County's vacancy rate had now become the highest in the state. By one admittedly incomplete count, more than seventy-five homes were for sale in August 1987 in the three communities of Castle Dale, Orangeville, and F e r r ~ n . ~ ~ A combination of national economic recovery, with an attendant resurgence in the demand for electric power, and adjustment of the population to the available jobs brought the unemployment rate down to a respectable 5.3 percent in August 1989." Nonfarm employment rose modestly to 3,710 by the end of 1989. The Utah PowerIPacifiCorp mining operations provided 750 jobs, including management and support personnel. An additional 350 were employed at the Hunter Plant and 230 at the Huntington Plant.79 Maintenance, repair, and construction work in support of the mines and power plants provided a sizeable number of additional jobs, many of them in locally owned enterprises. And these were, for the most part, high-paying jobs, especially by comparison with average rates of pay in rural Utah. However, a sizeable number of those who worked in Emery County commuted from homes outside the county. Even those who lived in the county spent much of their income on goods and services in Price or in Wasatch Front cities, thus reducing the normal "multiplier effect" of basic industry jobs on the local economy. Emery County has consistently "exported" as much as 80 percent of its consumer buying power.'O
Agriculture i n a n Industrial Economy The impact of the boom on the county's traditional base of agriculture and stock raising took three main forms. First and most significant was the diversion of precious water resources from agriculture to industrial and municipal uses. Approximately onethird of the water rights in Huntington, Cottonwood, and Ferron creeks were acquired by Utah Power through purchase or long-term lease. The growing towns also expanded their water holdings. Even with the improved water management made possible by new and enlarged storage facilities, this reallocation meant that some land had to be retired from farming and other acreage received a reduced supply of irrigation water. Some farmers who had sold a portion of their water stock to Utah Power tried to continue farming the previously
