It's Time for Governor Cox to get Serious about our Climate Change Mega Drought
Earth Day comes on the heels of Governor Cox’s Executive Order declaring a state of emergency due to extreme drought conditions. Governor Cox recommended some mild water conservation measures which fail to provide the vital leadership Utahns deserve in this climate change mega drought. The Governor ignored the elephant in the room – climate change – and failed to identify the biggest opportunities to save water in Utah. Perhaps he will listen to you this Earth Day and save water, because we need to stop wasting water.
Utah is America’s #1, highest municipal water user, with residents using more water per person than anywhere else in the country. This has been the case for decades, but bad actors in Utah’s water development industry defend their inaction to save water by accusing all water suppliers outside Utah of hiding their water use. It’s like the class dunce blaming all the A students for cheating on all the tests.
Gov. Cox’s recommendations to save water in his order include six measures, three of which are to “fix leaks, run full loads of dishwashers and reduce showers by one minute.” Those aren’t bad things to do – they are worthy of adoption by every Utahn – but indoor residential water uses account for 2-3% of all the water used in Utah. The Governor was completely silent on the biggest opportunities to save water – in irrigated agriculture, among secondary water users, and in the tax policies which benefit lobbyists and encourage water waste.
Irrigated agriculture uses 85% of the water in Utah, yet Governor Cox was entirely silent about the farming sector’s need for capital to line dirt canals or pipe flood-irrigated fields with sprinkler systems to save gigantic quantities of water. The Governor was also silent about the enormous water gains to be made among wasteful secondary water systems. Secondary systems are former farm canals used to water backyards after farmland is paved by suburbs. Utah has America’s largest secondary water system and these gigantic water users account for much of Utah’s very high urban water use. Since most of these systems have no meters, users have no idea how much water they use. It’s like an all-you-can-eat buffet, where water users are incentivized to waste water because they paid one small annual fee to get in the door.
The Governor was equally silent on the many sales and property tax subsidies that explain why Utah has America’s cheapest water rates and highest per person urban water use. For 27 years, the Utah Rivers Council has worked to educate decision makers about how markets work, and we are still explaining why cheap water rates drive high water use as if we somehow invented the concept of how low prices drive high consumption. That’s partly because water lobbyists opposing tax phase-outs are often paid by water agencies who receive 60-70% of their revenue from such taxes, not from water sales.
Become a water activist for Earth Day. Call or email Gov. Cox and ask him to:
Require meters on ALL secondary water users by Dec 31, 2024.
Phase out property taxes for urban water which give large landowners and institutional water users a break on their high water use.
Inventory all Utah canals to estimate how much water could be saved by lining them with concrete or piping them to eliminate water loss.
Call Governor Cox
(801) 538-1000 // (800) 705-2464