BOX ELDER COUNTY, Utah — Joel Ferry waded through waist-high water Monday, surveying his underwater farm.
"As a farmer, I roll the dice every day," he said. "And we know that this comes with part of this livelihood the week we live. It's not easy, but you know we just try to get by day by day.”
The Executive Director of the Department of Natural Resources has tried estimating the loss Utah farmers face this summer, and it’s devastating, he said.
“We don't know," said Ferry. "It'll be in the millions of dollars though. It will.”
Floods come in cycles, but this is unprecedented for the Bear River, said Ferry.
“My family has been on this property for over 125 years now, and this is crazy," he said. "I was looking back at the records; the river on May 8th has never flowed this high before.”
Every fall, a large portion of Ferry's farm becomes Ferry’s Pumpkin Patch, but that won't be happening this year because the land is buried under four feet of water, and the farmer can't plant pumpkins.
Instead of losing money, many of those who farm along the Bear River, like Ronald Thompson, feel they’ve lost an opportunity.
“I've got some grain and hay that I've had planted, and I didn't fertilize it because I was pretty sure I was going to lose it," he said.
Thompson is worried about all the snow that’s still up in the mountains that has to come down, he said.
“I have my crops planted, and approximately half of my ground is under," he said.
There is one silver lining amid the devastation, said Ferry.
“The Bear River alone is putting about 20,000-acre feet of water in the Great Salt Lake every day," he said. "That adds up.”
We still can’t take an inch of this water for granted though, he said.
“This drought may be ending, or really close to ending," said Ferry. "The next one is just around the corner. We're either in a drought or the next one's coming, and so we need to be smart about how we use this water.”
