Dixie drought festers despite recent rains

ST. GEORGE — It rained over southern Utah's parched desert towns this weekend, but it didn't rain enough, said area water managers.

"The Virgin River is running very low," said Ron Thompson, manager of the Washington County Water Conservancy District, which supplies water for much of the county.

"We are getting as much storage as we can in Quail Creek Reservoir right now. It's imperative we get it there within the next six weeks. We need another 12 feet in the lake for our gravity- flow pumps to work." Washington County is the driest county in a state that's ranked as the second driest in the nation, Thompson said on Saturday to a group of attorneys attending the Utah State Bar Association convention at the Dixie Center in St. George. Thompson's presentation centered on water laws and how they affect urban growth in southern Utah.

"We were at 42 percent of normal snow pack this morning," said Thompson, who is also an attorney. "It went down from 52 percent."

A bright spot in the dismal water year, said Thompson, is the conservancy district's decision to transfer water from Quail Creek to the county's newest reservoir, Sand Hollow, in an effort to save water for later use.

"We have a 40-foot rise in the ground water table in Sand Hollow," he said. "What's going on in the ground right now is more important than what's going on above the ground."

So far this year, Thompson reminded his audience, there hasn't been much rain and that's a big concern when you consider the county's phenomenal growth patterns, he said.

"Since 1965, this county has not experienced a single year without growth and net in-migration," said Thompson. Around 100,000 people live in Washington County right now, and population experts predict that number to double or even triple within the next 30 years, he said.

But there aren't just more and more people who need water there's also the desert tortoise and a handful of endangered fish that need water to survive, Thompson points out.

"In order to meet the biological needs of the endangered species, we have to sustain a certain stream flow in the Virgin River," he said. Right now, the Virgin River is running at about one-fourth the traditional stream flow one usually records during the area's blistering summer months, Thompson noted.

Santa Clara, a growing city on the west side of St. George, may not be able to provide irrigation water to its farmers unless the situation changes significantly, he said.