Utah Needs Lawns

Water from the Colorado River is the life blood of much of the Southwestern United States.  It has turned desert cites like Phoenix, Los Vegas and water poor San Diego into sprawling metropolises.   Its waters make California's arid Imperial County into the nations winter salad bowl - generating the majority of the country's lettuce and many other vegetables for half the year.  However, for decades that water has been borrowed from the less populated states who are legally entitled to it through a series of water agreements.  So,  while a multi-year drought has reduced the river's flow, those loaner states are now taking possession of their water.  It appears that Utah really wants nice green lawns.

Despite the risk that the river resource is overcommitted and it is shrinking, four Upper Basin states — Utah, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico — are pushing forward with dams, reservoir expansions and pipelines like the one at Lake Powell that will allow them to capture what they were promised under the 1922 Colorado River Compact. The Lower Basin states of Arizona, Nevada and California have been using that water downstream for nearly a century.