Utah State Group Presentation
Background
- Current population
- Population growth
o Projects for future population/water imbalances
- General water policy
- Type of climate
- History of development
- Geography and water resources
- History of st George / green river pipeline
Why we chose this issue?
Issue
- Problem statement: too much investment in new infrastructure versus
investing in conservation and BMP
o St George pipeline
o Green river pipeline to CO front range
Solutions(s) -50% of content: your group’s suggestion of how to best address the
issue
- Conservation
- Wise / efficient use of local water supplies
- Water re-use
- Pricing strategies
https://utah.sierraclub.org/content/lake-powell-st-george-pipeline
- What is the Lake Powell-St. George Pipeline?
o Proposed by the Washington County Water Conservancy District
 Other interests in the project:
 St George City
 The Hildale & Colorado City communities
 Kaibab Band of Paiutes (at Moccasin)
 Kane County Water Conservancy District
 Kanab City
 State & Institutional Trust Lands Administration
o 139 mile pipeline from Lake Powell to St. George
o Pump about 86,000 Acre Feet from Lake Powell
o Cost estimates = 1.402.4 billion dollars
o “the ENTIRE repayment burden of this wasteful project will fall on the
taxpayers of Washington and Kane Counties”
- Why build the Lake Powell-St. George Pipeline?
- Why do we see this as an issue?
o Acquiring water from great distances is expensive and not sustainable
http://www.sgcity.org/wp/water/sgnew.php
- Proposed by Washington County Water Conservacny District
o Other interests in the project:
 St George City
 The Hildale & Colorado City communities
 Kaibab Band of Paiutes (at Moccasin)
 Kane County Water Conservancy District
 Kanab City
 State & Institutional Trust Lands Administration
- The State Board of Water Resources has set aside 73,000 acre-feet with a
comment that “… the Lake Powell Pipeline will probably be a state project”
- Pipeline would develop enough pressure to operate a hydropower turbine
generator at the Sand Hollow site and much of the pumping cost recovered
thru the sale of electricity
http://www.water.utah.gov/lakepowellpipeline/generalinformation/default.asp
- 139 miles buried of 69 inch pipe from Lake Powell to Sand Hollow Reservoir
near St. George
- Pumping facilities near Glen Canyon Dam with booster pumping stations
along the pipeline alignment to provide approximately 2,000 foot lift needed
to carry the water over the high point in the pipeline
- Hydroelectric generation facilities to utilize the 2,900 foot drop between the
high point and the end of the pipeline
- Power sales will be used to help offset pumping costs
- At full development Pipeline is expected to deliver
o up to 82,000 acre-feet (26.7 billion gallons) / year to Washington
County
o 4,000 acre feet (1.3 billion gallons) to Kane County Water
Conservancy District
- Water diverted into pipeline will be a portion of Utah’s Upper Colorado River
Compact allocation
- The State will build the project and the districts will repay the costs through
water sales
- Timeline
o 2020 Construction begins
o 2025 Water delivery begins
- The Division of Water Resources current cost estimate (June 2008) for the
entire project is 1.006 billion
o Construction
o Materials
o Engineering
o Land and right-of-way acquisition
o Agency fees
http://citizensfordixie.org/lake-powell-pipeline/
- Pipeline has cost $24.7 million dollars so far
- Initial costs were estimated at $250 million, now $2 million
- Depending on the diminishing Colorado River for future water supply is
unsustainable
- Solutions
o Conservation and reductions should be implemented across all
sectors
 Indoor and outdoor use
 Commercial
 Industrial
 Secondary
 Agriculture
 Institutional water use
 Higher priority on booting local water supplies, increased
conservation, pricing strategies, efficiency, and reuse that
could result in significant cost savings and provide enough
water for growth
- Washingotn County has some of the highest per capita use and the lowest
prices for the water in the west
http://citizensfordixie.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Colorado-River-WaterSupply-and-Demand-Study-Fact-Sheet.pdf
- “Based on preliminary assessments of the scenarios quantified to date, large
supply-demand imbalances (greater than 3.5 million acre-feet) are plausible
over the next 50 years, particularly when considering potential changes in
climate”
- “Given the historical variability of the Colorado River inflows and the
potential for increased variability in the future, there is a great uncertainty
associated with future water supply throughout the Basin over the next 50
years. That uncertainty, couple with the uncertainty in the future demand for
water Basin-wide, is being addressed using a scenario planning approach”
http://www.westernresourceadvocates.org/water/pdf/altlakepowellreport.pdf
- The Local Waters Alternative : Solutions to meeting future water demands of
Washington County, Utah without the development of the Lake Powell
Pipeline
- Data used to establish Washington County’s future water demand and
supplies – and justify the Lake Powell Pipeline – contains numerous errors
and assumptions that undermine its credibility
o Current rates of water use are estimates applied across the country,
instead of being derived from recently measured data
o The reported current water supplies and future estimates are
inconsistent within and across the Draft Study Reports
-
-
This study argues that Kane County already has sufficient water supplies to
meet its demands through 2060 without the pipeline
Look at revised population and water demand projections ( page 4 )
Local Waters Alternative Summary
o Future per-capita demand is modeled to decline by 1% per year
(every year per capita water use will decline by 1% based on each
previous year’s level of per capita water use, through 2060)
 Rate of conservation is achievable and goes a long way toward
closing the supply and demand gap, reducing total demands in
2060 by over 42,000 AFY
 Result in a total water demand of about 115,000 AFY in 2060
 With a system-wide water use rate of 176 gallons per
capita per day (gpcd)
 In contrast, the conservation plan proposed in Draft
Study Report 19 would result in a total demand of
158,000 AFY and a system-wide water use rate of 242
gpcd in 2060
o Draft Study Report 19 represents an average
annual conservation rate of .37% per year, using
the same methodology as the 1%
 With a 50 year timeframe, this represents a nearly 40%
reduction in per capita from 2010 levels
Passive Conservation
o The conservation naturally achieved due to the replacement of older
water-using devices, with newer, more efficient ones
Washington County reportedly had a system wide total water use rate of 292
gallons per capita per day in 2010
o Includes both culinary (potable) and secondary (non potable) water
across all sectors