Environmental and community groups have sued Utah officials over failures to save its iconic Great Salt Lake from irreversible collapse.

The largest saltwater lake in the western hemisphere has been steadily shrinking, as more and more water has been diverted away from the lake to irrigate farmland, feed industry and water lawns. A megadrought across the US south-west, accelerated by global heating, has hastened the lake’s demise.

Unless dire action is taken, the lake could decline beyond recognition within five years, a report published early this year warned, exposing a dusty lakebed laced with arsenic, mercury, lead and other toxic substances. The resulting toxic dustbowl would be “one of the worst environmental disasters in modern US history”, the ecologist Ben Abbott of Brigham Young University told the Guardian earlier this year.

  • Ryumast3r@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Lawns aren’t really the issue for utah. Agriculture uses something like 70+% of the water, and a lot of that is flood irrigation or other inefficient irrigation. The water is mostly used for crops like alfalfa that get exported to places like China.

    The governor, unsurprisingly, is heavily invested in alfalfa farming, so do the math.

    • Wogi@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Utah uses an astronomical amount of water when compared to other states. Residential water use is the single greatest non agricultural use of water in the state. I’m going to go out on a limb and say the green lawns might be a contributing factor.

      Agricultural water use is a problem, sure. In a state that has very little water maybe growing plants that need a lot of it is a bad idea. Why wouldn’t this apply to grass as well?

        • Wogi@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          It doesn’t.

          70% of the non agricultural water use is residential. Which means residential water use is a little more than 20% of the state’s water usage. Let’s be generous and say that watering yards is only 15% of the state’s total per capita consumption.

          15% of an already massively over taxed water system isn’t anything to shake a fist at. It’s even more important when you consider how much more water Utah is using than it’s neighbors, which while difficult to precisely calculate, isn’t a small amount by any measure.

          We need food, we don’t need green lawns.

        • GlitzyArmrest@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          In Utah, it absolutely does not. It takes a massive amount of water to keep lawns, parks, and golf courses green. The amount of ‘green’ space that you’d get from adding up everyone’s lawns isn’t insignificant.

    • renownedballoonthief@lemmygrad.ml
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      1 year ago

      Alfalfa exports are a small portion compared to domestic livestock consumption. The answer now, as always, is that people should go vegan.

      • Bayz0r@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        And unfortunately that still gets you downvotes, despite being the one contribution practically everyone can make themselves instantly.