Utahns must think beyond spigot

Most of my life, I lived on rivers. It's somewhat romanticized in my memories now, but there's something very soothing about the sounds of a river — the rush of the spring runoff; a gentle splashing of water flowing over rocks on the hottest days of summer and the gurgle of water flowing beneath the ice that would form over the creeks in winter.

When one lives on a river, there's likely more thought about what is flowing into the water and what should be done to treat wastewater that eventually finds its way back into the water supply, let alone untreated pollutants that go down storm drains. There are constant visual reminders about the water supply.

Most people, I suppose, don't think that much about their water. Once, while attending a water meeting, I heard the renowned Utah water attorney Ed Clyde address the water managers in attendance. The gist of what he said was that most people's thinking about their water begins and ends at their spigots. They want water to come out when they turn the tap and they want it to be good quality water, Clyde said. He was right.

Nor do most people think much about the true cost of their water. Sure, they pay their water bill every month and they pay property tax to water districts. For the most part, Western water has been a bargain, thanks to federal support of water development in the West.

Those days are gone. Now the states will fund water development. And I have to wonder, will state and local support of water development spur serious thinking about water quality, conservation and supply?

Here's hoping.

There's a lot of debate about water development along the Wasatch Front and in southern Utah. It's a healthy discussion because developing new sources of water will be highly expensive. Some argue against water development because Utah could do far more to conserve water and there's a good deal of agricultural water that could be converted to municipal and industrial purposes. Others say developing additional sources of water is environmentally unsound and virtually guarantees out-of-control sprawl. Still others say the growth is coming anyway, the water rights are in place and the water will be needed in the future — get 'er done.

Strong, sound arguments can be made for every one of these positions. It seems to me that meeting future water needs — how much we will need is also subject to debate — will require a mix of these solutions.

The cheap and most sensible approach — no matter how the rest is ultimately handled — is that we've got to get serious about water conservation. We live in a desert, people.