Washington County School District weighs extensive water cuts

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ST. GEORGE — For nine months each year, Washington County School District waters hundreds of acres of sports fields, lawns and nonfunctional turf. Add to that the water required for plumbing within school buildings, and it begins to make sense why the district pays more than $1 million in water bills each year.

But even maintenance staff like Robert Parr, an energy education specialist, were surprised by just how much water the district used between its 60 buildings and surrounding properties in 2020.

"We were called in as a group to the Washington County Water Conservancy District to inform us that we're in the top 20% of users in the county," Parr said. "We were using 434 million gallons annually, so we started reaching out to our custodians and sent our irrigation techs to walk through every campus and see which areas we can reduce watering and start making small adjustments."

The early results of the district-wide campaign were visible by the end of 2021: annual water use was reduced by about 100 million gallons – enough to fill over 150 Olympic swimming pools or supply all the water needs of 343 Washington County homes for a year (based on an average annual consumption of 290 kGal/household, or 0.89 acre feet).

Read more at St. George News.