Who's really using up the water in the American West?

Hint: water scarcity in the Western US has more to do with our diets than our lawns.

The Western United States is currently battling the most severe drought in thousands of years. A mix of bad water management policies and manmade climate change has created a situation where water supplies in Western reservoirs are so low, states are being forced to cut their water use.

It’s not hard to find media coverage that focuses on the excesses of residential water use: long showers, swimming pools, lawn watering, at-home car washes. Or in the business sector, like irrigating golf courses or pumping water into hotel fountains in Las Vegas.

But when a team of researchers looked at water use in the West, they uncovered a very different story about where most Western water goes. Their findings may hold the solution to dwindling water supplies in the West.

Lead study author Brian Richter wrote this post on common misconceptions about water scarcity:

For Vox coverage on water management policies on the Colorado River, which we weren’t able to cover in this story:

[mammocas]

I live in Colorado and 95% of my residential water bill goes towards watering my lawn, which is required by the HOA. It's ridiculous. There should be city regulations in place to make developers use native drought resistant landscaping and avoid this massive waste.

[kenhunt]

65% of the water in Utah goes to alfalfa.
This makes up about 1% of the State's GDP.
Center pivot uses 900gal/minute.
Utah has not given up on the Lake Powell Pipeline.
The State has only pushed back the Bear River Project which would lower the Great Salt Lake even more.
Utah has the lowest water rates in the Nation.
Utah is the 2nd driest State.

[ferretsmiles]

You forgot to mention that a field of alfalfa will consume more water than other crops and farmers are picking it specifically for that because in their water rights agreements if they use less water it means that next year their water allocation is reduced.

[MikeDawson]

whoever's idea it was to do the little diorama pieces instead of an animation, and to whoever made them - excellent work

[ez]

People will look back at our times and shake their heads. Producing an excessive amount of meat from plants grown in the desert and thereby rendering entire regions uninhabitable during the accelalerating climate crisis is the perfect example of what's wrong with our way of doing things.

[alecvinson]

really frustrating when 80-90% of media coverage is on residential + commercial usage when 80-90% of the usage is agriculture. refreshing (ha!) to see a video which helps get to the core of the conservation issue.

[jacobcleaver]

Wow it’s almost like they are growing crops that aren’t evolved to grow in the desert in the middle of a desert…

[Mar_Ten]

Paying for not using water seems so odd... Just regulate it properly. Some of the businesses are just not feasible anymore.

[southwestxnorthwest]

Saudi Arabia: _We're going to cut OPEC production so prices increase_
Also Saudi Arabia: _We bought land in Kingman, AZ so we can grow alfalfa to export back to the Kingdom. To do this we will pump as much groundwater as we want since Arizona has no laws restricting the pumping of groundwater_

The United States: _Ok no problem_

[thephildiamond]

The video mentions that alfalfa is a crop that humans don't eat, but the second largest water consumer, corn, also doesn't really feed humans. It's mostly for livestock feed and ethanol. A small percentage does feed humans in the form of high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, corn meal, corn starch, etc often found in junk foods. Quite the system we've created here.

[Xeonerable]

Oh no certain people might lose their jobs! Well if water runs out there are going to be a lot worse problems!

[gregorybstewart]

Well done. My take away is that rather than being held hostage by the evergreen growers, we need to regulate the market better and dis-incentivize the activity. Levy higher export tariffs, higher water costs, or ? It seems a strange thing, watering the desert, to grow a crop we don’t directly eat.

[sgallegos]

Being in Vegas, we were taught our usage impacted everything. It’s a literal drop in the bucket. We still lead water conservation. This is helpful research.

[shadow]

It's almost like it was a bad idea to turn the desert into a farm 🤔

[roosterillusion]

Wow, it's absolutely shocking how humans create convoluted strategies to problems when the simplest, most effective solution was glossed over in a few seconds in this video. I don't know when people are going to realise that we either have to make the tough decisions ourselves or the climate is going to make it for us. Nevermind, it's already doing that

[juliuszkocinski]

EVERY well-made documentary about human enviromental impact follows roughly the same story:
1) You were told that cutting your consumption on [this resource] is neccessary to save the Earth
2) Actually residental usage counts to below 10% of all consumption.
3) Big business / agriculture / industry / military is responsible for the other 70-90%
4) Nobody really seems to care, regulate or even talk about it

Seriously, I'm more and more sure that the most enviromentally concious decisions we can made is to just buy things which are made in sustainable way. To vote with your wallet

And even then it's HARD, because estimating enviromental impact is way out of scope for everyday consumer and companies will try to sell absurd ideas like "our cruise ships take 30% less fuel than decade ago therefore they are eco-friendly"

[genybr]

Well. What about not to grow in deserts?

[okayfine]

This was a BEAUTIFULLY shot video! Major compliments to the team who planned this :)

[tat]

This is such an important topic, and I'm glad Vox has taken it on. As a resident of the West, I see my environment changing rapidly around me in ways that are downright terrifying, yet with limited recognition from those in charge around here. What sticks in my mind is: "what happens when millions of people, either by choice or by necessity, must leave the West and call someplace else home?". Who will be able to make that choice, and how will we support those unable to make that choice? The issue of water in the West is not limited to just the western United States, its likely to affect the entire country as well as how we expect to manage environmental issues of similar magnitude as they present themselves to us around the world in the coming years. And they will undoubtedly present themselves.

[iyote]

US has far too much reliance on meat. Cattle industries are heavily subsidized. That's why fast food is so cheap and convenient, and why salads are so expensive. We need a shift in subsidies to support plant agriculture for human consumption over animal agriculture, and a cultural shift away from beef-heavy diets.