Water. Water! Water?

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We built our Ivins home in 2003 and were required to have it plumbed for both culinary water for indoors and reuse water for outdoors. At least since 2003 all new homes in Ivins have the same dual system. Clearly, someone realized we lived in a desert and water is a concern. Yet almost 20 years later we are all still using culinary water for irrigation.

The City Council recently approved continuing to study the feasibility of building a wastewater treatment plant so we can finally have reuse water for irrigation. That is significant, because at least half of our water use is outdoors. If we move forward with the plant, it will take four or five years plus whatever time is needed to connect us all to that water source, so it is not a quick fix. And it is not cheap.

Chuck Gillette, the Ivins Public Works Director, told the City Council at that meeting that the Shivwits Reservation might be willing to sell as much as 2,000 acre-feet of water a year to Ivins for maybe as long as 50 years. At The July 1st City Council meeting the Council will consider approving a temporary land use regulation designating Dry Wash as a potential reservoir that could hold close to 2,500 acre-feet of water. Dry Wash is located between Hwy 91 and Kwavasa Drive and is currently identified for future residential development on the City’s Land Use Map. (Download ordinance. Download map)

The chart in this post is from the 2019 Ivins Culinary Water Master Plan. It shows the city’s projected demand for water doubling from about 3,000 acre-feet in 2017 to almost 6,000 acre-feet by 2040. One acre-foot provides enough water for about three people a year, based on the way we use water currently. The chart also shows the importance of reuse water (secondary irrigation).

The 20+ year wait for reuse water suggests we have not really been concerned about water. At least not concerned enough. But it was a topic of concern at the last City Council meeting. Here are some of the comments made.

  • City Manager Dale Coulam: This drought looks like it’s here to stay and so we need to take this seriously.
  • Mayor Chris Hart: The City is looking at adding language to new plats stating the City may not be able to provide water to those developments.
  • Mayor: How do you limit permits? Do you have a lottery? Will the time come where we simply need to say we’re not going to look at any new developments?
  • Mayor: What about the folks who have lived here for years? You can make a good point that why should they be giving up landscaping in their front yard so someone else can move here.
  • Mayor: At some point will we have to say don’t buy any land expecting a zone change or expecting development approval because we don’t have water? We can’t take care of you?
  • City Manager: This is real, this is serious. On any map you see about the drought, it’s not just severe, it’s an extraordinary drought.

It is good the City Council is concerned. But it is critical to act QUICKLY to balance likely supply and demand. To do that, we first need to determine our future water availability using realistic assumptions; set water use goals that match availability; and implement an effective water conservation, sourcing, and secondary water plan to meet those goals to ensure a vibrant, hydrated future. We need to prioritize the value of every option and start implementing solutions.

Shamelessly plagiarizing from David Owen’s book, Where the Water Goes: “Solutions can’t be addressed from the bottom—by making households and farms more efficient, or by adjusting the price of water, or by classifying alfalfa as a Schedule I drug. It can only truly be addressed from the top, beginning with a scientifically defensible determination of how much water, over the long term, is likely to be available for rational human exploitation.” Oddly enough, our “waters managers” have not done this.

Here are some more comments from Owens:

  • “Water problems can seem tantalizingly easy to solve: All we need to do is turn off the fountains at the Bellagio, stop selling hay to China, ban golf, cut down the almond trees, and kill all the lawyers.”
  • “There is a disconnect between the water utility and cities. Cities approve development, and then the water utility is expected to find the water necessary to serve it, and there’s no discussion about whether in fact the water is there.”
  • “Increasing the water efficiency of existing households creates a water surplus that can be used to support the construction of more sprawling subdivisions. It would make sense for water managers and cities to work together, with the goal of guiding or at least planning for growth.”
  • “Making people more efficient at using water isn’t a gain for the environment if the gains are reinvested in sprawl.”

Please share your comments and tell me about other Ivins issues I have not addressed in recent posts. CONTACT ME

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