Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Farming The Desert, Drought in Southern Utah, prt2

Farming the Desert:
Drought in Southern Utah
Part 2 or 2
Ross Chambless

HOST: A PROLONGED DROUGHT IN UTAH – NOW ENTERING ITS 7TH YEAR - HAS TAKEN ITS TOLL ON MANY UTAH FARMERS AND RANCHERS. THIS GROUP USES 85 PERCENT OF THE STATE’S WATER… ACCORDING TO THE UTAH DIVISION OF WATER RESOURCES… WATER THAT IS GETTING HARDER AND HARDER TO COME BY. SOME BELIEVE THE DROUGHT IS PUSHING THE STATE INTO AN ENTIRELY NEW ERA IN WATER POLICY… ONE THAT WILL FAVOR URBAN USE, RECREATION, AND ENDANGERED SPECIES. AS ONE WATER EXPERT SAYS, IN THE END THEY’LL SHUT OFF THE FARMER’S WATER BEFORE THE SHUT OFF PEOPLE’S HOMES. PRODUCER ROSS CHAMBLESS PRESENTS THIS PORTARAIT OF WHAT DROUGHT HAS MEANT FOR FARMERS IN SAN JUAN COUNTY.

[sound of windy field]

ROSS: IT’S GUSTY HERE. THE AIR SMELLS OF BURNT DRY GRASS… AND A RED HAZE FROM WILDFIRES KEEPS CREEPING UP FROM ARIZONA TO THE SOUTH…

[sound of tractor in the gusty wind]

ROSS: JUST SOUTH OF MONTICELLO, A FARMER STEERS A TRACTOR THROUGH A GREEN PASTURE OF ALFALFA… AMONG THE MOST WATER-INTENSIVE CROPS… PARTS OF IT HAVE TURNED YELLOW OR JUST DIED OFF.

DROUGHT IS CONSIDERED ONE OF THE MOST DESTRUCTIVE WEATHER RELATED DISASTERS IN AMERICA… IT’S ALSO ONE OF THE MOST EXPENSIVE…. UTAH’S FARMERS AND RANCHERS CAN LOSE UP TO 300 MILLION DOLLARS A YEAR FROM LOST CROPS AND CATTLE. BESIDES NOT ENOUGH WATER… DROUGHT ALSO CREATES LONG-TERM AND UNFORSEEN PROBLEMS FOR FARMERS…LIKE CRICKETS, GRASSHOPPERS, OR OTHER TYPES OF INFESTATIONS…

[gusty wind]

Tye Lewis: They tell me they have never, ever seen these Army Worms in this country, they’re not supposed to live above 7,000 feet, and they won’t eat sage brush or trees, and they ate everything they came along and find… this was a good field of grass but they ate it up….

ROSS: TYE LEWIS HAS LIVED HERE ALL HIS LIFE. HIS GRANDFATHER HOMESTEADED THE PROPERTY BACK IN 1915.

Tye Lewis: last year our lawn died and I just decided to leave it dead until I get a different kind of grass… …

Linda Lewis: It wears on you, just like a steady wind in June, a hot dry wind. That’s kind of the way it is…

Linda Lewis: …My name is Linda Lewis, I’m 59 years old and I’ve lived in Monticello, San Juan County all my life… my father was farmer, and I vowed I would never marry a farmer, and I hear I am I married one… I have to give Tye credit though he really has … he keeps a lot of his emotions in tact, and I think that makes things easier on me.

ROSS: LINDA SAYS IT’S BEEN A GOOD LIFE…BUT SHE SAYS THE DROUGHT WEIGHS HEAVY ON THE VITALITY OF THAT LIFE.

Linda Lewis: Emotionally, I think it effects you too, everything you do is concerned on whether you can make a payment, or whether or not we should buy this because we’re in a drought… we thought the drought would be over a long time ago. And this is it’s 5th year, so …We normally plan on a crop every year, and then there’s nothing…

[sound of wind blowing]

Bruce Lyman: It’s the unappreciated natural disaster, it’s hard to see…

ROSS: BRUCE LYMAN SITS ON HIS FRONT PORCH… SOUTH OF BLANDING UTAH… HE WATCHES HIS TWO LITTLE GIRLS PLAY ON THE FRONT LAWN…

Bruce Lyman: You know… we had a little tornado that came through here a few years ago… and it came across and tore up a few sprinkler lines, and threw the canoe across the field, stuff like that… when it was over, you could see exactly the damage done, you could go out and repair it, and then it was done…. with the drought, it just goes and goes and goes, it does, it really wears on you, it’s quite depressing…

[Miles Davis – Recollections]

Dan McCool: What a drought will do is force us to use water more wisely… Dan McCool, I’m a professor of political science and director of the American West Center at the University of Utah… The best thing that could happen to the taxpayers of America is that some farmers go out of business…

ROSS: MCCOOL SAYS HE ISN’T AGAINST FARMERS. BUT THIS DROUGHT… HE SAYS… IS FORCING SOME POSITIVE CHANGES IN UTAH.

Dan McCool: We subsidize farming in this nation to the tune of 30 billion dollars a year… We do that because 200 years ago believing we had to protect farmers. What we’ve actually done is encourage economic-nonviable farming in places it doesn’t make sense to farm, and encourage tremendous abuse of our water resources….

[sound of water pouring on gravel at well and gusting wind],

Cattleman: Boy this wind’s something else…

ROSS: AT A CITY WELL IN MONTICELLO, UTAH… A CATTLEMAN WEARING A BROWN STETSON COLLECTS WATER FOR HIS STOCK…

(YOU EXPERIENCED DROUGHTS LIKE THIS BEFORE?)
Cattleman: Yes, hell yeah… they happen all the time… I’ve been telling people we have a 5 year drought every 2 years….
(DO YOU THINK THIS IS NOT THE BEST COUNTRY TO BE RANCHING?)
Cattleman: Oh this is good country normally…. For the type, for what we do… you can’t compare it some of these lush, irrigated … we’re in a dry… we’re in a dry country… might as well face it… I don’t know… you got to make that choice… They say this place will promise you less and give you more than any place in the world… yeah, if you go to work at it… but you got to get off your butt and do something…

THE WELL SHUTS OFF… BUT WATER CONTINUES TO FLOW… AND THE MAN LETS IT SPILL INTO THE FLAT BED OF HIS TRUCK… THIS FARMER FROWNS WHEN HE TALKS ABOUT HOW GRAZING PERMITS HAVE BEEN CUT BACK RECENTLY TO PROTECT LOCAL WILDLIFE DURING THE DROUGHT.

Cattleman: Noooo, they’re making a big to do! In some places it’s rough right now… in others it’s damn rough…the way they’re cutting grazing down now… when these damn environmentalists start going to the grocery store and there’s nothing to buy…. Then the dumb sons of bitches start to wonder where it comes from…that’s just what it amounts to…

Dan McCool: The real problem is just the reverse.

DAN MCCOOL

Dan McCool: The problem in this country is agriculture over-production. … it’s not a question of having empty shelves. It’s a question of having too many farmers that over-produce.

Bob Morgan: There are those that think that… and certainly you can say well, we shouldn’t raise Alfalfa in Utah, we should send all of our water to California, so they can raise radishes, onions, and bring it back to us… my name is Bob Morgan…I currently serve as Executive director of Utah department of Natural Resources… Consequently… yes… we could do without some agriculture in Utah, we should see through efficiencies that marginal lands are eliminated. But we still need that. I enjoy eating beef and chicken and pork, and enjoying vegetables, wheat, we want to be very careful.

BRUCE LYMAN

Bruce Lyman: The farmers own the water rights… just like the own the lots to their house, and they own their car. These farmers own the water, and they’re entitled to it.

McCool: I don’t think anyone is advocating just stealing property from farmers…the water… I think the law should be modified to make it easy for those farmers to sell on the open market… and in many cases, the water exceeds the value of the crop they’re growing…It would be wind fall for many farmers, it would be the best thing that’s ever happened to them…

BOB MORGAN

Bob Morgan: Do we want to force the people in Utah to change their lifestyle…Do we want to say to that person that is 4th or 5th generation cattle rancher, ‘no, you’re no longer important to society.’ That water use, that way of life has lead to the flavor, and what we have inherited…and I for one don’t want to get rid of that.

Bruce Lyman: Agriculture is water intensive, and it always will be if you want to grow crops… We grow some of the highest quality alfalfa anywhere in the country, because we can get it dry, and dry it properly, … a lot of these places it rains so often, they raise crappy hay.

Dan McCool: The demographics have changed fundamentally…but the water law hasn’t changes one whit… and that’s miners, farmers and ranchers… in the State of Utah, ranching and agriculture area tiny part of the economy in this State. They use 85 percent of the water… they are 2 percent of the economy… there was a time when it was very important to the economy. It is not now.

Bruce Lyman: There’s a great sense of accomplishment to farming. It’s very satisfying… Track 12: I like this, when the sun’s going… and you got your stuff done for the day… and you look out there, it’s green, and pretty… and you’ve accomplished something, and you say, yep, I did that….

ROSS: BRUCE LYMAN GAZES OUT AT HIS FIELD OF HAY. HE ACKNOWLEDGES THAT HIS… IS A FLEETING LIFESTYLE.

Bruce Lyman: nobody I know has a quarter mile front lawn… the kid’s ride the four wheelers, and do whatever they want, and I’m not worried about them getting shot on the street corner…. Not worried about some nut pushing them a few joints…I don’t know… Just the consecutive dry years that give us the problems….

ROSS: ON A FARM IN SAN JUAN COUNTY UTAH, I’M ROSS CHAMBLESS.

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