Efforts in place to form a Cache County water conservancy district

FILE PHOTO

LOGAN – Cache County is one the few places in Utah where there is no water conservancy district, but if efforts to establish one continue at their current pace it won’t be long before the county no longer has that distinction. Efforts to form a district failed in 1999 but Water Department Manager Bob Fotheringham said that since then many positive changes have been made in the way a district is created.

Fotheringham told the Cache County Council that supporters of a new district have been meeting with the different municipalities who seem to see a district as the best way to preserve and protect the county’s valuable water resources.

“Everybody asks what’s the cost on the average home,” Fotheringham said. “This would be in any resolution that is passed on the average home in the county being worth $188,000 … and so you’re talking about one or two dollars a month.”

He said it has been estimated that the 60,000 acre-feet of water the county has under the Bear River Development Act is worth approximately $1.8 billion a year and that speakers at a recent USU water conference said water grows the economy. Fotheringham also said a water conservancy district would give the county more of a voice when water decisions are made.

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