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Matheson's Water Plan
Matheson Jr (as the DesNews calls him) unveiled his plan for Utah’s water (read the executive summary) yesterday while standing in City Creek park. The plan has the following points (according the Deseret News article):
- Public involvement in all decisions — “to work, a water plan must have broad support.”
- Respect existing water rights — “The only thing thicker than blood in Utah is water” ownership.
- Conserve even more water — “The best way to develop new water is to conserve what we already have.”
- Develop new water sources smart and efficiently. He wants to finish the final parts of the Central Utah Project, build a pipeline from Lake Powell to St. George, build a pipeline to urban areas from Flaming Gorge and build new reservoirs on the Bear River.
- Implement a more comprehensive drought plan. “We must face up to the drought — even now we don’t have a statewide drought response plan.”
- Keep the current 1/16th-sales tax going to a state water development fund and expand the state effort to help local cities and water districts build new water projects.
- Assure high-quality water, including developing water reclamation projects that can take “dirty” water, like sewage and runoff, and turn it back into usable water.
Huntsman has not produced a plan for water as far as I can see. His website has a short statement on water and there’s some additional information at UtahPriorities.net.
Both candidates are in favor of keeping the sales tax subsidy that goes to water. According to the Deseret News, Huntsman even favors increasing tax funds going to water. In my mind this is a mistake. Water is something that can and should be paid for by the users. Using tax dollars to fund water projects artificially masks their true cost and decreases natural economic incentives to conserve. To make up for it we spend even more tax dollars on conservation programs. Go figure.
Posted by windley on July 27, 2004 09:09 AM
