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> if it's good enough to shift the high water use crop farming elsewhere, then why isn't it good enough to shift the golf courses and lawns, to say Iowa then to

> if it's good enough to shift the high water use crop farming elsewhere, then why isn't it good enough to shift the golf courses and lawns, to say Iowa then too? That's very easy to answer. Because the number of humans impacted is minimized. An average farm size is ~400 acres. This is around 0.6 square miles. SLC's density is 1,800 per square mile so 400 acres is ~1k people. What do you think is easier? Displacing 1k people in a city center or 1 farmer? No one is saying the solution is perfect but between nobody being able to enjoy SLC due to inaction, 1 farmer, or 1k people, the obvious solution is for the 1k people to band together, buy the farm, and shut it down. As per your last comment, no one here is saying that other people choosing to live in the desert are nobler than farmers. No one is "blaming" the farmers for making use of cheap water and fertile land. It all makes economic sense. The reality is that there is a finite resource and we should be working together to maximize societal benefit otherwise the tragedy of the commons will ensure none of us can. At this point in time, the most good least harm principle makes the calculus straightforward that agriculture is where the ROI is at.

fargle 4y ago
oh, I don't blame the 1000 people. I blame the asshat developers who tricked them into buying into a fake utopian suburbia there. you don't need to displace anybody. you need to stop blaming the farmers and/or taking their water and start ENFORCING reasonable water restrictions on the existing developments. About 50% of the water being used by municipalities is potable drinking water being sprayed on lawns and golf courses. You get rid of that before a telling a farmer to get lost because it's "easier".
- kortilla 4y ago
  You’re being deliberately obtuse and are repeating propaganda that’s irrelevant for total water usage. Per acre suburbia consumes more, but as it stands farming is the vast majority of water consumption overall. It doesn’t matter how efficiently they use it. If farmers don’t make major cuts the lake will be gone. Getting rid of lawns and golf courses will barely slow down the decline, let alone change the direction. You’re talking about optimizing 20% of the water users and suggesting the 70% is fine, which is insane. Put another way, if all urban usage stopped immediately, the lake would still dry up because of the farmers irrigating away with reckless abandon. As the article points out, this happened once already when SLC was much smaller and it was just lucky enough to be rescued by a thousand year rain event. Farmers can pound sand, regardless of their water rights. Constitutional water rights for a shared resource are a travesty. They should pay for it like the rest of us so market dynamics can properly identify what is important and the lake can be protected.

fargle 4y ago

oh, I don't blame the 1000 people. I blame the asshat developers who tricked them into buying into a fake utopian suburbia there. you don't need to displace anybody. you need to stop blaming the farmers and/or taking their water and start ENFORCING reasonable water restrictions on the existing developments. About 50% of the water being used by municipalities is potable drinking water being sprayed on lawns and golf courses. You get rid of that before a telling a farmer to get lost because it's "easier".

kortilla 4y ago
You’re being deliberately obtuse and are repeating propaganda that’s irrelevant for total water usage. Per acre suburbia consumes more, but as it stands farming is the vast majority of water consumption overall. It doesn’t matter how efficiently they use it. If farmers don’t make major cuts the lake will be gone. Getting rid of lawns and golf courses will barely slow down the decline, let alone change the direction. You’re talking about optimizing 20% of the water users and suggesting the 70% is fine, which is insane. Put another way, if all urban usage stopped immediately, the lake would still dry up because of the farmers irrigating away with reckless abandon. As the article points out, this happened once already when SLC was much smaller and it was just lucky enough to be rescued by a thousand year rain event. Farmers can pound sand, regardless of their water rights. Constitutional water rights for a shared resource are a travesty. They should pay for it like the rest of us so market dynamics can properly identify what is important and the lake can be protected.