appropriated. What that means is when a new water use for development is introduced, the developer must acquire pre-existing water rights to being that development online. Usually, those are agricultural rights that must be abandoned when put in use for the new development. It’s accounted for volume for volume. If the right we’re acquired for a farm in a different location than the new development, that change is logged and the farm goes fallow.

The is no new diversion of water given for the Wasatch Front. It is accounted for and legally limited from new depletions. What we’re experiencing in drought is more a product of changes in climate (either short or long term) rather than increased demand.