No Fan of Mamdani
But there's mud in the pie. Vertical integration is not illegal in and of itself. No; it's only illegal if a company uses that control to block rivals. Loophole, mud in the pie—call it what you want, but the horse is getting away.
Perhaps the industry that attracts the most attention when it comes to vertical integration is the oil industry—"Big Oil," as it may be known to you. Oil companies often control the process from exploration and drilling wells to transportation by pipelines and tankers, to refining, to market and selling.
You might say, now hold on here. Oil companies don't own the gas stations. Those stations are independently owned. Yes. I suppose they are what is called "branded" stations—stations that operate under the name, logo, and fuel supply of an oil company even though they are owned and run independently.
Bottom line is, to a significant extent, Big Oil runs the show all the way from drilling the wells to selling the gas. That's vertical integration, and it remains something that often is not a good thing. For one thing, it gives the oil company leeway to set its own prices. The oil companies like that, but you don't.
So, just wondering: Why aren't we doing something about this?
Who Is the Criminal?
You say the Colorado River Basin doesn't have enough water? One small shift could make a massive difference. And it would be easy to do—
If only we would do it.
It’s no secret that agricultural water use is a major factor in the West’s water crisis. About 74% of all water diverted from the Colorado River Basin goes to agriculture. Most of that is used to irrigate crops like alfalfa, hay, and pasture. In Utah, alfalfa alone consumes more than half of the state’s agricultural water.
Solve that problem, and you’ve gone a long way toward solving the bigger one.
Roughly 30–40% of Utah’s alfalfa is still flood irrigated. That’s an estimate, but whatever the exact figure, it’s significant. Why? Because about 50% of the water used in flood irrigation is lost—to runoff, evaporation, or deep percolation.
Do the math:
That means millions of acre-feet of water are wasted every year—water that could be saved by switching to more efficient irrigation systems. Even at their worst, sprinkler systems lose less water. Well-managed systems retain 70–85% of their water. Drip and low-elevation sprinklers push efficiency up to 95%.
So why aren’t we doing this?
We are—slowly. But the real barrier is infrastructure. To replace open ditches with pressurized systems, we need pumps, pressure regulators, pipelines, sprinkler or drip components, control systems, filtration—and skilled labor to install and maintain it all.
Estimated total bill: $4 billion. Utah’s state budget for 2026 is $30.8 billion, so this would represent about 13% of the annual budget.
Do it. And do it now. Come up with the money. Urgency demands it.
Some say it could take 10–20 years to complete the transition. Qater rights issues can be resolved faster with political will, but the real challenge is accelerating the infrastructure buildout.
And that can be done—if we commit the $4 billion and act with the urgency this crisis demands. With funding in place and focused execution, Utah could complete the transition in four years or less.
Do it.
