Water politics slow the flow for agriculture and downstream users



Cache Valley farmers, water managers and Utah State University scientists came together for the annual Utah Soil Health Partnership event today to discuss new technology and new hurdles impacting local agriculture – and water conservation dominated the discussion.

Matt Yost, an agroclimate specialist and assistant professor at USU, presented his research evaluating different irrigation technology and its impact on crop yield. Yost and his research team are aiming to improve profitability for farmers and decrease inefficient irrigation methods.

“Even in the water years where we have all the water we need, there’s still a lot of opportunity to optimize our water use,” Yost said while introducing new irrigation technology. Yost and his team have shown that new sprinkler nozzle technology can use 20 to 30 percent less water than conventional nozzles while maintaining crop yield.

Nathan Daugs, the manager of the Cache Valley Water Conservancy district, said farmers are on board for these technological changes. “As they improve their irrigation system, their ground becomes more productive so they can make a better profit,” Daugs said.

While technological improvement in irrigation practices is beneficial for farmers and ecosystems, water politics can build figurative dams in the flow of the state’s sacred resource.

“Farmers’ biggest hurdle is the state politics,” Daugs said. Water law in Utah has followed the doctrine of prior appropriation for more than 100 years, stating the first in time get the first right to water.

“Ultimately, agriculture has most of the water in the state because agriculture also has most of the land in the state,” Daugs said. “Also, it was all agriculture to start with.”

Technological improvements to irrigation can save large quantities of water, but land owners aren’t allowed to lease out or profit from the remaining share of their water that is conserved through irrigation improvements. “On the grand scale, they don’t want to do huge improvement projects cause their right gets diminished,” Daugs said.

One proposed solution involves water banking, allowing water users to keep shares in the “bank” when unused. This allows water that may have been otherwise wasted to be reallocated to people and places that need it. Water banking would allow users to profit off of their unused shares and take from the bank in times of shortage. “In Cache County, most of our water isn’t in storage,” Daugs said. “It’s runoff water from snowpack through the year. If it changes to more of a rain-driven scenario for agriculture, we’re in a lot of trouble real fast.”

Daugs is a proponent of the controversial Bear River development plan, a $1.5 billion project to build dams on the Great Salt Lake’s largest tributary. “If it all comes as rain, we’re going to have to have more reservoirs,” Daugs said. “We gotta be able to store it [water] and use it the rest of the year.”

As manager of the Bear River Water Conservancy, it’s Daugs job to plan for the future. As climate change scenarios project decreased snowpack and population in Cache Valley is expected to double within 30 to 50 years, Daugs recognizes something has to give so water resources don’t run dry.

“So far we’ve never seen that anywhere in the West,” said Daugs. “They find a way to bring water whether it’s over a mountain or from another state.”

Daugs said research needs to improve knowledge regarding the impact of potential development on the Great Salt Lake ecosystem. “Those studies will still have to be done to see where that water is going to come from,” he said, hoping for a balance between water for agriculture, municipalities and ecosystems.

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