With a growing population, we must use common sense and tap the ingenuity of the Beehive State and its industrious worker bees.
In supplying a growing population with water, Utah's water managers have historically applied a one-size-fits-all approach. Limited primarily to an engineering background, they see the solution to water needs as structural, which often proves to be expensive and static. The overwhelming mindset has been that new dams and diversions are the only way to assure our water future. While Utah gives lip service to water conservation as an alternative, it is clear where our priorities lie.
For example, the Utah Division of Water Resources spent nearly $8 million in 2007 to further the Lake Powell Pipeline and Bear River Water Development projects, but it spent a measly $250,000 on water conservation. The numbers speak for themselves.
So what alternatives are available to us here along the Wasatch Front? How can we avoid the $680 million and growing price tag associated with constructing new dams and diversions? It is quite simple, frankly. Behavioral modifications and water transfers represent easy and less-costly solutions that we can, and should, aggressively pursue before resorting to old-fashioned structural solutions.
In Utah, our water-use statistics are embarrassing. We can no longer justify a "greening of the desert" because we'll green ourselves to extinction. Utah residents use far more water than is necessary or appropriate. Of the 60-70 percent of our water directed toward our lawns and gardens, approximately 50 percent is wasted. Furthermore, our per-capita use is significantly greater than that of other desert cities.
For those skeptics who think that water conservation is unrealistic, Utah managed to cut its use by 20 percent during recent drought years using smart sprinkling, appropriate landscaping, conservation building standards and improved industrial technology.
We've gotten sloppy with better water years of late, but we can clearly conserve when asked. Given that water conservation can save an estimated 400,000 acre-feet of water per year (enough for 400,000 families of four) at a cost thousands of dollars less per acre-foot, why are our water managers pursuing new dams and diversions?
But wait, there is more. As developers transform agricultural land into new housing developments, it is also possible to transfer existing agricultural water rights into domestic water rights. According to the Utah Division of Water Resources, in the Weber Basin alone there will be approximately 126,000 acre-feet of agricultural water available for transfers out to 2050.
Contrary to what our water managers tell us, Utah has a choice. Either we spend enormous sums of money building unreliable dams and diversions, or we use the water we have without those costs. It is a simple choice, but Utah residents need to demand the right to make wise choices. A vote on new water projects like the Bear River water project is the only way to ensure we don't waste our taxpayer dollars, and our scarce water resources.
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* TED WILSON, a former mayor of Salt Lake City, is director of the Utah Rivers Council.
