The 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

The 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...