Even though Millard County is arid sagebrush country and didn’t set any records for snowfall last winter, it is exporting some of its most precious and finite resource.
Water.
It doesn’t leave by pipeline and it isn’t siphoned from underground for transport elsewhere.
Instead, it leaves via tankers in the form of milk, derived from local dairy cows who eat locally the locally grown grain, silage and alfalfa that it irrigates.
When jobs dried up in Millard County after the construction of the Intermountain Power Plant was complete, the economy began spiraling into a chokehold in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Then-County Administrator Robyn Pearson and the county attorney at the time, Warren Peterson, said it didn’t make sense to ship their most precious resource — goods derived from water — to another state.
“The county was so reliant on the economy coming from the Intermountain Power Plant project with the construction workers and them spending their money, what we were seeing was it taking a nose dive. It was dreadful times,” Pearson said. “We were shipping hay to California because it was the only place to get rid of it. It was a loser all the way around.”
The commission and Peterson crafted a marketing and recruitment plan to lure out-of-state dairy farmers to relocate their operations to Millard County. Its alfalfa, because of the ideal growing conditions, consistently earned top honors in an international alfalfa competition.
In Connecticut, the Nye family’s attention was captured by the campaign and by 1995, they had moved 425 Holsteins and their three children to Millard County.
A recent two-day tour that included multiple stops in Millard County and a tour of Danone North America’s plant in West Jordan highlighted the nexus that exists among water, alfalfa, dairy farmers and fresh milk transformed into yogurt by the international company that controls the global market share.
The tour was organized by Salt Lake County Council member Dea Theodore and, for the first segment, hosted by the Millard County Farm Bureau.
Theodore said she was inspired to learn more about rural water usage because of the Great Salt Lake’s problems and criticism leveled at the agricultural sector, particularly alfalfa farmers.
“There’s been a lot of talk that they are consuming more water than they should and in coming down here, you learn that’s really not the case,” she said. “It’s interesting to learn along the way all that they are doing to conserve, what they are doing for the efficiency of their operations, the jobs that they provide for the local economy and to help the state.”
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