This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Proclaiming that water conservation should be "one of Utah's core ethics," the Utah Division of Water Resources recently kicked off a nine-step pledge called "H2Oath."
However, even if all nine suggestions were widely adopted, it will barely make a dent in the state's water use because they fail to address the state's biggest waster: agriculture. In fact, because agriculture consumes 82 percent of Utah's water, the goal of a 25 percent reduction in water use is actually a statistical impossibility.
The vast majority of the water used for agriculture in Utah is used to produce hay and corn to feed farm animals. The "water footprint" of a beef hamburger is 15 times that of a veggie burger, and peer-reviewed studies have shown that a shift towards a plant-based diet would reduce society's water use by an astonishing 36 percent.
This is a much bigger bang for your buck than reducing our "average shower time by one minute." If you care about preserving our precious water resources, you can make the largest impact by going vegan, and the Division of Water Resources should start explicitly stating so.
Amy Meyer
Utah Animal Rights Coalition