
| water-intensive crops which alfalfa is, we wouldn't even
| need to stop all farming activities just this one crop.
| saltcured wrote:
| Like some of the power usage discussions here, these numbers
| surprised me!
|
| Here in northern CA, our water bill for a single-family home
| on about a 1/3 acre lot might peak around 110 gallons/day in
| summer so under 3.5k gallons/month, while in other seasons it
| might be 10-20% less.
| ejb999 wrote:
| Your math isn't really accurate though, is it? you say 7
| homes uses 1,008,000 gallons and then you eliminate 50% of
| that usage because it's for 'pools and landscaping' - but
| homes have pools and landscaping, so you can't just ignore
| that usage.
|
| Using your numbers, it sounds like the rule of thumb should
| be that an acre of carrots uses 1/2 as much water as an acre
| of tract homes, no?
| fargle wrote:
| i didn't make that rule of thumb up. but yeah, it's within
| margin of error. change the crop or number of harvests or
| have less lawns and it could go either way.
|
| the point is that, the water use for developed land is
| _roughly_ the same either way.
|
| the secondary point is that growing something is productive
| and 50% of the water used by today's suburban lifestyle is
| just wasted. there's such a thing as "desert landscaping"
| vs. lawns.
|
| i point this out from time to time because where ever i
| first heard it (in the southwest US where these water
| fights and drought has been brewing for more than 50
| years), it made and impression on me.
|
| it's also subtly snarky because we all hope and suppose
| that good government will save us from the perennial water
| crisis. but of course government is a machine that feeds
| and grows on tax revenue. and since fixing the urban and
| suburban sprawl doesn't align well with the government's
| feeding habits, here we are.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > I've heard the rule of thumb is that an acre of carrots
| uses as much water as an acre of tract homes.
|
| Two things are wrong with this comparison:
|
| 1 - Houses use potable water. Crops use a mix of irrigation
| water _and rainfall_. When you grow crops in arid climates
| like Utah, you lose the benefit of rainfall and have to pull
| everything from irrigation. Ideally you 'd grow those crops
| in environments that provide more of their water needs from
| the sky rather than divert rivers to cover it all.
|
| 2 - Carrots aren't being grown in Utah, it's alfalfa and hay.
| Alfalfa is one of the more water-intensive crops to grow.
|
| 3 - The news articles say that Utah is growing a lot of this
| alfalfa for export. They're basically exporting their water
| to other locations, at the expense of residents.
|
| It doesn't make sense for an arid state with a shrinking lake
| to allow people to use 2/3 of their water to _export_ a
| water-intensive crop like alfalfa.
| nerdponx wrote:
| The question is: what do the agricultural business interests
| plan to do? They basically have two strategic choices: 1) try
| to fix things, taking a short term hit for long-term business
| sustainability, 2) obstruct fixing things, extracting as much
| value as they can before the collapse, and plan to exit as soon
| as the collapse really starts to hurt.
|
| If the businesses go with option 2, you're basically SoL unless
| someone attempts to stand up to them.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| The thing is that for the most part, business interest don't
| have a problem while cities do.
|
| Agricultural interest typically have older water rights than
| cities which are more established. The challenges that cities
| in populations have grown and need more water, which does not
| exist.
|
| This only becomes a problem for the agricultural businesses
| when cities try to take their water without paying fair
| market value
| bushbaba wrote:
| Why should water rights be indefinite? Seems like a bad
| deal for the state. Realistically they should be auctioned
| off each decade or come with heafty yearly liscensing fees
| based off demand & supply.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I agree that maybe they should be. The question is how
| you go from the current state of affairs to this new
| paradigm.
|
| US law and rights prevents the government from simply
| coming in in taking property without compensation.
|
| This is the same reason that the government can't simply
| seize land, housing, or bank accounts of law abiding
| citizens to address various problems like homelessness.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Why should water rights be indefinite?_
|
| Same reason property rights are.
| scarmig wrote:
| It's a bit different, in that property rights are (at
| least in part) around to incentivize production of the
| property.
|
| Probably a better analogy is property rights in land.
| SilasX wrote:
| Well ... in order to carry this over to ordinary real
| property, and make the situation analogous to water
| rights, you'd have to tweak a few things.
|
| Imagine that, if you _didn 't_ allow randos to walk
| through a plot of land, then, eventually, the plot would
| become toxic and totally useless, with a value of zero.
| (i.e. what will happen with water rights if they keep
| drawing according to the assumptions that ground the
| law). This is a purely physical constraint.
|
| Imagine furthermore that (like normal), the property
| right entitles the owner to stop randos from walking
| through, but also, if they _don 't_ exercise that right,
| then title to that plot will revert to someone else (i.e.
| how use-it-or-lose-it provisions work in water rights
| here).
|
| In isolation, then, it's totally rational for the owner
| to keep randos from walking through, as that maximizes
| their ability to profit from the land -- even though over
| the long-term this destroys the total use value of the
| land.
|
| The fix, then, is to say, "okay, we won't revert title to
| someone else anymore if you let randos walk through.
| Also, you can sell that right." Then, the owner will sell
| rando-walking right, and the land won't become toxic. Win
| win all around. You can even pay the owner for the lost
| value from the transition, and _still_ come out ahead.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Why exactly is the land becoming toxic in this scenario?
| SilasX wrote:
| Just an arbitrary constraint in the analog, corresponding
| to how continued water drawing can kill off aquifers.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| OK, I think I largely agree that the solution is to let
| owners sell walking rights.
|
| This is described in the article as leasing the water
| rights, and I think a solid part of the solution.
|
| The problem is who pays for the walking rights, and _how
| much_.
|
| If it is too low, the owner would rather use the
| water/land until it is depleted.
|
| This is further complicated by the fact that in Utah,
| much of the farming water from rain isn't being depleted,
| but rather, the lake is drying up.
|
| Someone upstream might say, I have a source of water good
| for the next 1000 years, and can earn $10/year. Why
| should I accept $5/year to send it down stream?
|
| Also, the article mentions that a major issue is trust,
| which cant be stated enough. If I destroy my business and
| a life long investment to accept $5/year, what
| protections do I have that the price wont go to $1/year,
| or $0? If the state makes a binding contract, can I even
| trust that?
|
| This lack of trust is based in history, as cities and
| states in the west frequently brake water contracts with
| farmers.
|
| Sometimes states end up having to pay settlements for
| break of contract like in California, but even these are
| usually pennies on the dollar and decades later.
| tremon wrote:
| Property is indefinite (it exists as long as the legal
| system remains the same); fresh water is a limited
| resource. Care to explain which "same reason" applies to
| finite and infinite resources equally?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _fresh water is a limited resource_
|
| A river running through a property is less limited than
| its mineral rights. Water rights aren't about access to a
| specific amount of water but about the right to a flow
| that gets seasonally replenished.
|
| I'm not arguing that the way we do water rights makes
| sense. Just that it's the way because it's property.
| vkou wrote:
| There's nothing naturally indefinite about property
| rights.
|
| 1. In most locales, you have to pay an annual tax for a %
| of the property's value. If you don't pay it, you'll
| eventually lose your property. This is closer to rent,
| than it is to ownership.
|
| 2. In other locales, you cannot own property
| indefinitely. You can only lease it from the state, for
| some limited period of time.
|
| 3. Eminent domain and squatters rights, and when things
| really go to shit politically, land reform at the point
| of a bayonet.
|
| ... And, as another comment mentions, there's nothing
| indefinite about water. Overuse it this year, and you
| won't have any next year.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| There's a meaningful distinction in that state can't
| simply take your house away as long as you pay the taxes.
| Similarly, even with eminent domain you have to pay was
| considered a fair market price for what the government
| takes. This is the value of a property right.
|
| Similarly, the course I found that governments can't
| impose a 100% or arbitrarily High tax on something simply
| to take it.
| vkou wrote:
| So eminent domain these rights, and pay the owner back
| for the two sacks of turnips that their great-great-
| great-grandfather paid for them back in the 19th century,
| with whatever interest that would have accrued.
|
| A century and a half of free water use, plus interest on
| whatever the original payment was seems like a fair deal
| to me.
|
| There is no reason that we should be paying 'fair market
| price', when that price is artificially inflated by non-
| market participants hoarding all the water that they
| don't have to pay for... For themselves.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| > This only becomes a problem for the agricultural
| businesses when cities try to take their water without
| paying fair market value
|
| You've got this 100% backwards. It's the farmers who are
| not paying fair market value for water, as has been
| documented all over the place.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| They don't have to pay because they own it or governments
| have entered into long-term binding contracts to supply
| it at a fixed cost.
|
| People might not like those agreements in retrospect, but
| that is not grounds to avoid ownership or contracts in
| the US legal system.
| scarmig wrote:
| Is there some blocker to cities purchasing water rights? Or
| is the type of thing where cities will, but only once they
| have to?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Cities can and do buy water rights, but it's _very_ slow.
|
| My parents were on a private water system, fed by a
| spring. There was an owner's association, and the
| homeowners served by the water system owned shares in the
| system. The city was eventually able to buy enough shares
| to control the system, but it took three or four decades
| of trying.
|
| So say you own a farm, and you own the water rights that
| enable it to operate. And your family has owned those
| rights ever since 1852, when they settled on that land.
| Each generation has passed it on to the next.
|
| If you sell the water, you're selling the farm as a
| working farm. You're selling your childrens' future.
| That's not a decision that you make quickly, no matter
| how much money the city waves at you.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| The only blocker is cost and the political will to do so.
|
| The first and second choices are:
|
| 1) to expand and take water until they are sued.
|
| 2) mandate restrictions on city users
| giantg2 wrote:
| You're also likely to be SoL on option 1. What new crops
| exactly can we replace those crops with? What do the
| financials for that look like? In general, if it was
| financially feasible and less risky then people would already
| have switched to that technology/crop/etc.
| toofy wrote:
| > What new crops exactly can we replace those crops with?
|
| for a large number of them i don't think we replace the
| crops with anything... why are we treating massive chunks
| of some of the dryest desert as if it "must" grow
| something?
| Iwan-Zotow wrote:
| There are people living in the area, say 5mln or so
|
| They have to eat 3 times per day, maybe more. All food
| now supposed to be tracked from say Great Lakes region,
| 1500miles?
|
| Utah resembling Saudi Arabia?
| dylan604 wrote:
| At some point people have to realize that just because
| there is a vast area of relatively flat land, does not mean
| that land is good for agriculture. If something cannot be
| grown there in the native environment without artificially
| propping it up, then it might just be time to not do that
| there any longer.
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| They're obviously doing the latter. The numbers are virtually
| exactly the same across the west. We've already seen
| residential wells run dry in California and Oregon at least
| as farmers just drill deeper and deeper wells.
| WalterBright wrote:
| The solution is not restrictions or force. Simply raise the
| price of the water. The rest will sort itself out.
| suresk wrote:
| This has been happening for commercial/residential cases, but
| most agriculture is based on water shares - a right to a
| certain amount of water that someone purchased a long time
| ago, so you can't really raise the price on them.
|
| One solution I've seen kicked around is spending a bunch of
| money to buy back those shares at well above market rates to
| conserve the water.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Eminent Domain allows government to adjust such rights,
| just like it can just take your property to run a freeway
| through it.
|
| The government can also tax it.
| suresk wrote:
| Certainly, although I think that is much closer to
| "force" than "raising the price". Also, it is politically
| infeasible in Utah.
| georgewinters wrote:
| FWIW, the snowpack this season is well above average:
| https://www.ksl.com/weather/snowpack
| gremlinsinc wrote:
| If you have 5x 8oz cups that are only 25% full, and you add
| enough water to fill up the 5th cup so that its 100% full,
| you've still got 24oz of water missing, that needs to catch up.
|
| I.e. one good year, won't fix 10 bad ones. Not even close. No
| offense, but it's worth very little, and is an outlier the
| future doesn't hold well for this being a 'trend', especially
| as we enter el nino next year where ocean temps rise, and the
| west enters a dryer period.
| sparrish wrote:
| Using a satellite photo from 1985 to show how far the lake has
| receded is disingenuous.
|
| I was there in 1985. My father was working with hundreds of
| others to build dikes to stop the lake from flooding the city.
| Probably shouldn't be using a flood picture as the 'before'
| photo.
| [deleted]
| shampto3 wrote:
| I grew up very close to the lake. I'm well aware of the
| flooding that occurred. It indeed would have been better to use
| a satellite photo from 1989 when the pumps were shut off. I
| think the contrast is still pretty stark regardless [1].
|
| 1. See this youtube video which shows a photo from each year
| from 1984 - 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THg0AEV7nK8
| davidvarela_us wrote:
| And the comment section is filled with people saying that
| these changes are not so bad. I fear our fate is that of the
| boiling frog as the general population still appears
| overwhelmingly apathetic to global warming.
| dendrite9 wrote:
| Was that when the pumps were built on the Nevada border to get
| water out of the drainage if needed? The shallowness of the
| lake makes it different to think about than lake most people
| are used to. It is more of a big puddle, as a kid being told it
| was ~30 feet deep at the deepest was hard to believe since I
| was used to smaller lakes deeper than 100 feet.
|
| The idea that the lake could drain seems scary to me since the
| lake effect helps to increase the amount of snow in the
| Wasatch. Without the lake, would the Wasatch front look like
| other basins to the West?
|
| It is worth noting that the Salt lake drainage basin is closed
| but through the Central Utah Project some of the Colorado basin
| water is claimed.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Utah_Project
|
| This summer I listened to an interview with a guy who paddled
| around the lake, it was interesting to hear since so much of
| the lake was more theoretical to me than real. Getting to the
| edge of the water in many parts wasn't possible or wasn't easy.
| https://bendingbranches.com/blogs/resources/kayaking-on-grea...
| https://radiowest.kuer.org/agriculture-and-the-environment/2...
|
| Sorry, not all this was aimed at you but I figured I'd condense
| some thoughts into a single reply.
| woodruffw wrote:
| A key claim:
|
| > Depending on future weather conditions, achieving this level of
| flow will require cutting consumptive water use in the Great Salt
| Lake watershed by a third to a half. Recent efforts have returned
| less than 0.1 million acre-feet per year to the lake with most
| conserved water held in reservoirs or delivered to other users
| rather than released to the lake.
| ck2 wrote:
| Will it kill less than a million people?
|
| Because we've already seen the lack of response when a million
| die, we start working on the next million.
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| [dead]
| akiselev wrote:
| The Great Salt Lake is starting to look like the Salton sea [1]
| which is considered the largest environmental catastrophe in
| California history. If this keeps going SLC may quickly become
| unlivable. I still remember the smell in the LA basin when the
| winds blew from the Sea and it was _awful_ - think that smell
| around large colonies of seabirds with a tinge of death.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salton_Sea
| scythe wrote:
| The Salton Sea, however, is unnatural. Before humans
| interfered, it was just a dry valley. It was never sustainable,
| regardless of the usage pattern or climate trajectory.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Wasn't it one of the two end-points the colorado used to
| alternate between? When it was draining that way it was
| there, and when it flipped every few decades or centuries it
| wasn't.
|
| There's not ever a firm line between "natural" and "after
| humans interfered" as if those are separate, unrelated and
| incompatible things. But in this case it is particularly
| fuzzy.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I think the switching occured much less frequently, with
| the lake drawing down and drying in between.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Cahuilla#History
|
| The lake existed in several stages over the last 2,000
| years, periodically drying and refilling and eventually
| disappearing sometime after 1580. Between 1905 and 1907,
| due to an engineering accident, the Salton Sea formed in
| parts of the lower basin of Lake Cahuilla. Were it not for
| human intervention, the sea might have grown to the size of
| prehistoric Lake Cahuilla.
| scythe wrote:
| When the Colorado flowed into that valley, it also flowed
| out through the Hardy River, with the exit near Nuevo Leon.
| The metastable state that existed then inundated most of
| what is now the Imperial Valley; the city of Mexicali (pop
| ~1M) would be underwater.
| hinkley wrote:
| Like the world's worst case of an oxbow lake I suppose?
| friend_and_foe wrote:
| So reading about it I don't really see an environmental
| catastrophe. The basin has been filled 3 times in the last 1200
| years, fills intermittently as the course of the Colorado river
| changes, and has no outlet which means it's ecology is
| unstable. It last filled around 1900 which is when it appears
| the current story began.
|
| My reading is that people settled it only to find that it is
| naturally an unstable environment, and now want to create a
| "restoration plan" to reduce it's natural instability because
| of economic dependency on it's continued existence.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| The filling in 1900 was due to a manmade accident, which I
| think could rightly be considered an environmental
| catastrophe. A poorly designed canal inlet catastrophically
| failed, diverting the entirety of the Colorado river to the
| dry lake for two years. It was so much water that it is still
| drying out.
|
| The catastrophe was the filling, not the drying.
| friend_and_foe wrote:
| Then why is the restoration projects and various government
| acts focusing on restoring the water level and salinity?
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Misguided environmental sentiment based on the status quo
| after the flood but not before?
|
| The flood was part of an irrigation project to bring
| water to the desert. Irrigation of the imperial valley
| from the Colorado river continues today. For decades
| after the flood, excess water from farms would trickle
| into the slowly drying lake, and people got used to it
| being there. They also got used to the lack of dust from
| the dry lakebed.
|
| Now that it is going back to it's "natural" state, people
| don't like the prospect.
| hinkley wrote:
| Most people who know about John Muir love him... Except
| for people who have studied any history of the indigenous
| peoples of California. Then he's a figurehead who tried
| to erase the natural and cultural history of California
| in an effort to further his own pastoralist agenda.
| That's the charitable way to interpret that. Much worse
| things are said about him.
|
| As someone else pointed out with the Salton Sea, Utah
| doesn't have a monopoly in the west on dumb myopic views
| on the natural world. And we are really bad with respect
| to caring about how things were when our grandparents
| were kids. Or their grandparents. Or the colonists, or
| the people they displaced.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I care very little about how things were when my
| grandparent were kids, or 1000 years ago.
|
| I do however care what things will be like for my
| grandchildren, and perhaps 1000 years from now.
| moloch-hai wrote:
| They just need to float solar farms on it. Those will cut
| evaporation. Likewise, the Aral Sea.
|
| But the main problem is stealing water from rivers feeding it. If
| they don't get a handle on that, nothing else can help much.
| There is no substitute for sound governance. Unfortunately, Utah
| is in the grip of a commitment to bad governance as officially
| advertised policy. I don't know how you get back from that.
| CyanLite2 wrote:
| Dumb question: could we build a big pipeline from the Pacific
| Coast and just pump billions (trillions?) of gallons of ocean
| water to the Great Salt Lake?
| masklinn wrote:
| > just pump billions (trillions?) of gallons
|
| The deficit is ~1.5 million acre-feet. That's 488 000 000 000
| gallons / year.
|
| Or 1.3 billion gallons per day.
|
| As far as I'm aware, the largest pipeline in the US has around
| 1/10th that capacity (Colonial has a capacity of 3 million
| barrels or 126 million gallons a day).
|
| Also pumping that much from the pacific would likely annihilate
| whatever's on the other end of that pipe.
| gremlinsinc wrote:
| What if we built a huge gulf basically down the plains just
| on the other side of the rocky's so basically there's a gulf
| splitting America into two completely by waters from the
| artic ocean or north pacific, I'm talking we dissect all the
| way north through canada all the way down through mexico etc.
| This would maybe create new weather patterns, in combination
| we'd need to plant LOTS of trees which also creates weather
| patterns to change, but we could terraform the utah desert to
| be more like the midwest, but it would be defense-budget
| costly to do so, but if it worked it could be worth it.
| candrewlee14 wrote:
| Ending alfalfa farming would likely help a lot. The water usage
| is insane for such a small part of Utah's GDP.
| malandrew wrote:
| If it's so little of GDP, it shouldn't be hard to make a
| reasonable off to buy out the water rights.
| elliotec wrote:
| That's the hope. The struggle is how stubborn people are.
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