Learn to conserve water or else, Leavitt cautions

Utah's water supply is in dire shape this year — but conditions could be catastrophic next year if residents don't quickly learn to conserve water in the nation's second-driest state, Gov. Mike Leavitt said Saturday.

"This is the fourth year of a serious drought," especially in southern Utah, Leavitt told water managers and the media at the Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District Offices in West Jordan. "We have our work cut out for us."

The governor said he will meet with water officials Tuesday to consider which areas of the state need special drought declarations. He also said water districts should re-examine pricing structures to encourage saving supplies.

A spotty snowstorm Saturday created an odd setting for a discussion about drought, Leavitt admitted. But water managers said Saturday's storm and additional precipitation in the past week only postpones the need to water lawns for a week or so.

Leavitt helped kick off the latest installment of the "Slow the Flow" public conservation campaign. Besides urging Utahns not to water outside between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m., he wants them to reduce their total water usage by 10 to 15 percent.

That reduction would save about 60,000 acre-feet of water this year — enough to fill the Delta Center 155 times.

"There's a lot of margin for improvement," Leavitt said, pledging that the state's own employees will be trying to set a good example.

Leavitt faces a situation opposite of that encountered by former Gov. Norm Bangerter some 16 years ago, when years of heavy precipitation, runoff floods and rising lake levels prompted Bangerter to have pumps installed on the western shore of the Great Salt Lake to move the overflow into the western desert.

Leavitt has now established a special water conservation team. Ivan Flint, former manager of the Weber Basin Water Conservancy District, has been appointed special assistant to the governor.

"We can make this work," Leavitt said. "There's adequate water if we conserve."

Tage Flint, current manager of Weber Basin, the main water supplier for Weber, Davis, Morgan and Summit counties, said reservoir levels are down another 15 percent from last year's lows.

"It's the lowest these reservoirs have ever been" since they were constructed in the 1950s, he said. "Without conservation this year, we're looking at little carryover into next year."