Utah’s "suicide pact" with the fossil fuel industry

The MoJo Daily newsletter, Monday through Friday. [View in browser]( [Mother Jones Daily Newsletter](     May 4, 2023 Hi, I'm Stephanie Mencimer and I'm a staff reporter at Mother Jones. Over the past year, I've been closely tracking one of the biggest [stories]( in the West, and it’s about water. Specifically, the Colorado River, which 40 million people rely on for irrigation and drinking water. The river has lost 20 percent of its volume since 2000, thanks to nearly a quarter century of mega-drought, climate change, and massive population growth in places that aren’t fit for human habitation. I’ve been following a piece of this story from my home state of Utah, where the original Mormon settlers helped pave the way for the current crisis. Mormons' irrigation techniques allowed the desert to bloom as they saw prophesized in Isaiah 35: “The desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose...for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert. And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water.” Today, Mormons still dominate Utah, and many of the state’s leaders also don’t believe in human-caused climate change. These two outlooks have made for a disastrous environmental policy that’s playing out now as the federal government tries to force the seven states in the Colorado River basin, including Utah, to figure out how to cut back on their water usage. Last year I received a grant from the University of Colorado’s Water Desk to look at how all these issues converge in the Uinta Basin, the locus of Utah’s oil and gas industry. Much of the water that ends up in California’s Imperial Valley or the fountains of the Bellagio in Las Vegas first flows through the oil and gas fields of the Uinta Basin. The potential for disaster there has always been high; oil spills in the river have been a regular occurrence, and fossil fuel production requires a ton of water. Utah has for years avoided anything resembling water conservation—the state wastes more water than any place in the country—while at the same time, it’s cheered on and subsidized thirsty ill-conceived fossil fuel developments in this critical watershed that environmentalists liken to a “suicide pact.” My story focuses on one of these, involving an Estonian government–owned oil shale mining company, Enefit, that has proposed a strip mining operation in the basin that would use as much water as 90,000 households downstream in Arizona—every day. Russel Albert Daniels, a Salt Lake City photographer, road-tripped with me to provide the story’s amazing visuals. Daniels is a super cool guy with Native American roots in the state and his photos were recently part of an exhibition at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in NYC. Check those out [here](! —Stephanie Mencimer Advertisement [WW Norton - Just Action]( [Top Story] [Top Story]( [Utah’s Suicide Pact With the Fossil Fuel Industry]( The state's fixation on oil and gas development threatens the Colorado River watershed. BY STEPHANIE MENCIMER SPONSORED CONTENT BY HEIFER INTERNATIONAL   Free Friends Tote with Your Monthly Gift Sign up as a monthly donor to Heifer International and receive a free tote bag as a token of our appreciation. The bag is durable and spacious, making it ideal for carrying essentials and showing off your commitment to ending world hunger. [Join now and impact lives for a lifetime.]( [Trending] [Is anyone really listening to E. Jean Carroll?]( BY INAE OH   [GUILTY: 4 Proud Boys—including Enrique Tarrio—convicted of seditious conspiracy]( BY DAN FRIEDMAN   [I want to punch Baby Yoda and science backs me up]( BY ABIGAIL WEINBERG   [It's time to ban "right turn on red"]( BY ABIGAIL WEINBERG Advertisement [WW Norton - Just Action]( [Special Feature] [Special Feature]( [Maybe becoming president takes more than just being a dick]( Did Ron DeSantis draw the wrong lesson from Trump? BY DAN FRIEDMAN [Fiercely Independent] Support from readers allows Mother Jones to do journalism that doesn't just follow the pack. [Donate]( Did you enjoy this newsletter? Help us out by [forwarding]( it to a friend or sharing it on [Facebook]( and [Twitter](. [Mother Jones]( [Donate]( [Donate Monthly]( [Subscribe]( This message was sent to {EMAIL}. To change the messages you receive from us, you can [edit your email preferences]( or [unsubscribe from all mailings.]( For advertising opportunities see our online [media kit.]( Were you forwarded this email? [Sign up for Mother Jones' newsletters today.]( [www.MotherJones.com]( PO Box 8539, Big Sandy, TX 75755