Castle Country Radio had the opportunity to speak over the telephone with Utah Division of Water Resources Director, Candice Hasenyager to reflect on the summer’s conservation efforts and what we can do to continue to conserve water during the fall and winter months.

“2021 set all the wrong records. We had record low stream flows, our reservoirs are at critically low elevations, we had record dry soils going into the spring and it was just hot and dry all over. Until about July, end of July, beginning of August, when there was a switch that flipped, and we got the return of monsoon rains,” said Hasenyager. Those monsoonal rains were good but did cause flooding issues in some areas. It was missing out on the monsoonal rains the year before that lead to record dry soils this year.

There was a state-wide emphasis on water conservation that residents took very seriously and those efforts paid off.  “It did make a difference across the state there was about a 20 percent reduction in water that was delivered and every drop does counts in that we were able to save that water in our reservoirs longer. There were some areas that had local issues with their water supply and they worked with the Division of Drinking Water to work through those issues and the other water suppliers in their area but overall, we made it,” stated Hasenyager. The reservoirs operated like they should have by storing water during wet years for dry months that we had during the summer. Now the state is hoping that the winter months will bring in much-needed moisture/snow to help reservoirs recover.

Now that we have gotten through the hot, dry months it doesn’t mean that during the winter months we stop water conservation efforts. There are still ways to conserve water to help with the overall water situation. “The three biggest water users in the house are toilets, washing machines, and showers. So one of the things that people can do is look potentially at if they have an older toilet that’s not a high-efficiency toilet to install a new toilet. There are rebates available for those. With your washing machines wait till you have full load of laundry, before doing that looking at upgrading to more highly efficient washing machine,” said Hasenyager. Another thing folks can do to conserve water during the winter months is take shorter showers and repair any water leaks one may have.