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TOOELE — Water customers in Tooele County have been asked to cut back as the reserves in Settlement Canyon may not last the whole summer.
Bob Clegg, the president of the Settlement Canyon Irrigation Company board, said they began the season with a lower water level than usual because of the light winter.
Two months after they began using water from the reservoir, they were already down to just 50 percent capacity. Clegg said they typically use the reservoir until mid-October.
“We’re more than halfway to when we need to shut off, and we’ve got the two hottest months of the year ahead of us,” Clegg said. “We need to conserve now so that we can make what we have stretch as far as we can.”
Water customers were under restrictions. Residential customers who water their lawns have been limited to three hours, twice a week.
Farm customers have been permitted to water four nights a week. Clegg has asked customers who water their lawns to limit their use to less than one inch per week.
Other Reservoirs Across State Doing Fine
Many of the state’s other reservoirs were in decent shape, despite the low snowfall of the winter of 2017-18.
“The reason why we’re okay is because — not last year, but the previous year — we had a good snowpack year, and snowpack is our largest reservoir. That’s helped us to,” said Candice Hasenyager, the assistant director of the planning branch at the Utah Division of Water Resources.
There are some parts of the state that have been running low, including the Settlement Canyon Reservoir in Tooele County and some others across Southern Utah.
Clegg said the DWR may institute tighter restrictions for Settlement Canyon Irrigation Company customers so they can stretch that water as far into the season as possible.
“We’ve got to all be in this together or we’re all going to go down together,” he said.
