After one of the hottest and driest summers on record, Utah’s water supplies are so low that agricultural water deliveries have been cut short, stream gauges need to be repositioned to measure paltry flows, young deer and elk are dying and ranchers are liquidating their herds.
And, most notably, 221,000 acres have burned and 370 structures destroyed in Utah’s busiest wildfire season since 2012 — and a full month remains in the season.
These grim snippets emerged Monday at an emergency meeting hosted by the Utah Department of Natural Resources. This summer, surface water supplies dropped so low, state law mandated a meeting of the Drought Review and Reporting Committee, made up of Utah’s top environmental and natural resources officials, along with federal counterparts.