Legislature tackles the tracking of secondary water during the drought

weberbasin.com

LAYTON — Something the Utah Legislature is taking seriously has to do with water. Against the backdrop of last summer’s drought, the worst in 75 years, and the likelihood that we’re possibly heading into another drought year, lawmakers are trying to get ahead of it.

A bill (HB 242) introduced would expand on an ongoing Secondary Water metering pilot program.

On KVNU’s For the People program on Tuesday, Jon Parry of the Weber Basin Water Conservancy District said what it involves is bringing back accountability of how much secondary water is being used.

“It was kind of the brain child of the federal government, when they came in and started constructing these massive water development projects back in the (19)50’s and 60’s in our neck of the woods. The secondary water systems were kind of put forth before everybody else’s as a pretty cost-effective mechanism or method of getting some of this water that doesn’t have to be treated, doesn’t have to be filtered to the same level as the drinking water,” he explained.

Parry said his district has been involved in monitoring it for some time.

“But we’ve actually been metering and retro-fitting existing secondary connections as far back as 2011. (We) currently sit at about 12,500 meters in the ground, with a total of about 23,000 connections on our system. So, we’re a little over halfway with getting our entire area metered.”

Later in the afternoon on Tuesday, the bill passed the House and a Senate Natural Resources Committee and is now under consideration by the full Utah Senate.

If it passes and is signed by Governor Spencer Cox, the result will be the legislature spending about $250,000,000 of infrastructure money to install secondary meters throughout the state.

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