Letter: How committed is Schultz to water conservation?
For the past several years we have been advised on a constant basis about water conservation. The Governors office, the State Legislature, the Water Conservancy Districts, the Great Salt Lake Commission (a new organization established that so far has done nothing notable regarding the GSL water levels). Now — we are made aware of efforts on the part of the Utah Legislature Speaker of the House, Mike Schultz, to gain authorization from the State Division of Water Rights to pump up to 181,000,000 (yep — 181 MILLION) gallons of water from an aquifer on the north end of the GSL in order to raise crops in the “West Desert” and provide water to grow alfalfa as well as other uses. Note that Schultz recently railed against Compass Minerals for wanting to pump more water out of the Great Salt Lake.
In addition to all this the State is looking at building a pipeline to pump water from the Bear River to a few new reservoirs for future development in the Box Elder county areas. The total amount of water that is identified in this proposal is 220,000 acre feet which equates to 71,500,000,000 (again yep — 71.5 BILLION) gallons of water. Granted this is over a long period of time but still — it is water that now is flowing into the Great Salt Lake. And again — a double standard.
We are constantly being urged to conserve, reduce our landscape water consumption, our watering hours and days are reduced and we are now metered on secondary water. But Schultz must think he is above all of these efforts as well as those that are proposing 71.5 billions for future population growth. If you think the lake is at a low level now just wait until these special interests get their requests approved. So — maybe we need to take a long hard look at the State Legislature, the Governors Office and the Great Salt Lake Commission (which is costing the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars).
We all should be questioning his actions and demand solid and truthful answers — does Schultz want everyone to conserve or is it everyone but him?
Larry Clark
Syracuse