Utahns asked to stop watering lawns; Washington County has until end of month

Stock image, St. George News

ST. GEORGE With the arrival of fall, state water managers have a message for Utahns – stop watering your lawns.

Officials with the Utah Division of Water Resources released a statement Friday asking state residents – with the exception of Washington County – to cease outdoor watering for the remainder of the year.

If you don’t live in Washington County where the irrigation season is longer, it is time to turn off that timer until next year,” Eric Millis, the division’s director, said. “We are in the middle of a significant drought, and recent rainfall took care of all the moisture property owners need for the rest of the year,”

Rains from what was left of Hurricane Rosa fell on parts of Utah over the last week.

What people need to do is really simple: turn your timer to the off position immediately,” said Joshua Palmer, the agency’s water efficiency, education and engagement section manager. “Sixteen of the state’s reservoirs are less than 20 percent full, meaning if we don’t have a good winter we will be wishing we had conserved more this year.”

Washington County residents have been asked by the Washington County Water Conservancy District to follow the county’s fall watering schedule, which limits watering to twice a week. The fall schedule began Sept. 1 and runs through Oct. 31.

Ivins Reservoir, Ivins, Utah, Sept. 6, 2018 | Photo by Mori Kessler, St. George News

Read more: Fall watering schedule goes into effect for county water users

The water district recommends running sprinklers in three cycles about an hour apart. This allows the soil to absorb water slowly and deeply and reduces the risk of runoff or water waste. Hand water dry spots.

As for the state of the five reservoirs the water district manages, as of Tuesday, Quail Creek is at 55 percent, Sand Hollow is 76 percent, Gunlock is at 40 percent, Ivins is at 25 percent and Kolob is at 0.5 percent.

Kolob is being drained in order to wipe out traces of three illegally introduced fish species to the reservoir that pose a threat to protected Virgin River fish.

Read more: Kolob Reservoir to be drained due to illegally introduced fish; reward offered for information

The primary function of the reservoirs is to supply culinary and secondary water for Washington County’s residents, but they offer countless recreational, environmental, financial and social benefits as well,” water district officials posted on Facebook Monday.

For more information on the reservoirs, visit the water district’s website.

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @MoriKessler

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2018, all rights reserved.

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5 Comments

  • tcrider October 5, 2018 at 10:02 pm

    What about the golf courses and the developments with the lagoons?

    • Redbud October 6, 2018 at 3:49 am

      They are exempt because they have $.

  • sheepobserver October 6, 2018 at 7:42 am

    This is something that’s bugged me for a long time. I worked at a popular Utah grocery store for a while, let’s call it Harmonson’s for the sake of anonymity.

    To defrost fish, they’d leave the faucet running over the frozen fish/shrimp for hours, and hours almost every day. A few times it was an all day event especially if there were some kind of “special”. I don’t know if that’s normal procedure at all places, but wow, the wasted water was just astonishing to me considering some planning the day before could have let the fish thaw out in the fridge to defrost slowly………

  • KR567 October 7, 2018 at 7:59 am

    LOL ! did you see all those auto sprinklers watering the lawns while it was raining and that’s the same people that water their lawns all winter. good luck getting them to turn their sprinklers off

  • utahdiablo October 7, 2018 at 3:43 pm

    Yeah, what a hoot, the Washington county school district must think there is a endless supply as the school yard grass field at Coral Canyon is always being watered during the peak hours and broken water sprinkler heads allow 1,000’s of gallons of water to run off into the drainage tunnel below the main road into the school…I’ve called them for years to report this as the school watering system is on culinary water, not secondary water like the majority of schools are, but being smack dab in the middle of the Coral Canyon housing tract? They use the same water supply….what does Ron Thompson say? “Use it or Lose it”?….what a darn waste of water…the entire school system should also turn off the water on rain days, but Nope, water away they say!

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