Ivins • Supporters of a beloved natural area in west Ivins are elated the land may no longer need to be submerged under 490 million gallons of treated wastewater.
Washington County Water Conservancy District general manager Zach Renstrom informed Ivins city officials in a Jan. 16 letter that a $22 million reuse reservoir planned for the Dry Wash area is not necessary due to the strides the city has made in water conservation – at least for now.
From 2020 and 2023, Ivins’ per capita water use has dropped from 293 gallons per day to 166 gallons per day. The resulting savings total, on average, 1.2 million gallons a day or more than 1.3 billion gallons over that timeframe, according to Ivins Public Works Director Chuck Gillette.
Ivins realtor Robert Bolar expressed relief over the district’s reprieve.
“This decision preserves not only the property values but also the unique charm and appeal of our area,” Bolar said. “The decision not to build the reservoir in a luxury real estate area likely prevents potential declines in property values that would have resulted from the environmental and aesthetic changes associated with reservoir construction.”
Previously, district officials said Dry Wash Reservoir was an integral part of its 20-year master plan to shore up its water supply by adding another 47,000 acre-feet of water by 2042 to keep pace with the growth in Washington County, the population of which is projected to more than double over the next several decades.
An acre-foot of water is approximately 326,000 gallons and is about how much water two households use in a year. By storing treated wastewater for use in outdoor irrigation, district officials argued, Dry Wash would free up culinary water that could be used to supply new homes cropping up in the county over the next two decades.
Dry Wash provokes stiff opposition
But those plans encountered stiff opposition from the Dry Wash Study Group, an ad hoc group formed to oppose the reservoir. Critics argued the reservoir, which would hold as much as 1,500-acre-feet but be drawn down to a conservation level of 300-acre-feet during hot summers, would expose 47 acres of lakebed dust that the wind could carry to the surrounding area.
Ellen Arch, a pediatrician and geneticist who lives in Ivins, warned city officials last April that the toxic elements found in the treated wastewater, which would be stored at the reservoir, and windborne dust could trigger widespread outbreaks of respiratory and other diseases, including various forms of cancer, birth defects, Alzheimer’s, ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), pulmonary and cardiovascular diseases, among others.
Opponents also argued the reservoir, which would have been built on 90 acres between Kwavasa Drive and Highway 91, would become a haven for gnats, mosquitoes and invasive tamarisk trees, and could pose a safety risk due to its design and location in a residential area.
For their part, district officials pushed back, countering that many of the concerns were overblown or simply didn’t hold water. However, now the district’s plans have changed, such arguments may have become moot. Renstrom wrote that the district will put Dry Wash on hold and focus on building Graveyard Wash, a $27 million reuse reservoir planned for the Santa Clara area near Highway 91.
“While the district will work to preserve Dry Wash’s viability as a reservoir site, the district’s current intent is to develop Dry Wash as a reuse reservoir only if Graveyard Wash Reservoir does not come to fruition or is inadequate to meet secondary [water] demands,” Renstrom told the mayor and council members in the letter.
If Graveyard Wash Reservoir gets derailed or doesn’t meet the demand, district spokesperson Karry Rathje explained, “the planning and design for Dry Wash Reservoir will resume,” though the district might opt to make it a drinking water reservoir.
Wayne Pennington, a geophysicist and retired dean of engineering at Michigan Technological University, hailed the district’s about-face on the reservoir, saying taxpayers and rate-payers won’t “have to pay millions of dollars for a reservoir that has now been found to be redundant and unnecessary. In addition, the return of this area to its original intended purpose -- an open natural space -- is now likely.”
From foregone conclusion to long-shot possibility
Ivins Mayor Chris Hart said Dry Wash Reservoir’s evolution from what many deemed a slam dunk to a long-shot possibility happened as a result of talks between the city and the district about possible alternatives to building the reservoir, preferably one that would ease residents’ concerns.
Another important development occurred when the district contracted with the firm Stantec as the major engineering consultant for Dry Wash. Hart said when company officials began some new modeling to update the district’s westside reuse water storage needs, it asked for Ivins’ latest water use data, which was dramatically lower than the numbers the city provided several years ago.
What they found, the mayor added, was that due to the city’s conservation efforts and strict water-use standards enacted in 2023, Ivins had the lowest per capita water use in the state and one comparable to Las Vegas, often considered the gold standard with respect to conservation. That meant the district did not need Dry Wash to slake its thirst for reuse water.
Another major factor in putting Dry Wash on hold, Hart explained, is that the new homes being built in Ivins use far less water for outdoor purposes like watering lawns than their counterparts. That, in turn, frees Ivins from having to install a citywide secondary water system that city officials estimate could cost up to $50 million.
“We made the decision ... that we were not going to go all the way with installing a full secondary water system because it’s not cost-effective to do it,” the mayor said.
Instead, Ivins officials plan to build a much smaller system that will provide secondary water to municipal cemeteries, parks and new subdivisions that already have secondary systems in place – an outcome Pennington calls a likely “win-win” conclusion to the Dry Wash debate.
