The Washington County Water Conservancy District (WCWCD) started construction on a reservoir near Toquerville in November. Dry Wash Reservoir in Ivins and Graveyard Wash Reservoir in Santa Clara should be built between 2024 and 2028. Right now, Dry Wash Reservoir is expected to start construction first, in 2024. But which goes first keeps changing.
So, how does Dry Wash Reservoir fit with our community vision? What will we put in the reservoir? How clean is that water? Who will use the water? Will the reservoir become a new playground? What can we do about blowing dust every summer and fall as the reservoir level drops? What about problems created by gnats and no-see-ums? And tamarisks? What about costs? Is it a done deal?
This article addresses these questions. But it also highlights problems we need to solve now, before the reservoir starts construction. Before it’s too late. This article is more than twice as long as my normal posts. But this is a very important and complicated issue. If it’s going to happen, we only get one shot at doing it right. Please read the article and then share your ideas with me in an email or the comment section at the bottom of the page.
Wants & Needs
Dry Wash is a naturally pristine area in Ivins. More than 45 years ago William Carma & Associates, the original developer of Kayenta, planned for the wash and surrounding area to remain a natural open space for public enjoyment. Terry Marten has consistently continued that vision since then.
The Ivins General Plan acknowledges the importance of the washes in Ivins, including Dry Wash, saying they are “important as visual open space, wildlife habitat area and recreation corridors.” In last year’s General Plan Survey, 81% of the respondents made it clear that open space is important to them.
Unfortunately, neither developer owned the land, although not for lack of trying. And the City doesn’t own the land. It’s in the hands of the Washington County Water Conservancy District. Woulda, coulda, shoulda isn’t helpful at this point.
The open space vision is beautiful. I can’t imagine there is anyone who wouldn’t want that. But life is messy. We must continually balance needs and wants. Needs are necessary for life. Wants improve life.
We want open space. We need water. WCWCDs 20-year plan published earlier this year finally dropped the expectation of water from Lake Powell and replaced it with more aggressive expectations for conservation benefits and secondary water. Both the draft Ivins Water Conservation Plan and WCWCDs 20-year plan show we don’t have enough water to meet our needs without secondary water.
What Will We Put in the Reservoir?
Dry Wash Reservoir would contain “secondary, or reuse water for outdoor irrigation, including agricultural and residential watering. The St. George Water Reclamation Facility collects the wastewater from Ivins, Santa Clara, St. George, and Washington City. It treats the water sufficiently to discharge it downstream in the Virgin River.
But it can also send that treated water to its Reuse Plant which is a separate and additional treatment process after the conventional wastewater treatment that brings water quality up to irrigation quality. That is where our secondary water will come from. Using secondary water this way frees up high quality culinary water we’re now wasting on our grass and plants. It’s crazy to use culinary water the way we’ve been doing it. We live in a desert.
Right now, the Reuse Plant only operates from about March to October, so most of the wastewater is just discharged into the Virgin River after the initial processing. That’s because we don’t have anywhere to store it. That’s where the reservoir comes in. Overall, it treats only about 2,000 acre-feet a year, but it can treat close to 12,000 acre-feet a year. And if expanded, there’s a lot more wastewater coming in that could be reused.
We already have a pipeline that runs through Ivins and Santa Clara, from Gunlock to St. George. And there is a pipeline from Bloomington to Santa Clara. So, to use the reuse water, we just need a place to put it.
Dry Wash Reservoir is one of the places to put it. although the Ivins City Council authorized a reservoir with up to 1,900 acre-feet of water, the current plan is for the reservoir to hold about 1,500 acre-feet of water when full. Then it would be drained down during the summer to a “conservation level” of about 300 acre-feet.
In addition to getting water from the treatment plant, the reservoir will also get water from the Gunlock Reservoir, at least in wet years. 2023 was a wet year and the Gunlock reservoir is almost full. That doesn’t give us much room to capture spring runoff. If we had another reservoir, WCWCD would move water from Gunlock right now so Gunlock can capture more of the spring runoff rather than send it all downstream.
How Clean Is the Water?
The water from the treatment plant that will fill Dry Wash Reservoir is classified as Type 1 Reuse Water by the Division of Water Quality. That means it is okay to come in contact with humans and be used for residential irrigation, but not for drinking. To be technical, it contains about 1,100 parts per million (ppm) of TDS (Total Dissolved Solids), compared to drinking water at about 500 ppm.
That’s not the right comparison though. We’re not looking to drink reuse water. (Not yet anyway.) So, let’s compare the reuse water with other secondary water sources currently being used for irrigation throughout the county.
Scott Taylor, St. George’s Water Services Director who oversees the treatment plant told me, “The plant’s reuse water is the best secondary irrigation water that there is, aside from Gunlock water. Much of the secondary irrigation system is fed from the Virgin River, which is much higher in TDS (like 3,000 ppm) and is often laden with silt.”
He goes on to say, “The reuse water is much better irrigation water than the Virgin River or any of our secondary irrigation groundwater wells. We have some wells in the Sunbrook area that are about 2,500 ppm TDS. I will say that our parks department and golf courses would love to have straight reuse water, rather than Virgin River water or some of our groundwater wells.”
Treating and storing secondary water as a form of reuse conservation is being utilized by water districts serving communities experiencing water scarcity and shortages across the country and beyond. It works. And the wave of the future is to go further. Two weeks ago, California became the second state to allow agencies to purify wastewater and turn it into tap water.
Who Will Use the Water?
The plan is to fill the new reservoir in the winter and spring and draw it down to a “conservation level” during the summer months, sending the water wherever it’s needed anywhere in the county. Right now, Ivins isn’t ready to use reuse water for outdoor irrigation in residential neighborhoods because we don’t have a delivery system in place. Even so, the benefit to county residents (and indirectly Ivins residents) is to use this additional, stored reuse water to displace precious drinking water for irrigating grass and plants.
Homes built in Ivins after 2000 have secondary water lines ready to accept reuse water, but there’s no city connection from one subdivision to another. So, we can’t get reuse water from a reservoir to anyone’s home yet. We are using culinary water for everything. Not a wise move in a desert. Especially since outdoor water use consumes about half of all our culinary water.
Dry Wash Reservoir creates immediate benefits. It adds at least 1,200 acre-feet of reuse water a year. That’s if we just fill it once a year. If we recharge it more often, it could be the source of a lot more reuse water. That water can be used outdoors, freeing up all that culinary water we’re wasting outdoors for indoor use. It can’t be used in Ivins right now because we’re not hooked up. But it can be used elsewhere.
One acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons. According to Chuck Gillette, the Ivins Public Works Director, we used 182 gallons of water per resident per day in Ivins in 2022. Based on that, 1,200 acre-feet of reuse water from the reservoir frees up enough culinary water to meet the needs of close to 6,000 people. That’s if we fill it just once a year. And that’s if we stop doing better each year on conservation.
WCWCDs intricate system of pipelines lets water move anywhere it’s needed. Dry Wash Reservoir water can end up watering lawns in St. George or the Shivwits Band of Paiutes soccer field.
In return, Ivins might tap into St. George’s culinary water from its Gunlock wells if needed. That’s an important option for us because our main source of culinary water is a pipeline from the water treatment plant at Quail Creek Reservoir. That plant is getting water from both Quail Creek and Sand Hollow reservoirs. And the pipeline is also getting water from wells around Sand Hollow Reservoir. The problem is, only so much water can be pushed through that pipe.
But a reservoir in Ivins also creates problems. So, we should be working on eliminating or at least minimizing those problems now. It will be too late once the reservoir is operational. Here are the problems I’m aware of.
Ready For Beach Blanket Bingo?
Ivins residents are concerned about a reservoir becoming a nuisance from crowds of people, from who knows where, descending on it for recreation. Residents don’t want this reservoir to become another destination fun park, like Fire Lake Park. Think summer teen beach movies.
Fortunately (and unfortunately) Ivins City, not WCWCD, will oversee management of the land around the reservoir. The city council already indicated it won’t be used for recreation, beyond perhaps hiking and fishing, as the City Council resolution in 2021 stated. But just because the city said that in a resolution doesn’t make it happen. We need a bulletproof management plan.
The Problem, My Friend, Is Blowin’ in the Wind
Another problem is dust and sand blowing from the reservoir. Nothing is finalized yet, but Wayne Pennington, an Ivins resident who is a geophysicist and a former Dean of Engineering calculates that the reservoir would shrink from 67 acres when full in the spring to just 20 acres each fall. That leaves 47 acres of exposed, dry reservoir bed.
Winds from the west and north will blow dust and sand from that bed across Ivins. That dust may contain material that remained in solution through the treatment plant, such as some chemicals from pharmaceuticals or other products.
To put the numbers in perspective, Wayne pointed out that 47 acres is almost 30% larger than the existing Ivins Reservoir at Fire Lake Park. He also calculated that it is roughly equivalent to several city blocks, such as 200W to 200E and Center St to past 100N.
To help minimize the blowing sand and dust problem, WCWCD is looking at adding gravel along the shore and excavating some shallow areas of the reservoir so less area will be exposed. Will that eliminate the problem? We need to get involved as a city and come up with the best possible solution to this problem. Because once the reservoir is built, it will be the city’s problem.
This Is Gnat Desirable
…or Yes You Can Have Too Much Protein
And then there are mosquitoes and gnats, problems the city will have to deal with. There’s already an effective program in place to deal with mosquitos, through the Southwest Mosquito Abatement & Control District (SMACD). The District treats mosquitoes at the Ivins Reservoir and throughout the county.
Sean Amodt, SMACDs Administrator, told me he has been working with WCWCD on the plans for the reservoir to make sure that it doesn’t create additional problems. In 2024 his team will trap in the area around the proposed reservoir to better understand what is out there. He also said the Shivwits Band of Paiutes is also starting a program that will help control that area.
Gnats, including no-see-ums (a type of gnat), are more troublesome. I contacted some residents who live close to the Ivins Reservoir to find out how bad the gnat problem is. They all told me it’s bad.
Here’s what one resident said: “The gnats are awful from late spring through late fall. We cannot sit outside, especially in the evenings, unless there’s a pretty strong breeze. They form in tall swarms that can be several feet tall. When you look from our house to the reservoir over the sage brush all you see is this wall of swirling flying gnats. There’s no way to open windows in the evening because they fit through any screen.”
Sean told me that “gnats develop in soil at the base of trees, not water, but they like moisture. Chuck Warren, president of Desert Preservation Initiative, told me that if tamarisk isn’t removed completely from the area around the reservoir, this invasive tree will take over the shoreline.
An invasion of tamarisk will make the gnats happy. Chuck added that this isn’t a one-time effort. Tamarisk is more persistent. A long-term management plan is important to prevent tamarisk from getting out of control.
After emerging as adults, they will fly miles for a blood meal if needed. With the moist soil this past year from the snowpack, gnats were in abundance. They would be attracted to the moist environment of the reservoir, but they don’t need it for development.”
He goes on to say that “the only effective treatment would be a nightly adulticide treatment. It would be effective, for each night, but would have to be reapplied each night. This would be expensive for product and manpower. Also, treating the ground around the area would be just as costly. There really isn’t a good solution for gnats other than a good repellent.”
Annoying as they are, biting gnats are an essential part of the web of life in Southwest Utah. Birds, bats, fish, lizards, and other insects depend on gnats as a food source.
Why Not Keep the Reservoir Full?
The treatment plant is not operating anywhere near capacity. So instead of simply filling the reservoir once a year then draining it down over the summer, why not periodically refill it? That would minimize the blowing dust problem. This seemed like an “aha moment” until I spent more time on it.
The first problem is that it costs money to pump water uphill from the treatment plant in Bloomington to Ivins. It’s about $1 for 1,000 gallons. That doesn’t sound bad until you start multiplying. It works out to $326 for one acre-foot. So, refilling an extra 1,000 acre-feet each year would cost $326,000. Who will pay for that?
The second problem is one of the goals of the reservoir is to be available as a place to put spring runoff from Gunlock. If we keep it close to full all year, we lose that opportunity. We lose that high quality runoff water.
Do We Have a Choice?
Can we simply say no to the reservoir? In December 2021 our city council passed a resolution for WCWCD to “take all steps necessary to acquire all land necessary to construct the negotiated sized Dry Wash Reservoir…”
In addition to that, the Water Conservancy District Act (Utah Code 17B-2a-1001) gives WCWCD a lot of powers, and even more powers as a “special district” (Utah Code 17B-1-103), which, under state code, is a type of “limited purpose local government entity.”
So, what does that mean? Special districts have the authority to exercise eminent domain to take land for their needs. But Jordan Cullimore, the Lead Attorney at the State’s Office of the Property Rights Ombudsman, told me, “They must follow a municipality’s land use regulations. That means WCWCD needs to go through the same approval process as any other landowner would.”
He went on to tell me that if the zoning doesn’t allow for reservoirs in the zone in which the land is located, “the district would need to petition the city to change the zoning to allow it, and the city could say no to the request if the city determines such zoning isn’t needed or doesn’t benefit the public.” Both the current land use and zoning for the reservoir area are low density residential. That use does not allow a reservoir.
The only land use in Ivins that allows a reservoir is “Park” which is the land use at Fire Lake Park. Given the concern about the reservoir turning into a recreational magnet, “Park” doesn’t seem like the right land use to use. For a reservoir to happen, we either need to create a new land use and zone to accommodate a reservoir or designate a reservoir as a conditional use in a zone we already have, like Commercial with Light Manufacturing (CLM).
By making a reservoir a conditional use, WCWCD would need to go through the Conditional Use Permit approval process to get a permit. Mr. Cullimore points out that, “In that case, the city may only deny a Conditional Use Permit if the city, in light of standards outlined in the city code, identifies reasonably anticipated detrimental effects associated with the use, and makes a finding, supported by evidence and on the record, that there is no way to mitigate the detrimental effects with reasonable conditions.”
I don’t think it’s possible to show convincingly that the reservoir is not needed or doesn’t provide a public benefit. I also think most of the “reasonably anticipated detrimental effects” can be mitigated. At least the ones I’ve researched for this article. But we won’t know that until we take time to work on the problems and identify solutions. I believe we need to do that now, before it’s too late.
Please share your ideas with me in an email (Mike@MikeScott4Ivins.com) or the comment section below.
Note: There are a lot of good comments and questions being posted below. Thank you. I am not ignoring them. I will share the ideas and concerns with the Mayor, City Council, WCWCD, and our legislators and work to get answers to all the questions.