I’ve worked in healthcare for the better part of my career. Not as a medical provider — my clinical skills are limited to calling 911 and panicking with the best of them. Rather, I’m on the communications side of the industry. A storyteller more than anything.
One of the stories I’ve heard, and repeated, throughout my career is centered around a quote by Benjamin Franklin. “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” he once said. Many healthcare marketers have used this metaphor to explain why a service or product matters. By doing X (eating healthy, exercising, meditating, getting plenty of rest, etc), you may be able to avoid Y (type 2 diabetes, anxiety, heart disease, falling asleep while driving etc).
The proverb is applicable well beyond the health and wellness space. We balance prevention and cure, prevention and cost all of the time. By spending $70 to get our oil changed every few months, we avoid a $5,000 bill for a new engine. By spending $50 on a tarp to cover our patio furniture in the winter, we save several hundred dollars not having to purchase a new set in the spring. By walking our dog on a $10 leash, we avoid an expensive vet bill because Fido ran off and bit another dog. You get the idea.
Utah state legislators on the other hand? They apparently do not.
Last week it was reported some state lawmakers are seriously considering an idea to transport water from the Pacific Ocean via a 700-mile-long pipe, to fill the quickly evaporating Great Salt Lake. When I read this news, I was in an airplane, returning from my sister’s wedding, hovering over what can now only be described as the Mediocre Salt Lake. It’s alarming how low the water level is, and the consequences are pretty dire. The lake is far more than a tourist attraction or a disproportionately large blue dot on a map of Utah, it’s a critical ecosystem for millions of migratory birds. Further, a dried-up lakebed is a health hazard for much of the state – millions of Utahans could be forced to fill their lungs with arsenic-laced dust, a byproduct of the exposed playa. And toxic air is a tough sell to voters.
Undeniably, something needs to be done. But spending billions of dollars to disrupt over 700 miles of existing ecosystems and property in an effort to import ocean water makes as much sense as nuking hurricanes. What could possibly go wrong?
Traditionally, our lawmakers have rebuked any ideas that could potentially be seen as giving a damn about the environment. Why spend millions in prevention when we can spend billions on ideas that won’t work? It’s not part of their official oath of office, but you wouldn’t know it by their actions.
While it’s encouraging to see state lawmakers finally, FINALLY, paying attention to the issue, it’s telling many of them are members of a committee called the Utah Water Development Commission. Not conservation commission, not preservation, not even management commission — water development. As if a few backhoes emblazoned with an Ivory Homes logo is the cure for what ails us.
It’s time – it’s well beyond time – to look at preventative measures. The drought is arguably beyond our control, but the water being siphoned off upstream from the Bear and Jordan river tributaries meant to feed the lake can be better controlled. As a state, Utah residents use more water per-capita than just about anywhere else in the country, and 80% of our water is used for agriculture. We grow alfalfa here and then export it to feed cows in Japan.
The pipeline is a pipedream. We need prevention. Real, actionable measures that increase the flow of water into the lake and decrease use. Our chance to save the Great Salt Lake is evaporating before our eyes.