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It would require a very, very large tarp. The simpler solution is to stop drying it out to begin with, but that would require more or less halting extractive ag
by woodruffw 4y ago
It would require a very, very large tarp. The simpler solution is to stop drying it out to begin with, but that would require more or less halting extractive agriculture in Utah (as well as much of the rest of the Mountain West).
- anonymoose33282 4y agoAnd in Utah's case, it's almost exclusively alfalfa. Over half the state's water use, for less than half a percent of its economy: https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/editorial/2022/12/04/why-its-time-utah-buy-out/ https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/editorial/2022/12/04/why-its-...
- GolfPopper 4y agoThe Great Salt Lake drainage basin is pretty large - about half of Utah, part of southern Idaho, and Nevada and Wyoming's borders with Utah.[1] But the economic value of that agriculture is small relative to its water use. 82% of Utah's water goes to agriculture, mostly hay, and most of the hay is alfalfa, which accounts for 41% of Utah's water use all by itself.[2] Yet that thirsty hay is less than 1% of Utah's GDP.[3] It's another demonstration of how bad our societal framework is at dealing with spread-out, gradual, externalized costs. It's a failure that I fear is going to painfully wreck us, probably during my lifetime. [1]https://slco.org/watershed/know-your-local-waters/amazing-great-salt-lake/ https://slco.org/watershed/know-your-local-waters/amazing-gr... [2]https://www.utahfoundation.org/2015/05/hay-one-crop-is-utahs-biggest-water-consumer/ https://www.utahfoundation.org/2015/05/hay-one-crop-is-utahs... [3]https://www.fox13now.com/news/fox-13-investigates/fox-13-investigates-utahs-top-cash-crop-is-consuming-most-of-our-water https://www.fox13now.com/news/fox-13-investigates/fox-13-inv...