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Show 2 administrative structure until 1896. Shortly after statehood the Office of the State Engineer and the Board of Land Commissioners were established. These were the beginnings of a long effort to improve and clarify the proper role of the state in the administration, allocation, and development of water resources. The Utah Environment Water administration in Utah has been profoundly influenced by the scarcity of water. Encompassing portions of three drainage basins - the Colorado River Basin, the Great Basin, and a small portion of the Snake River Basin in the northwest corner of the state - Utah has averaged only about 13 to 14 inches of rainfall annually. Added to limited moisture has been the problem of poor seasonal distribution. Rain or snow falls most heavily during the winter months when the need for water is least During the warmest periods of the growing season the environment has almost always provided the least moisture. These characteristics made it necessary to develop agricultural systems based on both irrigation and eventually dry farming techniques. Industry, cities, and other users also found it necessary to develop special programs and facilities to meet their water requirements. The Mormons The Mormons were the first, and remain the primary, settlers of the Utah area. Their water development and settlement policies, and the motivations behind them, form the foundation of Utah water policy. 1 Their unique migration to Utah was brought about by pressures elsewhere in the United States. Early in their history, Mormons showed a remarkable tendency to locate as a cooperative group. This instinct for garnering was maintained as they moved to the Utah area. Upon arrival they settled Salt Lake City as a group. Agriculture in arid regions has always involved substantial startup costs, which require heavy financial or physical investment. Because of the circumstances, the Mormons had no choice but to opt for the practice of cooperative effort to provide the startup investment. Out of these early cooperative experiences grew the fundamental ideas concerning the role of water and its possibilities. Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of Utah, 1540- 1887 ( San Francisco: The History Company Publishers, 1890), pp x- xi. To explain why he treated the Mormon religion in more depth than he usually treated religion in histories, Bancroft maintained that it was a more integral part of the story than elsewhere, he said that: . . . inasmuch as doctrines and beliefs enter more infiuentially than elsewhere into the origin and evolution of this society, I give a history of the rise and progress of those doctrines .. . The Settlement of this section sprung primarily from the evolution of a new religion, with all its attendant trials and persecutions. To give their actions without their motives would leave the work obviously imperfect; to give their motives without the origin and nature of their belief would be impossible. |
