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Show Editorial . . . Will Utah Get a Permanent Water Starvation Diet? It's easy to decide to go on a diet right after one's appetite has been satisfied with a good meal. But four or five hours later, when the familiar pangs of hunger begin to appear, the lofty ideals take on a different aspect. We think this is the same way things have been with the decision to scrap the Central Utah Project as far as 1978 funding is concerned. While fields have lain dormant and there has been a little snow on the ground at times (plenty in the states back east along with the usual seasonal rain in the south), the time of reckoning is about to come to the west as the growing season arrives. With projections of only about 40-percent of normal water supply available for crops this summer, people in Utah might as well get used to the idea that this situation could turn into something permanent, rather than just a drought year and the starvation diet will be forever. If CUP is halted, any chance of receiving additional water in Sevier , Valley through exchanges with i areas in Juab and Millard counties, : is gone. This means that even with a so-called "good" year waterwise, the needs cannot be met as the area grows and demands for water increase. But without the prospects of CUP, combined with the type of water year we are now experiencing, this area is facing one of its most critical problems in history. And for once, it isn't just people in areas which will be affected by the demise of CUP, but the state as a whole who are concerned. The Carter administration announcement that CUP, along with 17 other major water conservation projects might not receive funding, or might have a great cut in funds, has raised a furor throughout the state. This is one time when the majority of people agree that without water, Utah is seriously strapped. Of course there are the same ultra-conservationists whose assertions that bringing water through CUP would disturb the environment and perhaps an exotic specie of bird or game might have to find a new home, have gone along with Carter. Unfortunately, Carter knows little about the west, its arrid climate and its complete depen-dance on water from springs, wells and watersheds to exist, and so his feeling is parallel to the environmentalist who doesn't want the ecology or environment disturbed, but still wants to have the benefits of a growing, affluent society. It isn't so much that the millions already invested in CUP would go down the drain (the federal government has never worried too much about spending wastefully), as it is that Utah needs water and CUP is one of the surest way of getting it. One only has to look back a year ago when the hue and cry from the environmentalists and other ex-:-tremists, caused the death of Kaiparowits. Now, with or without them, Pres. Carter is trying to do the same thing with CUP. Kaiparowits we can live without. Water we can't. When will the majority of Utahns decide it's about time they got what they want, and need, and end the nonsense which Carter has threatened us with? This drought year is not only the best example of what Utah is facing in a bad year, but what Utah will face in subsequent years if more water isn't forthcoming. It is an outrage to the people of this state that CUP is being threatened with fund cuts. If Utah sits back and takes the whim of Pres. Carter's latest circus act, we deserve what we get, and that will be nothing. |
