Marty: Gene Shawcroft, the River Commissioner of Utah, uh thanks for being here. We went with sparkling water today because you told us you’re a water guy and that’s true in more ways than one. So, uh so we went soda free and at least went with some sparkling water with some flavor to it. So, yeah. Anytime you need a break or the questions get too tough just take a sip, it’s totally fine. But, all right. Uh there is so much going on in our state when it comes to water, uh not because we have an abundance of it, though we were in that position just a couple of years ago. But before we get into the water stuff, I want to get into your background just a little bit. Um you are a Coloradan by birth and uh and grew up a in like a farm town in Colorado. Is that right?

Gene: Right. Small rural community in in Southern Colorado. Um population of the little town I grew up outside of several miles, was about 400. So, uh I spent my career my early years in uh in a small high school and working on the farm.

Marty: So, working on a farm, water’s a big part of life there, but uh at that time was there like, I mean we’ve been in a drought for so long here, did you grow up in drought conditions in Southern Colorado?

Gene: Oh yeah. Every year was a dry year. I mean we we never had enough water to do what we wanted to do. We’re high elevation, so we usually got a couple crops of hay. Was about all we got and the water was usually gone by the 1st of July. We’d get a little bit of monsoon uh weather in in later July, but it was uh I never remember having too much water.

Marty: Yeah. You went to BYU and you studied studied civil engineering.

Gene: Civil engineering. Right.

Marty: So what, you you grew up on a farm, now you’re the water guy, how how’s the connection between uh what you grew up around, what you studied, and where you got?

Gene: Well for me, the most exciting day of the year was the day we turned the water on. Uh we just got spring runoff, so when it warmed up enough to melt the snow and put water in the river, that’s when we got water. That was more exciting to me than than Christmas because we got to play in the headgate, siphon tubes, irrigation, that whole that whole thing was just fun and and exciting to me and I thought, “You know, if if I could ever make a living playing in the water, that would be fabulous.” And uh I started out in chemical engineering and found out that wasn’t the way to go and then switched to civil and did all the water stuff I could. Started right after I graduated uh from BYU at uh the Division of Water Resources working for the state. Loved what I did there, spent about 6 years there. And then when I got uh a little bit of a vision of what the Central Utah Water District did, I thought, “Man, this is this is big stuff on steroids. This is awesome.” And I’ve loved every day at the district.

Marty: So, you know, water’s been a a constant thing in your life. Uh at what point did you realize, maybe it was when you were growing up, that like I don’t know, I I’ve not grown up on a farm, to me you you open, you know, you turn on the faucet and the water shows up, right? And I think that’s the way it is for a lot of people. The more that I’ve um been involved in the policy side of water, the more I’ve realized that that’s something we definitely take for granted. No doubt. But that gives me stress to suddenly know that like, oh, it may not always be there, or there’s a whole lot that goes into getting it there. Does it stress you out, water and like the availability of water in that same way?

Gene: Sure, sure. The the one thing about it though is is along the Wasatch Front, for the most part, the the majority of the water goes outside. So, if push came to shove, which I hope it doesn’t, but if it really did, we’d be in a situation where we could stop watering our lawns or watering once a week. They’ll they’ll still they’ll still stay alive. They’ll look terrible. But they’ll stay alive. And uh it and that water, if if if we use 60% of our water outside, and then got to the point where we used only 20% of our water outside, we could provide water for a whole lot a lot more homes.

Marty: Yeah, it’s uh so interesting the availability of water, and we’ve obviously been going through that here in Utah for a while. Tell me about, you mentioned uh the Central Utah Water Conservancy District, I always got to make sure I I can see it is CUWCD in my mind, and I have to spell it back out. Tell me what area does that cover, and and for people who don’t follow this closely, what does a water conservancy district do other than send me my bill for my water?

Gene: Well, that’s a great question. The [coughing] the legislature a number of years ago created the Water Conservancy Act, and so in the late uh er early ’60s, the several of the the counties within the central part of the state, so that’s Salt Lake County on the north, went to Juab County on the south, so that included Utah County, uh Wasatch, Summit, um parts of uh and Duchesne, Uintah counties, they the residents in that area voted on a 93% basis to create the water conservancy district and tax themselves for the repayment agency of the Federal Central Utah Project.

Marty: Okay.

Gene: So, the state couldn’t do that, they didn’t have the resources. None of the local communities had the resources. But the federal government had the resources to build this large project, and then the district was committed to repaying that. And because we had property tax authority, the government felt confident that we would pay the bill back.

Marty: Gotcha.

Gene: And so, that’s why Reclamation then was willing to come in and and build the Central Utah Project, which takes water from the south slope of the Uintas, water that otherwise would go uh down to the to the Green River, um to capture that water, put it in a pipeline and tunnels, and bring it into Strawberry Reservoir. And then that’s how Utah uses a major portion of its Colorado River water. So, it’s all by gravity, there are no pumps, comes into Strawberry, then through the divide down into Spanish Fork Canyon, and then distributes uh south and north from Spanish Fork Canyon, clear up into Salt Lake. And that Colorado River water is actually new water into the the Great Basin, so by bringing that water in, we could exchange Provo River water that was historically used by others into Jordanelle. So, that’s how we we don’t put Colorado River water in Jordanelle, but by bringing Colorado River in, it allows us to store in Jordanelle, which is the drinking water supply for most of the Wasatch Front.

Marty: You’ve been at the Central Utah Water Conservancy District for 30 30-plus years, I had to still look up to do it, uh for like 30-plus years, since 1991.

Gene: Started in ’91.

Marty: Have the problems changed or just morphed in the time that you’ve been there?

Gene: No, I think the I think the things have changed dramatically. Um when I started my career, most people uh were very appreciative of water, understood water, recognized it was a a finite resource, were much more responsible and concerned about water. It’s hard to go on the street today and find people that really understand even where they get their water. Tap comes on, they’re happy, end of story, no questions asked. And and the the misunderstanding or the lack of understanding of how we get our water today, in my mind, is a lot different than it was when I started my career many years ago.

Marty: Mhm.

Gene: I would also say though, Marty, that that people are much, much more conscious of conservation than they were back then, too. They, you know, everything had to be green, uh water was very inexpensive, and so it was used uh in abundance more than it than it really should have been. But today, people are much more conscious about how they use water, uh but at the same time, they’re not willing to do a lot other than just make sure that their tap comes on.

Marty: Yeah. You have two jobs essentially um, the first one we’ve talked about, but you’re also have this role as Utah’s River Commissioner. I think that’s a cool title first of all. Do you [laughter] when you got that one, you’re like at the very least it’s a cool title, but tell me what the River Commissioner does and are you the first one to have served in that role? Was it created when we created the Colorado River Authority of Utah or walk me through that.

Gene: No, the the the State of Utah was involved in the compact that was signed in 1922. Since 1922, after the compact was signed, each state, each of the seven states in the in the Colorado River Basin, so Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Wyoming, Nevada, Arizona, and California are the seven states involved in the Colorado River. In 1922, those seven states agreed to the to the compact, and since that time, there has always been uh a representative of each of those states in in uh in the process of negotiating and and working together. In 1948, the Upper Basin States, so that would be Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming, created the Upper Colorado River Commission. And so, since 1948, there has always been a commissioner from each of those four states involved in decisions that are made with regard to the Upper Basin.

Marty: And I think that’s really important for people to understand for this discussion and and for water policy in general. The division between the Upper Basin and the Lower Basin, has there always been sort of that break between the two? Why is there an upper, why is there a lower, and is there animosity between them or like sort of you’re competing over over the water to a certain extent? So tell me about the relationship between, you know, the seven states but the upper and lower.

Gene: Right. Great question. Yeah, the when in 1922, when the compact was signed, there was an agreed-to amount of water that would be available to the Lower Division states and the upper, and the the dividing line is near Page, Arizona, a place called Lee Ferry. There’s uh that’s where the water is measured, and the Upper Basin states have an obligation to release a certain amount of water past Lee Ferry every year. And it’s actually calculated on a 10-year running average. So, the the compact was 75 million acre-feet over a 10-year period of time. So, in many years, it was above that, some years it it was probably less than that in in in years past. But over the last 20 years or so, we’ve been in a situation where we’ve actually been ahead of that 75 over 10. And that is there animosity? Absolutely, because when they put the compact together, they anticipated there would be about 17 million acre-feet and we’re down to about 12 right now. And so, 17 minus 12 creates some heartburn in a lot of people’s minds who are used to using that water, obviously.

Marty: And especially since most of those places, if you go back even to the 1960s or certainly back to the 1920s, everywhere in the West is bigger. Maybe not that one little town, maybe not Lee Ferry, but but certainly Phoenix is bigger, LA is bigger, Salt Lake City is bigger, Denver is bigger, all of these places, maybe New Mexico is the one that doesn’t have that much of a population boom.

Gene: Well, even even in my career at the district, there have been conversations early on about Utah will never use its allocation, so why don’t we figure out a way to get some some benefit, financial benefit out of that? Well, we’ve we obviously know now that that’s not the case. We use we use our water every year, particularly on dry years, because in 1948, when the Upper Colorado River Commission was created, it was acknowledged that there wasn’t 17 million acre-feet of water in the river, there was much less than that. So, even though the Lower Basin states had divided their use by volume, the Upper Basin states divided their use by percentage. So, in years when there was more, we got a little bit more, in years when there was less, we got less, but that percentage is really what’s kept us in the situation that keeps us out of as much frustration as there is between the upper and lower when they have a guaranteed volume and we have a guaranteed percent of what’s left.

Marty: And percentage seems like the way to go with like just the smart policy if you were to draw it up from zero to say, if you don’t know exactly how much water you’re going to get, we should take a percentage of it and figure out how we divide that percentage.

Gene: Had that been done in 1922, we would have a different world right now. Yeah, no doubt.

Marty: Can I ask you what may be the dumbest question you’ll hear all month? And and maybe it’s the smartest question, but I’m going to guess it may be on the sillier side.

Gene: I’m I’m going to guess it’s smart coming from you.

Marty: Where does the Colorado River start? Like, if I follow it all the way back, what what is the beginning point for where this water comes, or does it all just come from snowmelt along the way?

Gene: It’s all snowmelt uh for the most part, in the spring, obviously, it’s all snowmelt. But it it originates in Utah on the south slope of the Uintas, it originates in Wyoming on the upper Upper Green, up up in the the wilderness areas up there, and then in Colorado on the west, they call it the West Slope.

Marty: Mhm.

Gene: So, the Continental Divide runs pretty much north and south right through the middle of the state of Colorado. So, anything on the west side of that divide, um Eisenhower Tunnel, if you’re familiar with with the the freeway—

Marty: I’ve been stuck in it many times. Yeah.

Gene: Yeah, that’s a fun place a fun deal. Everything west of that drains to the Colorado River.

Marty: And that’s just simply a matter of topography, right? That that’s the direction the water runs and that’s how we do it.

Gene: Correct.

Marty: Okay. So it’s not like there’s just some like gigantic spring at the top that starts it and then we get snowfall that goes into it.

Gene: Right. And then and then there’s a a very, very small contribution that comes from New Mexico in the in the San Juan River. Um a lot of the San Juan comes out of Colorado as well, but there’s a small piece that comes out of New Mexico.

Marty: So let’s talk a little bit about Utah’s situation right now. This last winter we had the lowest snowpack on record if I have that right. We peaked like 3 weeks early, we had half of what we normally get. Tell me just how bad is our situation right now because we had such I don’t even know if you could say a mild winter. It felt like we had autumn until we had spring.

Gene: We didn’t have a winter. Yeah, no doubt. Um the the one thing that is thrilling about how Utah has managed things in the past is they were wise enough to develop some storage. And the Central Utah Project is a perfect example of a situation that allows us this year to have uh what we call contract water, the amount of water that we anticipate people using in the from the Central Utah District, will be available because we’ve been able to store in Strawberry Reservoir, in Jordanelle Reservoir, and um that really is what’s allowed us or will provide for us to have our water this year. Um just Marty, just an interesting thing is three years ago we had the wettest the wettest year on record.

Marty: Yeah, it was crazy.

Gene: One in one in less than a 100% chance of getting that kind of a winter. Three years later we get the driest on record, one in 100 of chances of getting that dry. So, extremely wet, extremely dry within a 3-year period of time.

Marty: So if you were laying money on it, you could have made some big money on wettest and and driest in those two. [coughing] I guess what I think a lot of people don’t understand, and you mentioned this like some storage spots, and there are like as you flow down through the state, a number of those. One of those like at the top of the state being Flaming Gorge.

Gene: Right.

Marty: Which isn’t just it is a reservoir, but it’s is it well let’s think of it this way. You got Flaming Gorge and then down at the bottom of the state you’ve got Lake Powell and there are some reservoirs and such in between. Lake Powell isn’t just about storing water though, it’s about generating electricity. Is Flaming Gorge the same?

Gene: Flaming Gorge, they generate power at Flaming Gorge, but the volume of power there is is significantly less than what they do at at uh at Lake Powell.

Marty: Yeah. And you’ve got to have a certain level of water to stay in each of those in order to not basically break the machines that make the electricity. Is that a very simplified way, I’m sure, of saying it?

Gene: Sure, sure. And and in Lake Powell, the that elevation happens to be 3,500. So, that’s the elevation of the water, um above which power can be generated, below which, as the water goes through the pipeline, the penstocks that go to the generators, if the water gets below 3,500, just like in your when you flush your toilet you see those the vortices, the same thing would happen with those with those generators, so if they sucked air in, then to your point, it damages the machines, the the runners, and they can no longer generate power, so they have to shut the power off. The penstocks, the pipe that go from the reservoir to those power generators, is also the conveyance of water from the upstream to the downstream. And so, if the elevation gets below 3,500, not only is power uh eliminated, the opportunity to generate power, but the what they call the river outlet works, the valves that are lower, were nev- were not designed to operate on a daily basis. They were designed to operate on an intermittent basis because their main purpose was to control the water as Lake Powell was filling for the very first time.

Marty: Mhm. So Lake Powell is is important not only for the electrical, I mean you got to have the water, and the water is sort of where you build it up before you let it go down to the Lower Basin and so they’re always saying let some of this go out. That was getting low enough that this year we had a release from Flaming Gorge to try to make sure Lake Powell stays above that level, is that right?

Gene: That is correct. Uh the Bureau of Reclamation made the decision to release a million acre-feet, which is a lot of water. An acre-foot is about a football field covered with a foot of water. That’s I don’t know why we use such archaic archaic terminology, but but a million acre-feet from Lake from uh Flaming Gorge to Lake Powell. And then also they reduced the releases from Lake Powell by 1.5 million acre-feet. So, the the accumulative effect is that there’s 2.5 million acre-feet of water in Powell will be over the next year that otherwise would not have been there. But for that action, we would by this by this summer, we would have dropped below that critical 3,500-foot elevation.

Marty: Are we at the point then now where we say we’ve sort of pulled all the magic tricks that we can and we really really need another great winter this year? I mean obviously you would take a great winter. Is a an average or slightly above average winter going to be good enough, or do we need the the Hail Mary this winter?

Gene: Well, it depends on what you say is good enough uh because if you if you look back in history, 1983, ’84, those were tremendous years back-to-back.

Marty: Those are the the years we built pumps in the Great Salt Lake and stuff.

Gene: Exactly, exactly. So there was water there was water everywhere and and those reservoirs were full. Powell and Mead were both full. And and as you think about those two big reservoirs being that full, it’s amazing to understand what it would take today to fill those. They’re about 24, 25% full at this point. So, we’d need four or five or six ’83, ’84s back-to-back to fill them back up.

Marty: Hm.

Gene: So, to think that we’re going to have one good year and fill them up a bunch isn’t in the cards.

Marty: Even if it was a year like we had three years ago.

Gene: Yeah. Three years ago about 65 feet of elevation came into Powell. So, 65 feet and that has now dropped after these two or three bad years, it’s dropped back down to where it was prior to that really, really wet year. And so, we would need um average would be fabulous, well above average would be better. What would be awesome is about 10 or 12, 15 years of significantly above normal, and that’s about what it would take to fill Lake Powell and Lake Mead back up again.

Marty: You’re a a water guy and a civil engineer, not a meteorologist, but uh I know I heard someone say we’ve shifted from La Niña to El Niño, that’s maybe why we’re getting a few rain showers through the spring or late spring into the early summer here. Uh is that a good indication for us? Is that one of those things you say there’s a glimmer of hope because of that, or is there any reason to think that we are not only due and overdue for a good winter, but we might actually get a couple of them in a row?

Gene: Um I I don’t give a lot of credence to El Niño, La Niña. Uh several years ago we had uh a La Niña situation, El Niño, excuse me, El Niño situation, and in Strawberry Reservoir, just within the basin, uh we got about a 100- 180,000 acre-feet of runoff. The next year, same kind of a El Niño, we got 13,000. So, 180 versus 13. And so, my my mind all of a sudden said, “Well, I can check that I don’t have to worry about that box [laughter] when I try to decide how we’re going to manage the system.” Yeah. So, I don’t know, I think the best way to describe the weather is total chaos.

Marty: Yeah.

Gene: And there are so many variables and so many situations, even the supercomputers can’t model more than 2 weeks out. And so, it’s it’s hard for me to say, “Well, I’m going to start releasing because we’re going to have an El Niño, we’re going to get a whole bunch of water,” or or “shut the gate because we’re going to dry up.” And so, that’s one of the things that we look at, of course, but as a as a manager, I’m not hanging my hat on El Niño, La Niña. I’ve got to I got to see what happened.

Marty: So it sounds like we need more water in Flaming Gorge so that we can make sure we can keep enough water, but we definitely need more water in Lake Powell. In between there, we’d love a ton of it in the mountains because we have a Great Salt Lake that I was just up uh on the ridge uh this weekend playing golf and said, “Oh my goodness, you can almost walk your way out to Antelope Island at this point.” That’s right, that’s right. Um that’s a lot of water pressure to deal with like water pressure, I didn’t it’s a double term but like that’s a lot of pressure when it comes to like something that ultimately you don’t control, you just sort of manage the problem. That has to be like a a frustrating challenge to deal with at times.

Gene: No doubt, and and what brings me solace is the fe- people I have around me at the district who live and breathe and and every moment where water’s coming from, how it’s going, where we’re where we’re uh going to make deliveries. We have a great relationship with the people that we deliver water to. They understand that that things can be difficult and they’re more than willing to help solve this crisis if if it gets to that point as we move forward.

Marty: So we’ve covered some of the basics of how water works and some of our infrastructure and where it goes. We’ve outlined that it’s a really bad situation and how that impacts Utah. I want to talk a little bit about how we’re interacting with other states because as you mentioned, um we’ve got some deals that are expiring. The 1922 one and the 1961, what was the second year?

Gene: Well, the the the compact was signed in 1922, there were court cases in 1964, there were uh Upper Colorado River Commission was created in 1948 with an Upper Basin Compact. Many, many other other events occurred between 1922 and now, and we package or call all of that the Law of the River. And so, all of those things come into play when we get to the Law of the River. Uh what’s happened right now is in 2007, uh the states got together with the Bureau of Reclamation and created what they call the ’07, 2007 guidelines. They were set to expire in 20 years. So, practically that is September 30th of 2026 is the end of that 20-year period. So, new guidelines of how Powell and Mead are operated uh beyond October 1st are are the plans that Reclamation’s working on right now. They had hoped, as I had hoped, that the seven of us seven states could come together for an agreement that would then determine how we move water how we deal with water in the future. Unfortunately, we have not come to a deal, and so the Bureau of Reclamation is going to have to make decisions, as they have, as I mentioned, by bringing a million acre-feet from Flaming Gorge and reducing releases out of Powell by a million and a half. Those decisions were made by Bureau of Reclamation to protect that elevation of 3,500 in in Lake Powell. Now what happens in 19 in 2027 and 2028 is part of the discussion now that we’re having with the Bureau of Reclamation. They will put together um they have already put out a preferred preliminary alternative, we provided comments on that last Friday. And what they will do now between now and the end of June is they will prepare a draft environmental impact statement that will describe how they’re going to do things over the next 10 years, but implement them in 2-year increments. And then the record of decision, which is a signed document that says, “This is how it’s going to happen,” will be done by the end of July. That’s the latest schedule we have from Reclamation.

Marty: So what you started out with, as you mentioned initially, was the seven states trying to come to some kind of agreement with sort of the looming um threat, I guess you’d say, of the federal government saying, “Figure it out or we have to step in.” Right, right. And they said a couple of deadlines. It seems like there was an Octoberish one if I’m remembering correctly—

Gene: Well, there was a November—

Marty: November.

Gene: November 11th, yeah.

Marty: Of last year. And then there was like a February 14th, right? Then there for some reason they liked they liked holidays.

Gene: They had Veterans Day and then Valentine’s Day.

Marty: And then Valentine’s Day. [laughter] For some reason, they like holidays, yeah. And and then there was not a lot of love on the 14th of February, let me just tell you. [laughter]

Marty: They couldn’t squeeze one in there on Super Bowl Sunday for some reason. So, um and and those just, you know, nothing came out of that. Did you feel at least in in that process that you made some progress even though you didn’t get to the goal line?

Gene: No doubt. By by the 11th of November, we we agreed, all seven states agreed, that we were making sufficient progress that Reclamation wouldn’t have to go on their own to come up with an alternative. Uh sadly, by the 14th of February, we weren’t close enough for Reclamation to say, “Okay, we understand what you’re doing, we can take that and run with it.” That did not happen and they had they have continued to ask us if we can come up with a consensus alternative, um and and that ultimate deadline was was last week. So, we, Upper Basin, uh Lower Basin, have submitted all of the information that we hope Reclamation will consider as they put together their draft environmental impact statement and um they will consider what they choose to consider, they’ll they’ll have to sort through some things. They’ve been very, very clear with us, “We will have to operate in a way that you are all dissatisfied. No one’s going to like what we have to do, but we’re going to have to do it anyway.”

Marty: It sounds like a parent talking to kids along the way, like figure it out, and if you can’t, you’re not going to like my solution, so get in there and and get it done. When you started out in the negotiations with the other six states, did you go into that, maybe not just you but you collectively, uh as the whole group, go in thinking let’s come up with a deal that we’re going to do for the next 20-plus years or were you the entire time thinking let’s figure out something that we can do for 5 years or for 10 years or whatever that smaller number of may have been?

Gene: No, we we collectively agreed we’d be better off if we could have a at least a 20 if not a 30-year deal. And when Reclamation put out their notice of intent, in other words, the Reclamation said, “Okay, we’re we’re ready to start this process, um and these are the these are the guidelines that we want to achieve,” they in their in their notice put out 20 years. So, even 4 years, 4 and a half years ago when we when we started negotiating in earnest post-COVID, there was always an intention that we would go at least 20 years. And and part of the reason for that is if if an entity goes to the bond market to to uh purchase bonds, they like a a firm set condition so they feel comfortable lending money. And 10 years isn’t isn’t enough, 20 years is pretty marginal, but they would obviously like 30-year deals.

Marty: Are those bonds for things that are very specific to water like, hey, we need to bond to improve pipelines or is it is it broader than that that?

Gene: No, it’s just when we’re talking about it, it’s just bonding for water projects.

Marty: Okay. Because they want to be able to say, “Hey, we’re going to essentially lend you this money to go refurbish this pipeline or add this pipeline or whatever maintenance you may need to do and we’re going to lend you that money but we don’t want to think 5 years down the road now the entire state is a ghost town because for some reason the water dried up.” So, so there was an intention that they would be a longer period of time.

Marty: Is one of the sticking points or even the main sticking point now still the fight between um uh percentage of the allotment versus guaranteed actual like acre-feet of of how you do it? Like is that one of the initial points or is there any kind of agreement there where you’re saying, “Look guys, it’s a fluctuating denominator so we have to do a fraction here.”

Gene: Well, when we started back 4 and a half years ago into serious negotiations, it was obvious to all seven states that that the amount of water we anticipated just wasn’t there. Call it climate change, global warming, call it whatever you want to call it, but there was a general acknowledgment that all of the states would have to participate. And um the Upper Basin has a very small, uses a very small portion of their seven and a half simply because we haven’t developed it all. And the other thing, many years it’s just not there. Whereas the Lower Basin developed theirs quickly, they got used to using the amount of water that they had, and then when they got really faced with, “Okay, we’re going to have to do these kinds of reductions, what does that mean to the people that have historically used that water?” That’s when things got really serious about, “Oh my gosh, this is we can’t we can’t experience this kind of pain, and so let’s see if we can find other places to get the water,” and the Upper Basin seemed to be the the closest logical place to try to get additional water.

Marty: Toward the end did you feel like all of your fellow commissioners were maybe in the same position you were where you’re saying, “I’d love to get a deal just so we can be done [laughter] talking about this for a bit.”

Gene: No doubt, no doubt. Um but but there are the the politics and the the technicalities are so complex that it’s that it’s it seemed like it should be an easy solution. In fact, I’ve had many people say, “Well, just everybody take a 10% cut and you’re good.” Well, 10% of what? You know, we don’t know in the Upper Basin what we’re going to get. We could say, “Okay, we’ll we’ll contribute 50% of this water right,” only to have that water right produce 10% of what the water right actually is. So, in a lot of cases in the Upper Basin, the water’s just simply not there. In the Lower Basin, their water comes from large storage reservoirs, so they’ve been able for the most part over the years to use their allotted amount of water. Well, now that the reservoirs are low, that comes into question. How in the world are we going to continue to use the kind of water that we’ve been using without reservoirs that we have as as bank accounts, if you will, to to get us through these dry periods?

Marty: Yeah. I don’t want to make you a California policy maker here, but it seems like there’s only so much water that’s coming from snowpack and that’s filtering its way down. Along this way, the only one that has like a major source of water next to it is California. Does desalinization play any role in this where they could say, “Man, if you could take California out of the mix because we can just desalinate the Pacific Ocean.” Um I don’t know how realistic that is, I’m sure it’s terribly expensive and costs a ton in energy consumption, but is that something that they’ve even kind of talked about?

Gene: Oh yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. In fact, they’re looking at uh you know, Los Angeles is looking at capturing all the water from their uh wastewater treatment plants before it gets to the ocean, pumping it up to treatment plants, and then reusing it for outdoor use, or or potentially even for um uh drinking water purposes. That is extremely expensive. Desalinization is extremely expensive. San Diego has a desal plant right now that uh has about a 60 uh thousand acre-foot capacity, they’re only using about 50, but no one can afford to buy the other 10. And so, like everything else in life, we try to find the cheapest alternative before we have to come out with dollars that really are really painful.

Marty: What do you wish that all Utahns better understood about water or water situation or the way water works in our state that they don’t know? If you had to sum it up in just say, I got 30 seconds to tell them this, what do you tell them?

Gene: I would say make sure you understand where your water comes from. Ask ask the person that sends you the bill, “Where do I get my water? Why does it cost this much? Uh and and what are we looking for into the future? How do we prepare for the future?” And I think that those kinds of questions cause us to think, “Okay, as I turn on my tap now, there’s more connection in my mind than than just turning a tap on.” If we could appreciate the value of water, uh we’d be in a whole different situation.

Marty: I do want to get to one other thing. Um not so long ago, we decided to meter secondary water. I think that’s been implemented pretty much everywhere along the Wasatch Front, I think it has at my house in Davis County. Has that changed consumption behavior um where people could now say, not only I know what I use, but getting charged based on what I use?

Gene: Yeah, I I don’t know. I think most for the most part right now, people aren’t getting charged for their for water that goes through their secondary meter. I don’t know that for sure, but I do know that they know that I know that they know [laughter] what what they’re using, and uh it’s not too far of a stretch. The technology’s there to say, “Okay, you have X number of feet of grass, this is how much water you should put on it,” and then meter that, and if you’re using more than that, then your price escalates based on what you’re using above what you really need.

Marty: Yeah. Uh I want to wrap up with the lightning round where where we’re going to talk less about water and more just a few things to get to know Gene Shawcroft, our River Commissioner. How does that sound? You ready for that?

Gene: Yeah.

Marty: Uh okay. So quick answers here. Um what’s your uh favorite food? What are you ordering when nobody’s watching?

Gene: Prime rib.

Marty: Prime rib. All right, we’ll take that. Um what’s your favorite sport, hobby, pastime? What do you do when you’re on your free time?

Gene: Um fishing. Love to go hiking up in the Uintas and take my fishing pole and make sure the water’s still is there.

Marty: What kind of fishing? What are you fishing for?

Gene: Uh just trout, local trout, whatever happens to be there.

Marty: Are you a fly fisherman?

Gene: Just fly in a bubble for the most part.

Marty: Okay. Great. Uh what profession other than your own would you have liked to try since you’ve been in water pretty much your whole life?

Gene: Um I think financial planning would have been a fun thing to do, to help people understand what investments are, how they work, what works, what doesn’t work. Um I think those kinds of things would have been kind of fun.

Marty: Just converting million acre-feet to millions of dollars.

Gene: Yeah, but not anywhere close as fun as water, [laughter] but that would have been an interesting uh career.

Marty: Conversely, what is one profession other than your own that you would not like to try even for a day?

Gene: Probably being a sports caster.

Marty: Oh really? [laughter]

Gene: No, I’m just kidding. [laughter]

Marty: That’d be a fun one. Yeah.

Gene: I don’t know. Uh I hadn’t thought about that. Um I enjoy doing a lot of things, keeping busy, keep my eye, you know, I love to do things with my hands, but um I’ve never really thought about what would be what would be a bad thing.

Marty: Because you have a really interesting balance between outside job and inside job. You kind of get to do a little bit of both. I imagine when you’re at the inside part of the job, you wish you were outside, though.

Gene: Maybe maybe an auto auto mechanic. I I’ve never I can always take things apart, but I end up with extra pieces when I try to put it back together. So, [laughter] probably some kind of an auto mechanic is something I’d shy away from.

Marty: That can be a little bit, well we appreciate you shying away from it if that’s the way that works out for you. Uh last question for you, Gene, if you could go back and talk to your younger self, you in your late teens, early 20s, what’s the one piece of advice you would give yourself?

Gene: I would say spend more time developing relationships. Uh you got to get your job done, but but relationships are really what make a big difference and focus on people’s names, what makes them tick, why they enjoy life, and uh and just appreciating that they’re an individual and have incredible talents and skills and capacities that I lack.

Marty: And turn off the tap while you brush your teeth.

Gene: There you go. Exactly.

Marty: Gene, thanks so much. Really appreciate you being here.

Gene: Thank you, Marty. Happy to chat.

Marty: All right.