Sen. Mitt Romney wants Congress to spend $10 million to find solutions to the plights of the Great Salt Lake. I can offer the conclusions for free, since it has been obvious for decades what’s the problem.
1. We refused to listen to scientists who for years have issued more and more dire warnings about the climate and water use. But nobody listened and only when the house is on fire do we start to react.
2. We draw too much water from the rivers that flow into the lake.
There is no magic source of new water. Every bigwig in Utah knows that’s the problem but they want to postpone the ultimate reckoning until it’s too late for fear of upsetting the donor class and vested interests – chiefly the endless-growth caucus and cattle ranchers who use half of all the water in Utah, one of the worst places to grow alfalfa.
We need to completely change the way we build cities and recycle residential water like in Las Vegas. We need to raise water rates drastically to discourage excess use beyond that for personal use. We need to decide how much water is needed to save the lake and then decide how to divide the rest. It’s the other way around now and the lake will always come last under our current thinking.
Pay farmers not to use their water, which is far cheaper than bringing in water from far away as some suggest. Change to agricultural practices that use much less water and switch to other products more suited to Utah’s climate.
That $10 million is a total waste of money and the goal is to drag this out as long as possible. Once the lake is gone, the politicians will throw up their hands and say that they tried really hard and blame the drought. Nothing we could have done! We can eat healthy and live well using far less water if we wanted to, but I sense little will for that from the population and the ones in power.
Thomas Fritz, Sandy
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