UTAH DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO SPELL CONSERVATION: Western water and modern political realities

When the Colorado River Compact went into effect in the early 1920s, its creators divided the river arbitrarily into an upper river and a lower river – rather like the way uninformed people and their mapmakers had for years arbitrarily named the Colorado River System as three rivers  – Grand, Green, Colorado – when it was and is really one river system.    The whole thing is out-of-date and based on untrue assumptions.

In the 1920s,  no one in power thought future people would be idiotic enough to put four million people into the Valley of the Sun, 2 million people into Clark County, and 10 million people into the Los Angeles Basin.   Idiocy aside, we must accept political reality:  no one in Congress or the federal executive will divert or shut down water to those places so that a few Utahns can grow alfalfa or water lawns. 

We Utahns can do more – much much more – in the way of water conservation.   State government should make its influence felt in the matter.     As a home designer when I visit the Salt Lake Valley and Utah Valley Parade of Homes ever year,  I always find it startled how much  good space we have covered up in lawn grass. We pour  an awful lot of water on a plant that never matures and that we do not eat.  The time has come to ask how much water should we waste on vegetational aesthetics.  


THE CALL TO ACTION

I urge Utah's governor and legislature to take action in the 2014 legislative session.   Utah should start encouraging the following by either law or tax rebates:

1.  Encourage xeriscaping. 

2.   Encourage people to plant less lawns, not more of them.  Encourage the planting of lawns hybridized for less water consumption. 

3 encourage home production of vegetables.

4 encourage agricultural production of crops that do not require flood irrigation.

5 encourage the growth of crops used by humans instead of animals.