The pioneers who settled here were driven by necessity more than choice to make a home in a desert. Out of necessity, they wisely adapted. They invented irrigation techniques that transformed the West and enabled our communities to thrive. For that we owe them a great debt.
Now it is our turn for a different kind of transformation, one that recognizes all the water users in the state — cities and farms, rivers and lakes — and assures a reliable supply for them all. Out of necessity, we must wisely adapt. Just as we would not survive here without the water development efforts of our forebears, our posterity will not survive here without the water sustainability efforts of our generation.
We do not seem to grasp that living in the West means living with limited water. Engineered water supplies offer high convenience and high reliability at the expense of distancing us from our relationship to water. We often forget where it comes from and how blessed we are to have it.
In the country’s third-driest state, we must do more with less. And we are: Cities are growing while their water use declines, and farms are producing more crops with less water. But reversing the long-term depletion of limited water resources, evident in the conditions of the Colorado River and Great Salt Lake, will require even more wisdom.
We have the technology, like smart irrigation controllers and water reuse. The policy too is adapting; Utah now recognizes that all secondary water uses should be metered, that every public water supplier needs a water conservation plan and that the state’s major water bodies deserve more attention than we have given them. The final and most challenging piece, the mindset, is changing too; I see it with people voluntarily abandoning nonfunctional turf in favor of native plants and reconsidering how they use water on their farms.
I’m optimistic that good stewardship will prevail, especially when combined with faith. We can pray for water, and we can pray for wisdom.