this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2024
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United States | News & Politics

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Hay grown for cattle consumes nearly half the water drawn from Colorado River, study finds (www.latimes.com)
submitted 8 months ago by silence7@slrpnk.net to c/usa@lemmy.ml
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Archived copies of the article: ghostarchive.org archive.today

The study itself is here

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[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 12 points 8 months ago

What's even more frustrating is that it's not useful. Here's an article about Utah's water usage WRT alfalfa:

alfalfa and other kinds of hay sucks up 68% of the 5.1 million acre-feet of water diverted every year in Utah

...

amounts to 0.2% of the state’s annual gross domestic product

...

Almost a third of it is exported, mostly to China, taking far too much of our water with it.

So, Utah is using 2/3 of their water to produce 0.2% of their GDP and exports almost a third of it. It's completely stupid...