By Adam Larson
Last month the Utah Division of Water Resources released an alarming report detailing the looming danger of drought in Utah.
The comprehensive study, titled 'Drought in Utah: Learning from the Past - Preparing for the Future,' outlines the history of drought in Utah, the forecast for the future and strategies to effectively utilize Utah''s water supply.
'This report was written primarily for water suppliers in Utah,' said Dennis Strong, division director, in a news release. 'We hope it will encourage them to fully assess their vulnerability to drought in order to better prepare for future events.'
Todd Stonely, the River Basin planning chief of the Division of Water Resources, further affirms the threat outlined by the study.
'The snow pack that we received here in Utah and much of the West was ... normal, so it could be that we are entering a drought,' Stonely said. 'Certainly the signs of drought are there. How much they start to impact us is yet to be seen, but there certainly will be some impact.'
Stonely explained that during a drought there are usually one or two wet years that help to relieve the situation, but if a drought lasted into a seventh or eighth year without relief then Utah would feel a major impact, unlike anything in its recorded history.
From 1999 to 2004, Utah experienced six years of drought, the effects of which were somewhat minimized by the increased rainfall in 2005.
'In 2003, the Deer Creek reservoir and all the other major reservoirs around the Wasatch Front were down much below normal,' Stonely said. 'And had 2005 been a dry year, I think we would have felt it a lot more than we did in those first four or five years.'
Although the current year''s threat of drought in Utah Valley is relatively low as the reservoirs in the area are near capacity, if the drought persists, Stonely predicts that Utah may see agricultural impacts as soon as next year, and economic impacts as soon as 2009.