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The following informative article appeared in the
Deseret Morning News of September 21, 2003
by Jerry D. Spangler and Donna Kemp Spangler
With five years of drought prompting
massive campaigns to educate Utahns on the virtues of water conservation,
there is a common perception that Utah is running out of water.
Make that a misperception. Utah is
a state swimming in water.
In fact, there's water, water everywhere
and plenty of it to drink, today, tomorrow and 50 years from now.
Utah has enough water to meet the needs of a population several
times its current 2.3 million people.
But there's a catch: It's going to
get very, very expensive in the years ahead.
"We're not running short of water.
We're just running short of cheap water," said Gregory Williams,
senior engineer for the Utah Division of Water Resources.
Water officials across the state have
launched campaigns to "slow the flow" (the goal is a 25
percent statewide reduction in per capita use by 2050) and to explain
the need for new water development (billions of dollars will be
needed to build the delivery systems for the next generation of
Utahns).
And no one disputes that Utahns will
have to change certain habits in the years ahead to make sure clean
water is flowing through new high-efficiency taps.
Utahns currently use 321 gallons per
person per day, or more water per person than any other state in
the nation except Nevada.
The goal — and the state's long-term
water strategy hinges on it happening — is that water conservation
will drop the daily water use to 240 gallons per person per day,
or roughly the average of all states in the Rocky Mountain region.
But it would mean instead of new water development totaling 1 million
acre-feet per year, it could be scaled back to 646,000 acre-feet
(an acre-foot is the amount of water it takes to cover one acre
to a depth of one foot, or the equivalent to what a family uses
in any given year).
If it all sounds confusing, it is,
even to seasoned water experts, all of whom use different sets of
numbers and different models to come up with their projections.
There isn't even agreement on how much water Utahns use (the 321
gallons is a number settled upon by the Utah Division of Water Resources).
The bottom line is Utah has to figure
out how it will deliver 646,000 acre-feet more, or about two-thirds
more water than the amount being used by Utah households today.
But the key word is "delivery."
Water experts say it is the cost of building those delivery systems
that is the limiting factor to growth, not a shortage of water.
Beneficial use
From the time Brigham Young first
entered the Salt Lake Valley more than 150 years ago, Utah decisionmakers
decided that water would be owned for the "beneficial use"
of all.
As a result, the state owns all the
water in the state. Individuals own rights to use the water, and
those water rights can be complicated with some users having priority
over others.
But when all the fighting is done,
the bottom line is the state owns the water, and the state can take
the water under eminent domain. Those with water rights would still
have to be compensated a fair market value, but there is no inherent
right to keep the rights.
With the state owning the water, there
are no water "barons" in Utah squeezing customers with
inflated prices. In fact, all water districts operate under state
laws that mandate they cannot make a profit from water (they can
set aside surpluses for future water development).
With Utah's population expected to
double to 5 million people by 2050, that long-standing "beneficial
use" policy sets the stage for a massive political battle over
what constitutes "beneficial use" — watering alfalfa
or drinking water for cities.
Currently, farmers in Utah use about
4 million acre-feet of water to irrigate 1.5 million acres of crops,
mostly alfalfa and other livestock feed. That's roughly four times
the amount of water being used by all cities and towns in the state
combined.
The state water plan predicts a time
when "beneficial use" shifts statewide priorities from
farming to the needs of urban residents. And the billion-dollar
question water planners now face is if and how agriculture water
can be moved from fields to cities.
According to the state water plan,
"Agricultural irrigation is and will continue to be the primary
use of developed water in Utah."
The Utah Farm Bureau has taken a laissez
faire attitude toward the loss of farmland and agricultural water
to urban encroachment.
"We don't like to see farmers
go out of business because of pressures beyond their control,"
said Sterling Brown, associate director of public policy for the
Utah Farm Bureau. "But if the market dictates he or she goes
out of business, and they choose to go out of business, we support
that."
In areas along the Wasatch Front,
it is a relatively simple process to convert agriculture water to
culinary water. Cities already buy out neighboring farmers' water
rights and ship the irrigation water to a treatment plant. It happens
every year in Utah, Salt Lake, Davis and Weber counties as subdivisions
sprawl over farms and pastures.
Utah was the fourth-fastest-growing
state in the nation in 2000, and most of that growth has come at
the expense of farmland, said Larry Lewis, spokesman for the Utah
Department of Agriculture, adding there are no hard numbers for
how much farmland is being lost every year.
"There are thousands of acres
lost every year," he said.
But there has been no shortage of
water for those new homes as what remains of Wasatch Front agriculture
water is converted to what water officials call "M&I,"
or municipal and industrial uses.
It is much harder — and much
more expensive — for water districts to tap into agricultural
water in the many rural valleys surrounded by mountains and isolated
by canyons. The cost of building pipelines and aqueducts over the
Wasatch Mountains is prohibitive, at least in the current water
marketplace.
"Economics will determine what
water will be developed," Williams said. "Water is a commodity
like anything else."
In other words, if the demand is great
enough, any source of water becomes developable. Even taking the
salt out of the Great Salt Lake is an option if people are willing
to pay the price.
"In the big picture, there is
an endless supply of water," Williams said. "The limitation
is economics."
Pipe dreams
Agriculture water is only part of
the solution. Water officials are looking at three different projects
to suck water it owns but is not using from various rivers running
through the state.
For the most part, efforts are focused
on the roughly 420,000 acre-feet of water going unused down the
Green and Colorado rivers, and another 250,000 acre-feet in the
Bear River. Another 120,000 acre-feet of water can be developed
from other rivers, but this is less likely, given current economics,
to make its way to heavily populated areas.
Combined, the 790,000 acre-feet of
river water is 87 percent of the 904,000 acre-feet used today by
all cities and towns. And it is more than the 646,000 acre-feet
of increased water needs projected by 2050.
The stumbling block is money. One
proposal calls for building a water pipeline from Lake Powell to
the fast-growing St. George area ($310 million), another for building
a water pipeline from Flaming Gorge to the Wasatch Front ($300 million)
and yet another is pumping water from the Bear River into Willard
Bay and then piping it to the Wasatch Front ($260 million).
In all, the state has identified $6
billion in water development projects that could be done. But everything
is on hold pending legislative decisions on who will pay for the
projects and how.
Zack Frankel, executive director of
Utah Rivers Council and Utah's most vocal advocate of water conservation,
agrees the perception that Utah is running out of water is a "myth."
But he diverges from state water planners when it comes to how to
meet future demands, instead criticizing the lack of foresight in
state policy that has focused on supply rather than demand.
"We need to look at a market-based
system," Frankel says. "As the price of water increases,
naturally what happens is that demand goes down."
And with the right pricing system,
Utahns would conserve far more than the 25 percent stated in state
conservation goals, and it just might eliminate the need for costly
developments like pipeline projects.
Frankel isn't the only voice calling
for radical revisions in state water policy. Some lawmakers have
joined the chorus, calling it unfair that water rates are kept artificially
low through general property and sales taxes paid by all.
And Gov. Mike Leavitt called for changes
in how water projects are funded, pushing efforts to remove tax
subsidies for water development, thereby encouraging more conservation
as the true price of water is reflected in water rates. Leavitt
has since backed off of water-funding reforms in the face of legislative
opposition, mostly from rural interests.
The Utah Foundation, a nonprofit,
nonpartisan think tank, released a report last year showing Utahns
pay far less for water than other Western cities — often less
than half.
Based on the Utah Foundation study,
Salt Lake City residents had the third cheapest water rates in the
West, about $1.04 per 1,000 gallons of water. Provo residents paid
only 75 cents, or tied with Sacramento for last among the 13 cities
considered.
By comparison, folks in Reno pay $3.39
per 1,000 gallons. And even in rain-soaked Seattle, people pay $2.30
per 1,000 gallons (see chart).
Frankel does not believe taking water
away from agriculture is the answer. At least farmers are producing
a product of value, he said.
And in addition to food and fiber,
farms also contribute to improved landscapes and wildlife habitat,
Brown adds.
"But we're just wasting it,"
Frankel said of urban areas. "And now we are trying to provide
water for future Utahns at the cheapest possible price" by
subsidizing water development with property and sales taxes.
It is unlikely lawmakers will end
those tax subsidies. In fact, a legislative tax force looking at
how to fund water projects is looking at ways to increase the subsidies,
recommending a sales-tax hike to pay for water projects. Currently,
1/16th of a percent of sales taxes goes into a water development
fund, or about $17 million a year.
"I know it's a sensitive issue,
but if we're really serious about this, we need a long-term solution
to the $5 billion problem," said Sen. Tom Hatch, R-Panguitch,
and co-chairman of the State Water Development Commission.
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