ST. GEORGE — A groundwater rush appears to be unfolding in Utah’s arid southwest corner, where various schemes are under consideration to conjure water from deep aquifers under desert valleys that are already fully allocated.
The latest proposal comes from two business owners who have filed a water rights application with the Utah State Engineer seeking authority to withdraw 50,396 acre-feet a year from the Escalante Valley, straddling the Washingon-Iron county line, whose current groundwater withdrawals already exceed its recharge by a significant margin.
The idea is to supplement farmers operating around Beryl and Enterprise. These water users are subject to a groundwater management plan that is gradually reducing the amount of water they can use, according to proponents LaDel Laub and Jared Holt, who filed the application on April 25 on half of a new entity called Escalante Valley Partners LLC.
The application provides locations of 115 potential wells that would be drilled to depths between 1,000 and 5,500. Most of the wells would be in Iron County, with a few in Washington County.
But there is just one big hitch. It is not known for certain if these deep aquifers even exist, according to Kyle Roerink of the Great Basin Water Network. And if the aquifers are there, it is impossible to say how much water they would yield and whether it would be usable.
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Written by BRIAN MAFFLY, The Salt Lake Tribune.
This article is published through the Utah News Collaborative, a partnership of news organizations in Utah that aims to inform readers across the state.
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