St. George Council discusses proposed ordinance with fines, service termination for wasting water

ST. GEORGE — In the early 1900s, the city of St. George passed an ordinance that specified a fine of over $700 in today’s money, or 25 days in jail, for water wasters. That was according an old newspaper article shared with the St. George City Council during a work meeting Thursday as part of a presentation focused on the city possibly modifying its current water waste ordinance.

Scott Taylor, St. George water services director, shows the City Council how much water a local business has wasted by not fixing a pipe leak, St. George, Utah, Jan. 27, 2022 | Photo Mori Kessler, St. George News

The current ordinance penalizes someone with an infraction if the water they allow to spill off their property causes some sort of property damage.

“It’s kind of a weak ordinance, but its alright,” said Scott Taylor, the city’s water services director. “Previous city councils have taken the approach of ‘Let’s encourage and educate (water conservation), but let’s not be heavy-handed.’”

Elected officials on the county level, as well as in St. George and neighboring municipalities, have been slow to enact water conversation ordinances “with teeth,” Taylor said, because the majority of residents are said to have been overwhelmingly receptive to correcting wasteful water practices or fixing water leaks once they are made aware of the problem.

“By and large, most people are responsible,” he said.

However, given the heightened emphasis on water conservation in the face of the ongoing drought and a minority of residents and property owners whom Taylor called “willfully negligent” in their water use, he said it was possibly time to reevaluate the ordinance.

Taylor gave an example of a water-wasting business in St. George that has a months-long water leak that still needs to be fixed. The business had been notified multiple times through city staff, letters and, more recently, staff from the Washington County Water Conservancy District.

A table showing how much water had been used by the business between 2020 and 2021 drew both surprise and annoyed comments and looks from some of the council members. According to the table, the business had used around 142,800 gallons of water during 2020. The leak was brought up by city staff in July 2021, and by the end of 2021, the total amount of water use jumped to nearly 514,000 gallons.

“They just don’t care,” St. George Mayor Michele Randall said.

Options for a reworked water waste ordinance presented to the St. George City Council, Jan. 27, 2022 | Photo Mori Kessler, St. George News

Rene Fleming, city manager of energy and water customer service, added that despite the monthly water bill being higher, the business owner is apparently content to pay that over fixing the problem.

Taylor then shared examples of water waste ordinances used in other Utah cities, as well as out-of-state cities like Tucson, Arizona.

Councilwoman Natalie Larsen raised the question of who determines the meaning of “water wasting.”

That was a point that needed to be defined better in a revised ordinance, Taylor said, and followed it up with a slide showing options that could be put in the reworked ordinance.

Under the options, water waste could be defined as water lost through the following:

  • Leaky joints pipes, valves and so on.
  • Allowing water to leave the property.
  • Time-of-day watering violations.
  • Failure to repair broken sprinkler systems or not adjusting sprinkler heads, emitters and the like.

The city would be made aware of these issues through high amounts of water use that appears out of the ordinary for certain customers, visual confirmation by city staff or contact initiated by concerned neighbors.

Taylor said when the city has followed up with these types of concerns – either through a written notification, in person or other means – it is not unusual for the property owner or homeowner to be surprised and then eager to fix the problem.

Ways water waste issues can be reported to the city of St. George, Utah, Jan. 27, 2022 | Photo Mori Kessler, St. George News

From there, under the proposed ordinance revamp, the city would help supply the individual with water conservation materials and education for better water use practices. A timetable – possibly up 30 days – would also be set up to address the problem.

“We do what we can to help them out so the problem is solved and doesn’t escalate,” Taylor said.

That would be on the first notification. If there was a second notification, the user could incur a fine. A third notification could result in notice that water service to the property would be terminated in the next 10 days. Fines and reconnect fees would then have to be paid for service to be restored.

“Is this the road we want to to go down?” Taylor asked the council.

“I don’t think we can be content with the water issue we have,” Randall said. “We have to do something. … This (water) is liquid gold now.”

The council gave Taylor the go-ahead to work with the city’s legal department on fine tuning the proposed ordinance. Once completed, the revamped ordinance will be presented to the City Council in a regular meeting for a vote.

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2022, all rights reserved.

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