There were many folks that took measures to help slow the flow of water this summer by making landscaping changes. Price City and USU Eastern both made some significant changes to some lawn areas and we were able to sit down with Water Conservation Section Manager, Shelby Ericksen to discuss the details.

“This past year we partnered with Price City and they participated in our second year of Flip Blitz and Flip Blitz is a campaign that aims to raise awareness on how small landscape changes can make a big difference. So we partnered with Price City to remove some grass from park strips that were not being used. Price USU Eastern removed 6,000 square feet and the Price City Fire Department removed 5,256 square feet, so that’s a total of just over 11,000 square feet of grass,” explained Ericksen. Removing portions of lawns on one’s park strip can save up to 5,000 to 8,000 gallons of water each year, and what Price removed is bigger than your standard residential park strip so they will see a definitely change in water usage.

Officials say we will need a few productive winters to even see a significant change in water levels. “We would need a really good above average winter, probably more of a few of those above average winters. With how the past couple of winters have been going, we would be happy to see an average winter and not see it in worse shape. The good news about our reservoirs is some of those are multi-year reservoirs. So that’s why we have them, is for times we don’t receive as much snow or we don’t have as much run off, but again we don’t know how long this is going to last,” stated Ericksen. That’s why it so important to now make efforts to save water in order to plan for the future.

Although less watering of lawns and yards is done in the fall there are still other ways to conserve water during the fall and winter months. “We also have rebates on https://utahwatersavers.com/ for smart irrigation controllers and also for toilets. So replacing old water wasting toilets with water sense labeled ones is a great indoor water saver and then there’s also just some standard ones, I know that with technology some of our dishwashers and washing machines have improved. Just to make sure that if you have a washer that fills all the way up, you know when you’re running it, make sure you’re running full loads and same with a dishwasher,” said Ericksen.

For more information and details about water conservation visit the Division of Water Resources website at https://water.utah.gov/