St. George • Immersed in the driest winter in 130 years, water managers in Utah’s fifth-most populous county don’t have a regional drought contingency plan – at least one that everyone can agree on.
While they remain planless, Washington County water and elected officials say they understand the need to draft one fast. According to the Western Regional Climate Center, the area is experiencing its driest winter since 1895. Roughly 95% of the county is mired in what the climate center calls “extreme drought.”
To prepare for the worst, district and elected officials are accelerating efforts to adopt a district-wide plan that all of its eight member cities can agree on before the onslaught of summer and its accompanying withering heat.
Doug Bennett, the district’s water conservation manager who is spearheading the effort, concedes coming up with a plan that most of the cities can agree on won’t be easy but is vitally important.
“We have eight straws drawing water from the same glass,” said Bennett, noting the district’s reliance on water from the snowpack in the Virgin River Basin. “We have to make sure everyone has equal access to water and that we have a policy that works the same for our smallest and largest communities.”
Still, district officials attest, they are making headway. The district laid the groundwork in January 2023 when it unveiled a draft drought contingency plan which contains five drought stages ranging from normal conditions on one end to extreme on the other.
Alas, Bennett noted, there was not agreement about what incremental restrictions to apply and when to impose them for the plan’s different drought stages. In an effort to garner more buy-in for the final iteration of the plan, the district surveyed board members, technical advisors and municipal elected officials in February to weigh their concerns and incorporate their suggestions.
Finding consensus, moving forward
Bennett said the good news is that there was widespread consensus among the 60% who responded to the survey about the need for all cities in the district to be on the same page when responding to drought situations. There was also widespread agreement that the plan should avoid restrictions, if possible, that could hurt the economy.
As one respondent, who is not identified in the survey, put it: “I agree with this until it gets to the last stage. At that point, [the] economic impact should take a back seat.”
However, according to district officials, there was less agreement over fining violators, imposing residential water restrictions before cutting water to city parks and athletic fields, and whether to allow golf course managers to decide for themselves how to meet water-reduction targets.
Bennett said some wanted violators to receive two warnings before being fined instead of one, which is what was proposed in the survey. Some insisted that community gathering places like parks and sports fields should take precedence over residential lawns during a drought, while others saw that as politically unpalatable and a tough sell to residents.
As for the county’s 14 golf courses, a slight majority agreed golf course managers must have some leeway to decide how to save water during drought. Others in the survey disagreed.
“Grass is grass,” one respondent argued. “We are either all in or not. We can’t start having exceptions. What will they do when there is no water?”
In general, there was some consensus that watering restrictions on golf courses should only be imposed under escalating drought conditions, which is phase three in the draft plan. There was also some agreement on waiting to limit the number of building permits issued and only allowing hand-watering of plants until phase three conditions were met.
More feedback and fine-tuning
District officials are still working with their municipal counterparts to get more feedback before fine-tuning the plan to ensure the final product is something the public will support.
“We need to reach some kind of consensus,” Bennett said. “If we’re going to get the plan off the ground, I want to know it will fly.”
Bennett hopes to submit the final plan to the district board for approval in April. If adopted, it would then go to member cities which could approve it as is, make some tweaks or reject it outright. Bennett said the district might choose to cut the amount of water delivered to cities that choose not to adopt the plan.
While rejection seems unlikely, some survey respondents indicated that cities might be reluctant to give up making and enforcing their own rules for responding to drought. In his experience, Ivins Mayor Chris Hart said the district doesn’t have as much control over its member cities as does, say, the Southern Nevada Water Authority in the Las Vegas area.
“When that water district comes to the various communities it serves and says, ‘We’ve got to do this,’ it’s kind of a stand-at-attention-and-salute situation because the cities end up doing whatever the district says needs to be done. Here, there is more back and forth and trying to find agreements that will lead to policy.”
Nonetheless, Hart is optimistic the drought plan will be adopted. So is Scott Taylor, St. George’s water services director. After all, he said, cities in the district banded together in 2022 to adopt the state’s strictest landscaping ordinances to save water.
“Seeing the dismal snowpacks in the mountains [near St. George]… is presenting us with a sense of urgency,” Taylor said.
Lest anyone liken getting all eight cities to sign off on the plan to herding cats, Bennett has a ready rejoinder: “I’m more of a dog guy,” he said.
