Weber State reached its water conservation goal 4 years early. Photo credit: Laura Seitz, Deseret News.
LAYTON, Utah — City managers in Davis County say they’re grateful to have more snow hitting the Wasatch Front, but they’re still telling residents to prepare for more drought later this year. They’re saying residents will still have to cut back on watering their lawns. And many people wouldn’t be able to do that until later than normal.
The Weber Basin Water Conservancy District announced they’re delaying the activation of their secondary water system, which provides hundreds of thousands of homes the water they use to keep their lawns healthy. Usually, the system is turned on in April, but officials say it won’t happen until May, this year.
Bountiful City Manager Gary Hill says he isn’t surprised to hear about this delay. He says they took a “wait and see” approach last year, waiting to see how badly their water supply would be impacted by the worsening drought. However, that same approach won’t work, now.
Hill said, “This year, in light of the water situation, we’re going to need to start much earlier in letting people know that this really is a serious situation.”
He says the city did a “fair amount of enforcement” to ensure people didn’t over-water their lawns. And they’re prepared to do the same, this year. However, Hill says most Bountiful residents cut their water use without being forced.
“We saw about a 30 percent reduction in water usage,” he said.
Layton Assistant City Manager Steve Garside says Layton residents also used less water. They let their lawns go a little browner than previous years.
Garside said, “We conserved, I think it was 689 million gallons of culinary water last year.”
He says they made serious water use restrictions in the spring and summer of 2021. However, they want people thinking about saving water even before this winter ends. Garside says they plan to cut lawn watering at their parks.
“Some of the larger ones, we’ll try to keep green as a gathering place,” Garside said. “Some of the smaller parks, people are going to have to understand that they’re going to be drier than they usually are.”
In Kaysville, City Manager Shayne Scott says they’re worried about people hooking up their culinary water systems to their sprinklers.
Scott said, “We do have an ordinance where that is not allowed.”
He says not only is that kind of attachment illegal, but it could cross contaminate water lines, causing water quality problems in culinary systems. Luckily, he says violators will be easy to spot.
“When we can see people irrigating before the water comes on or after it turns off, it’s very clear to us, at that time, that those individuals are using a culinary connection,” Scott said.
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