This is a concept that Florida’s leaders are unable to grasp. They are not able understand that there could be no water. They consider it something that will always be there and that building on undeveloped land is akin to a god-given right. Common sense does not enter the picture when it comes to water.
A thought process too complicated for Florida’s politicians.
But it is not only in Utah that common sense prevails but in Arizona also, even by builders–read below. This is what is down the road for Florida, whose leaders can’t think ahead and still consider it their mission to disperse all the water that is requested.
As a Florida judge (paraphrasing DOAH Judge E. Gary Early) once said justifying the giving of spring water to a foreign business owner for his private use– “the water is there so why not use it?”
Thanks to Mike Roth for this link.
Read the original article here in the New York Times.
Comments by OSFR historian Jim Tatum.
jim.tatum@oursantaferiver.org
– A river is like a life: once taken,
it cannot be brought back © Jim Tatum
A Drought so Dire That a Utah Town Pulled the Plug on Growth
Groundwater and streams vital to both farmers and cities are drying up in the West, challenging the future of development.
Jack Healy and
OAKLEY, Utah — The mountain spring that pioneers used to water their hayfields and now fills people’s taps flowed reliably into the old cowboy town of Oakley for decades. So when it dwindled to a trickle in this year’s scorching drought, officials took drastic action to preserve their water: They stopped building.
During the coronavirus pandemic, the real estate market in their 1,750-person city boomed as remote workers flocked in from the West Coast and second homeowners staked weekend ranches. But those newcomers need water — water that is vanishing as a megadrought dries up reservoirs and rivers across the West.
So this spring, Oakley, about an hour’s drive east of Salt Lake City, imposed a construction moratorium on new homes that would connect to the town’s water system. It is one of the first towns in the United States to purposely stall growth for want of water in a new era of megadroughts. But it could be a harbinger of things to come in a hotter, drier West.
“Why are we building houses if we don’t have enough water?” said Wade Woolstenhulme, the mayor, who in addition to raising horses and judging rodeos has spent the past few weeks defending the building moratorium. “The right thing to do to protect people who are already here is to restrict people coming in.”
Across the Western United States, a summer of record-breaking drought, heat waves and megafires exacerbated by climate change is forcing millions of people to confront an inescapable string of disasters that challenge the future of growth.
Groundwater and streams vital both to farmers and cities are drying up. Fires devour houses being built deeper into wild regions and forests. Extreme heat makes working outdoors more dangerous and life without air-conditioning potentially deadly. While summer monsoon rains have brought some recent relief to the Southwest, 99.9 percent of Utah is locked in severe drought conditions and reservoirs are less than half full.
Yet cheap housing is even scarcer than water in much of Utah, whose population swelled by 18 percent from 2010 to 2020, making it the fastest-growing state. Cities across the West worry that cutting off development to conserve water will only worsen an affordability crisis that stretches from Colorado to California.
Farmers and ranchers — who use 70 to 80 percent of all water — are letting their fields go brown or selling off cows and sheep they can no longer graze. Gov. Spencer Cox of Utah said all but one of the fields on his family’s farm had dried up.
For now, most places are trying to stave off the worst of the drought through conservation instead of shutting off the spigot of growth. State officials say there is still plenty of drinking water and no plans to stop people from moving in and building.
“A huge consideration for many politicians is that they don’t want to be viewed as a community that has inadequate resources,” said Katharine Jacobs, who directs the University of Arizona’s climate adaptation research center.
But water now looms over many debates about building. Water authorities in Marin County, Calif., which is contending with the lowest rainfall in 140 years, are considering whether to stop allowing new water hookups to homes.
Many developers see a need to find new sources of water. “Water will be and should be — as it relates to our arid Southwest — the limiting factor on growth,” said Spencer Kamps, the vice president of legislative affairs for the Home Builders Association of Central Arizona. “If you can’t secure water supply, obviously development shouldn’t happen.”
Late last month, the state water department announced that it would not approve any applications for developers seeking to use groundwater within the area. The decision has raised concerns from local developers, who said the restrictions would make it harder to meet the needs of Arizona’s voracious housing market.
In Utah, Oakley and the nearby farming town of Henefer are vowing not to grow until they can secure new, reliable sources of water through drilling or pumping — an expensive and uncertain prospect.
“These towns are canaries in the coal mine,” said Paul D. Brooks, a professor of hydrology at the University of Utah. “They can’t count to go to the tap and turn on the water. Climate change is coming home to roost right now, and it’s hitting us hard.”
In the 1800s, water was one of the main draws to Oakley for white settlers. The town sits beside the Weber River, and its water and other mountain springs irrigated farmland and supported dairies that once speckled the valley….
“You feel bad for the people who’ve been saving up to build a house in Oakley,” Mayor Woolstenhulme said as he drove around town pointing out the dusty fields that would normally be lush with alfalfa. The distant mountains were blurred by wildfire haze. “I hate government infringement in people’s lives, but it’s like having kids: Every once in a while you got to crack down.”
Oakley is planning to spend as much as $2 million drilling a water well 2,000 feet deep to reach what officials hope is an untapped aquifer.
But 30 miles north of Oakley, past dry irrigation ditches, rumpled brown hillsides and the Echo Reservoir — 28 percent full and dropping — is the town of Henefer, where new building has been halted for three years. Right now, Henefer is trying to tap into new sources to provide water for landscaping and outdoor use — and save its precious drinking water.
“The folks in town don’t like it,” Mayor Kay Richins said of the building moratorium. “I don’t like it.”
Experts say the smallest towns are especially vulnerable. And few places in Utah are as tiny or dry as Echo, a jumble of homes squeezed between a freight railroad and stunning red-rock cliffs. Echo was already struggling to hang on after the two cafes closed down. Then its spring-fed water supply hit critical lows this summer.
Echo’s water manager has been trucking in drinking water from nearby cities. People worry that the water needed to put out a single brush fire could deplete their tanks.
At their house, J.J. Trussell and Wesley Winterhalter have let their lawn go yellow and take showers sparingly. But some neighbors still let their sprinklers spray, and Mr. Trussell worried that the little community his grandparents helped build was on the brink of drying up and blowing away.
“It’s very possible we’ll lose our only source of water,” he said. “It would make living here almost impossible.”
Jack Healy is a Colorado-based national correspondent who focuses on rural places and life outside America’s “City Limits” signs. He has worked in Iraq and Afghanistan and is a graduate of the University of Missouri’s journalism school. @jackhealynyt • Facebook
Sophie Kasakove is a 2021-2022 reporting fellow for the National desk. @sophie_kasakove
