4 ms·

> I've heard the rule of thumb is that an acre of carrots uses as much water as an acre of tract homes. Two things are wrong with this comparison: 1 - Houses

> I've heard the rule of thumb is that an acre of carrots uses as much water as an acre of tract homes. Two things are wrong with this comparison: 1 - Houses use potable water. Crops use a mix of irrigation water and rainfall. When you grow crops in arid climates like Utah, you lose the benefit of rainfall and have to pull everything from irrigation. Ideally you'd grow those crops in environments that provide more of their water needs from the sky rather than divert rivers to cover it all. 2 - Carrots aren't being grown in Utah, it's alfalfa and hay. Alfalfa is one of the more water-intensive crops to grow. 3 - The news articles say that Utah is growing a lot of this alfalfa for export. They're basically exporting their water to other locations, at the expense of residents. It doesn't make sense for an arid state with a shrinking lake to allow people to use 2/3 of their water to export a water-intensive crop like alfalfa.

fargle 4y ago
That doesn't explain why suburban lawns are needed in an arid climate. At least alfalfa is a product. When you water a lawn with potable water you are flat out wasting it. When you water a crop you are using it. Now, over-farming or farming the wrong crops isn't right either, but if you cancelled all the ag, every different crop and replaced it with houses, guess what - still a drought. That's why I used carrots in my comment. In the area where we experienced this, they over-built and also somewhat over-farmed. Ran out of ground water. Create water board which decided that the carrot farmers who had been there 100 years were 2nd in line for the water under their own land, which they both had legal title to and state constitutional rights to, and took it from them. They ran them out of town because it became uneconomical. Then the developers (who also ran the water board) bought the now-cheaper land and put houses there. Guess what, 20 years later - still not enough ground water. Still a bunch of suburban nimbys watering their lawns, just a lot more of them now. Guess why we import carrots from mexico now.

fargle 4y ago

That doesn't explain why suburban lawns are needed in an arid climate. At least alfalfa is a product. When you water a lawn with potable water you are flat out wasting it. When you water a crop you are using it. Now, over-farming or farming the wrong crops isn't right either, but if you cancelled all the ag, every different crop and replaced it with houses, guess what - still a drought. That's why I used carrots in my comment. In the area where we experienced this, they over-built and also somewhat over-farmed. Ran out of ground water. Create water board which decided that the carrot farmers who had been there 100 years were 2nd in line for the water under their own land, which they both had legal title to and state constitutional rights to, and took it from them. They ran them out of town because it became uneconomical. Then the developers (who also ran the water board) bought the now-cheaper land and put houses there. Guess what, 20 years later - still not enough ground water. Still a bunch of suburban nimbys watering their lawns, just a lot more of them now. Guess why we import carrots from mexico now.