Salt Lake County gets 70,000 acre-feet, according to Richard Day, assistant general manager and chief engineer of the Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District. Approximately 50,000 acre-feet are allotted to Draper, a chunk of Salt Lake City and the west side Salt Lake County. Approximately 20,000 acre-feet go to the Metropolitan Water District, serving Sandy and some of Salt Lake City.

Northern Utah County claims another 20,000 acre-feet to serve such communities as Alpine and Lehi.

And Wasatch County gets the remainder — a mere 2,400 acre-feet.

Thus, Jordanelle developers must draw water from other sources.

The biggest is the Ontario Tunnel, surging out of old United Park City Mines excavations, on the east side of U.S. 40 near the Mayflower interchange. It is right next to a new $10 million water treatment plant, ponied up by Jordanelle developers.

"This tunnel alone will supply anything coming along up here for the next 20 years," Matthews said.

The Ontario Tunnel gurgles out approximately 10,000 acre-feet of water a year. Through an intricate series of leases, transfers and swaps, the Jordanelle Special Services District controls tunnel rights totaling 4,400-4,900 acre-feet, Matthews said.

Since the Utah Department of Drinking Water figures 0.9 of an acre-foot supplies a family of four for a year, the Ontario Tunnel should supply just under 5,000 homesites, Matthews figures.

"We estimate development averaging about 200 to 250 units a year, so we're going to take something like 20 years to get to 5,000 units," Matthews said.

Matthews also said Jordanelle has had good responses from test wells, two of which are functioning. One development, Victory Ranch, also has rights to take water straight out of the Provo River, Matthews said.

"We've got those and a lot of other options available to us," he said.

Orvis believes the Jordanelle district is making a mistake relying on a state minimum requirement of delivering 400 gallons per day for indoor usage to each homesite.

"If you were going to supply a row of two-bedroom, one-bath homes that might work, but we all know they're going to be building anything but modest homes up at Jordanelle," Orvis said.

Matthews said, "Most of the big summer homes, the people are there, what . . . a couple weeks a year? Even if they use a lot more than their 400 gallons a day, it's not like they're there all year."

Ken Bousfield, Utah Department of Drinking Water compliance manager, said, "The 400-gallon requirement is a general thing. Some homes may use less, some may use more."

Mike Georgeson, the department's engineering manager and "gatekeeper" of developers' usages, said, "Four hundred gallons a day is a lot of water for most families. That's a lot of standing around in the shower for a long time."

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