Utah Governor Spencer Cox released the third chapter of Utah’s Coordinated Action Plan for Water on Wednesday, which aims to balance water conservation, agriculture and state growth.
The Action Plan is a collaboration between the Governor’s Office and the state’s Natural Resources, Agriculture and Food and Environmental Quality departments. The chapter released this week focuses on water conservation commitments to optimize the state’s scarce water resources.
Agriculture in Utah is a major water consumer, using approximately 80% of the state’s consumed water. In an interview with the Great Salt Lake Collaborative last week, Cox acknowledged agriculture needs to do more to conserve water, but that Utah’s growth is putting pressures on water consumption as well.
“The problem in the Salt Lake Valley isn't farming or agriculture, right? It's the number of people that we have that are moving here. So it's different,” Cox said. “Every water district is very different in that makeup. But agriculture has to do more. And what we know is there is technology out there that will allow agriculture to use much less water.”
Technological advances, including automated watering systems, are expected to help Utah conserve water on the agricultural front.
Utah’s population is one of the fastest growing in the nation, with a projected 66% increase in population by 2060, according to a report released this year by the University of Utah.
