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August 12th, 2023
Via Food & Water Watch, a look at Utah’s water scarcity challenge:
Utah faces serious threats from climate change, with the Great Salt Lake especially at risk. As climate change intensifies and the state’s population skyrockets, the lake has already shrunk by two-thirds since the late 1980s and is expected to shrink even more. This will cause arsenic and other toxins to blow from the sandy bottom and threaten the health of nearby residents.10 The state overall is expected to see dramatically less water available over the next century, as snowpack and river flows decline with temperatures that are rising faster than the national average.11
The Colorado River is Utah’s most trusted water source, providing 27 percent of water used and benefiting 60 percent of Utahans. Part of the state’s allotment is also reserved for future development of the Lake Powell Pipeline, which would divert flows across the state to growing urban populations. In 2020, the state passed a resolution to encourage further development and use of the river’s water, noting that increased future demands will require it.12 But with the future of the pipeline’s titular Lake Powell so uncertain, the project may have nothing to pump by the time it is built.13
Alfalfa Production Abuses Utah’s Dwindling Supplies
The specter looming behind Utah’s water problems is the 1.2 million acres of irrigated agriculture being grown in the second driest state in the U.S.14 Over 80 percent of the state’s water is directed to agriculture.15 Agriculture also consumes the vast majority of Utah’s Colorado River allotment, irrigating more than 300,000 acres of land.16
Alfalfa and hay are the only viable crops in many high-elevation regions of Utah, occupying over 80 percent of agricultural land.17 They are also some of the worst options for a drought-stricken state. Food & Water Watch estimates that producing the 2 million tons of alfalfa grown in 2022 required 343 billion gallons of water in consumptive use — equivalent to 60 percent of the state’s Colorado River allocation.18 Consumptive use defines water that is lost through evaporation and transpiration and unavailable for future reuse, as opposed to withdrawals that may flow back into the ecosystem through runoff from irrigation.19 Not all this irrigation water is sourced from the Colorado River, but the numbers are telling.20
About 30 percent of Utah’s alfalfa is exported overseas, meaning that up to 1 million acre-feet of water is simply shipped abroad.21 This so-called virtual water trading is prolific across the West, but in times of water crisis, we must ask ourselves why we are shipping something as valuable as water across the oceans just to turn a dollar.
Mega-Dairies Threaten Utah’s Water Security
Utah’s mega-dairiesa are another huge water suck, with the state housing 74,000 dairy cows on mega-dairies. Food & Water Watch estimates that the annual water use of these cows for hydration and washing is 2.3 billion gallons. This could supply around 59,200 households with their indoor water needs for an entire year.22
Utah’s average dairy herd size grew nearly 60 percent from 2012 to 2022, as operations plummeted by 35 percent.23 The shift from family-scale dairy farms to mega-dairies poses major concerns not only for the Colorado River, but also for the safety of drinking water supplies across the state. Manure runoff from mega-dairies poses can leach into groundwater and aquifers. Dairy a In this piece, mega-dairies refer to operations with 500 or more cows, as this corresponds with data categories in the 2017 U.S. Department of Agriculture Census of Agriculture, which does not provide information on confinement and waste management. FOODANDWATERWATCH.ORG 3 Big Ag Is Draining Utah Dry manufacturing also threatens water quality; in 2022, a creamery owned by Dairy Farmers of America was caught dumping milk in a rural county, creating a man-made basin filled with rotten milk and covered in toxic algal blooms. Nitrogen contamination was a major concern; if it leaches through soil into groundwater, it can threaten human life.24
Conclusion
Utah cannot prop up the mega-dairy or alfalfa industries for much longer. Clutching to a system that abuses and wastes water while the Colorado River dries is too dangerous to blindly accept. It is past time for state leaders to stand up to corporate agricultural interests and rethink Utah’s Colorado River water allocations. One way to achieve this goal is to strip alfalfa of its protected beneficial use status, thereby removing much of its water allocations.25 Utah is beyond easy solutions and must be willing to take bold action to secure a safe and livable future.