Updated: Aug 20, 2022
Do you know what they are doing to Utah’s water supply & how it affects our food source?
So, what’s the deal with Utah’s water? Do we know why our water levels are so low? Is it really due to a drought? Have you noticed water piping being replaced and new water metering being placed in your city? Utah’s government says it’s due to old infrastructure, lead poisoning, and conservation efforts. Is that really why? If it’s not, do you know why they would lie about us being in a drought? Let’s take a look at some of the facts surrounding Utah’s new “green water infrastructure.”
There are three main factors playing into this drought of ours: allocation of water, climate change and weather modification, and the source of our water.
When it comes to the allocation of our water, not many people are aware of the Utah Central Project which links the Green River into our Upper Colorado River Compact. We hear Governor Spencer Cox talk a lot about the Colorado River and how it is supposedly drying up but no one seems to ever mention the Green River and its role in our water supply. When the Utah Central Project was started in 1956, one million acre feet of water was being allocated, via the Green River, to our upper water basin. Just to put that into perspective, one acre foot is equivalent to 326,000 gallons of water… that’s a lot of water! As of today, it is only receiving 101,000 acre feet of water due to the government reducing the allocation amount over the last decade. Are you aware that our government has also allotted a portion of our Colorado River water to Mexico? They added the additional water to the share Mexico gets in Minute 319 of the Mexico-U.S. Treaty. It goes down their river bed all the way to empty into the ocean.
No one in government seems to talk about the fact that there is water piping emptying reservoirs up Diamond Fork and Spanish Fork canyon all the way into the Great Salt Lake. For those of you near Spanish Fork canyon, were you aware of that fact contributing to your diminishing water levels? Provo River also has water pipes flowing into the Great Salt Lake. The Jordan River also flows into the Great Salt Lake Utah and, even though Utah Rivers Council has provided alternative solutions to our supposed drought, our government is planning on reallocating 25-30 percent of Bear River to the Great Salt Lake. That’s a lot of water allocations to the Great Salt Lake to just dry up and evaporate. But is that really what’s happening?
Were you aware of the West Desert Pumps that were installed in 1987 due to severe flooding, to drain the Great Salt Lake via three huge canals, into the west desert to evaporate? The pumps were turned off in 1989 but kept in place in case they were ever needed to be used again. However, there has been a constant supply of water draining from the Great Salt Lake, through the pump station, and into the west desert canals as of today. In fact, I went out to the pumps, less than a week ago, and found at least eight miles of water flowing down the canals into the west desert to evaporate in the heat. It appears all that water is being pumped into the lake to be sent to the west desert to dry up. Were you aware that Lake Mead has three huge underground tunnels draining water to Las Vegas? Most people are only aware of one. This would explain the 45 foot drop in water level, at Lake Powell, in one year. Forty-five feet of water evaporation, due to heat, in one year, from a lake that is 186 miles long and 25 miles wide? Seems a bit impossible. In fact, a group of men who have been fishing at Lake Mead, for years, said that the decline in the water level there seems very suspicious; they have been out on the lake almost every day, for years, and have never seen a decrease like this so quickly due to heat. This brings us to the next point. That very same day, these fisherman caught a flash flood of water flowing down into Lake Mead. They said that these flash floods are very common and happen all the time there. That is a huge amount of water, constantly refilling the lake, to just evaporate so quickly. Is it really climate change that is causing all of these low water levels, algae blooms, and dead fish?
The west desert pumps, of the Great Salt Lake, are maintained monthly, and part of that maintenance is to install nitrogen cylinders to reduce water vapor from pressurizing in the pumps. That’s interesting, because Governor Cox has talked a lot about algae blooms in the lake caused by climate change. Do you know what else causes algae blooms in water? Nitrogen does. In fact, the Environmental Protection Agency says so themselves. Algae blooms take over the ocean floor and block sunlight and oxygen from the water which also affects the water level, and quality, and kills the fish and life inside the lake. Algae blooms also grow and block water inlets, meaning the Jordan River could be cut off from emptying into the lake if the inlets to the lake have been taken over by thick algae blooms. Now, I am not aware if the outlets have been closed off by algae, but I do know the lake is being drained by the pump canals and that it is taking all the water it’s receiving from other reservoirs along with it.
There is another issue with Lake Powell: mussels. Mussels have taken over the lake. Do you know what mussels do to algae? They filter it, which is basically how they “eat”, and the filtered product ends with more dead fish. This overgrowth of mussels is not a climate change issue. It’s an issue of people bringing their boat to one lake, which is infested with mussels, and then bringing their boat to other lakes where those same mussels find a new home and start multiplying. This is what happened with Lake Powell. It has been taken over by mussels (I know this because I go there twice per year) which is affecting the algae in the lake, causing fish to die.
The 1997, Volume 20, Number 1 Edition of the New Zealand Journal of Ecology, mentions all sorts of human-caused global environmental changes which include introducing species to new ecosystems, such as mussels specifically. In fact, the ecologists, who wrote the article, specifically mention Lake Powell and its system of dams as also playing a role in human-caused environmental change. A script from their journal reads, “Indeed, the damming and impounding of most of the rivers in the U.S. has been correlated with the invasion of rivers, streambanks, and floodplains by introduced species… For example, prior to the construction of the large network of dams that control the Colorado River, its floodplain forests were dominated by native cottonwood and willow species. With dam construction, groundwater tables have dropped, scouring floods have ceased, and cottonwood and willow have declined… The fragmentation of wildlife habitat resulting from agriculture or urban development has also affected the spread of introduced species. Urban forests and parklands represent an increasing percentage of our remaining near-natural habitats.” Did you get the part where dam systems have caused our groundwater table levels to drop and flooding of water supply to cease? It’s interesting that our government agencies and water conservancy departments keep proposing new dam systems in reservoirs that are still full. From the sound of this journal entry, it seems that those reservoirs are still full because they don’t have dams affecting their natural flow and means of retaining water. It is interesting that these reservoirs, higher in elevation, are still full in a supposed severe drought, yet the Great Salt Lake and Lake Powell (the two lakes with means to be drained) are lowering with staggering water level drops… impossible water level drops in such a short amount of time.
Speaking of dams, the Utah Division of Water Rights has a whole list of dams, on their site, that are at “high hazard” ratings which means that they are filled to the spill crest (or full to the top) of water. They are considered a high hazard because, if one of the dams were to break, the amount of water that would release, all at once, would cause severe damage of property and loss of life due to flooding. Isn’t it interesting that we have so many dams with reservoirs that are filled to the top, yet other reservoirs are so low that we are supposedly in a drought? Wouldn’t they all be at low water levels?