71% Of Water That Once Fed Great Salt Lake Is Now Diverted To Agriculture; Gee, I Wonder What Utah Farmers Will Do?
It’s a similar story across the Western half of the U.S., with the production of alfalfa and hay to feed the nation’s hunger for dairy and beef products driving the decline of rivers, lakes and aquifers from the Colorado River to basins across Arizona. “What we’re seeing in the Great Salt Lake is a microcosm of the American West, in that water is becoming very scarce because of climate change, and we cannot continue with business as usual now,” Ripple said.
The decline of the Great Salt Lake drew increased scrutiny in recent years, after the lake hit record lows in 2022. At the time, experts warned that if conditions continued, the lake could be completely dry within 5 years. Environmentalists sued the state over the lake’s decline, arguing it has violated its public trust obligations by threatening a public health crisis and ecological collapse and also filed an Endangered Species Act petition to protect a bird whose declining population is heavily reliant on the Great Salt Lake during its annual migration.
But the last two years have been wet years, leading to policymakers, including the state’s governor, to downplay the issue, despite continued concern over the future of the lake from academics and environmentalists. Estimates still show the lake potentially running dry in the coming decades, threatening public health in the region with dust from the drying lakebed that is filled with toxic metals, depriving the thousands of species that rely on the lake of habitat and food and endangering the $2.5 billion in economic activities stemming directly from the Great Salt Lake. “There’s plenty to worry about and the last couple of years shouldn’t distract us from the fact that we got a really big problem here,” said Brian Richter, lead author of the study and president of the water scarcity group Sustainable Waters.
EDIT
The alfalfa and hay in the region help support around one million head of cattle raised by the roughly 20,000 farmers and ranchers in the region, but the majority of the crop is exported to other states or overseas, while hay grown elsewhere is also imported into the region, the study found. That agricultural production equates to 0.07 percent of Utah’s GDP, they found, and only served only about one percent of the country’s beef supply. In essence, the researchers said, that means staunching the lake’s decline is not about economics or food security, but a cultural issue. To stabilize the lake, diversions from the lake’s supplies need to decrease by 35 percent, the researchers found, or roughly 650,000 acre feet. The study highlights four options to achieve that goal focused on changing the crops grown in the region, less cuttings of alfalfa each year, fallowing fields, paying farmers not to irrigate and reducing municipal and industrial consumption.
EDIT
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07012025/to-save-the-great-salt-lake-farmers-will-have-to-grow-less-alfalfa/
= new reply since forum marked as read
