How Big Is Too Big?

How Big Is Too Big?

– By Ed Kociela –

When I first laid eyes on Washington County, the population was a neat and tidy 65,520.

I was coming from the Greater Los Angeles Metropolitan area, and well, you could have stuffed the entire Washington County population into The Coliseum for a USC football game.

It was charming, really.

There was no mall and not an Olive Garden in sight.

Washington County wasn’t quaint; it was just open with enough elbow room for everybody. Iron County had the charm of a small rural community with horses, sheep, some cattle, and a lot of alfalfa.

And, say what you will about customs and culture; Southern Utah is truly a place of beauty. It was no wonder many people were cashing in their homes in California and making a run for this place.

The migrant Californians were longing for a place where the cashier at the grocery store knew their name, where you didn’t worry about being stuck on the freeway for hours, where crime was minimal, and the price of food didn’t empty your wallet.

It was a boom time for the area, which was growing at a remarkable rate of 10-12 percent a year – phenomenal numbers. Property values soared and the golf courses were overrun with newcomers who liked to flex their muscles in the bright sunshine and clean air.

If you build it they will come.

So, they built it, and the people came, and came, and came. They still are, which is why the St. George Metropolitan area is, for the second consecutive year, the fastest-growing in the United States.

The thing about living in the desert is that water isn’t plentiful, so a plan was concocted to pipe in water from Lake Powell, 140 miles away, through a very fragile ecosystem and further depleting a great waterway that includes Lakes Mead and Powell. Both are suffering. In fact, Lake Mead is at its lowest capacity ever.

Drought has reared its ugly head and is threatening to wreak havoc on continued growth. I mean, what good is growth if you cannot flush the toilets?

Still, if you build it, they will come.

Southern Utah gets a predominant amount of water from the Colorado River system. The problem, of course, is farther down the line from Southern Utah you have Las Vegas and Southern California drawing from the same tap. Guess which ones are the taller dogs and who will get first dibs. I guarantee it won’t be Southern Utah.

That’s why so many in Southern Utah governance have dug in their heels in support of the pipeline. It is shortsighted and, in typical red-state fashion, does not take the environment into consideration.

Look, if the lakes are at their lowest point ever, what on Earth gives these guys the belief that they will be able to refill them to supply enough water to take care of consumption and hydroelectric needs? Who is to say Mother Nature will bless us with wild, wet winters to supply runoff needed to top them off? And, Lord-A-mighty, what about those emerald lawns and dozen-plus golf courses in the area?

The pipeline will surely not be able to supply that much hydration and the cost to the ecosystem, a fact hugely ignored by Utah officials too busy stuffing wads of dollars into their overfilled pockets and unwilling to understand the need for serious conservation.

And, serious is the operative word here.

The pipeline is being bolstered by the constant abuse of the Southern Utah water system. And, yes, it is an abuse. Las Vegas, Denver, Los Angeles, and Phoenix have a municipal water use of between 120 and 150 gallons per person per day. St. George uses more than 300 gallons per person per day, according to a reprimand from six of the seven Colorado River Basin States that has busted Utah and its greed in this matter by petitioning the feds to halt the pipeline and, instead, seek federal funding for water reclamation projects in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act.

They wonder aloud how a region the size of Metropolitan St. George can compete honestly for water with established cities like Tucson and Albuquerque.

We have all learned a lot about the benefits of xeriscaping in conserving water and how it can help hold onto those precious drops of liquid, but even though there are many who do understand that the business of the environment is everybody’s business and that we are custodians of this planet, there is more to be done by residents and elected officials.

Limits should be established for water usage with meaningful fines for those who overuse it.

Instead of pouring billions of dollars into a project that could very well turn up dry some day, why not invest in installing a gray water system to reclaim as much water as possible?

And, to prove that even liberals can have a conservative bend now and then, what about the cost and reliance on the federal government for money that will come due on future generations?

I remember thinking the proponents of this project were out of their minds when they brought the idea forward more than a decade ago. I hate to say it, but I told you so. They are still crazy, still selfish, still very shortsighted regarding what lies ahead.

We first wondered, all those years ago, what would happen in the event of drought. Now we know as Lakes Mead and Powell are reduced to a small fraction of what they once were. It begs the question: If the waters are so low now, how can they possibly make life better down the line? Droughts in the West are not uncommon. And Utah just does not have the political clout or acumen to compete with California, Nevada, and Arizona to go toe-to-toe on this issue.

The common sense alternative, of course, is to prepare for growth by building the infrastructure of gray water systems (yes, I know how expensive that would be, but it would not cost in the billions like the pipeline), instituting severe penalties for overuse, and switching to xeriscaping instead of lush green lawns.

Oh, yeah.

We should also look at realistic growth, not pie-in-the-sky that would be a quick buck for some who could turn a deal now, but a long-term disaster for others stuck with the bill.

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