Salt Lake City faces soaring water demand and officials urge conservation as summer nears
Watering our lawns is costing us.
'It is a little bit worrying that it was so early in the season,' Laura Briefer, Director of Salt Lake City Department of Public Utilities, said.
Water use across the Salt Lake City water system is up 5% from the last three years and outdoor watering is up 10%.
'Usually, we would see the type of water demand on this kind of system that we're seeing right now in the middle of July, and that's when it becomes a lot warmer and people are watering a lot more,' Briefer said.
Salt Lake's system serves nearly 400,000 people in the city and nearby areas like Millcreek, Holladay, and Cottonwood Heights.
Even though the snowpack was average this year, Briefer said, 'The runoff we have experienced from that snowpack is less than average so it's less efficient.'
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Traditional grass lawns aren't efficient either. They are part of the problem.
'It uses a high amount of water and most people in Utah overwater their lawn already, so we are using an excessive amount of water on our landscape,' Heidi King, Water Conservation Coordinator for the Department of Natural Resources said.
While some people rip out the grass and replace it with rock and stone, King said, 'It does increase the ambient temperatures in surrounding areas, and what happens is there's an increase in evaporation in our waterways as well as a higher evapotranspiration rate in the nearby plants, so those plants need more water to sustain themselves.'
Instead, King recommends a concept called 'local scaping.' It is an idea that originated in Utah, focusing on landscaping with native plants instead of turf.
'It's designed so that it looks sharp and clean. It's not used in excess space, instead, we use waterwise plants like what's behind me in place of all that extra grass, and it uses a lot less water up to 70% less water,' King said, gesturing to the plants behind her.
City officials don't discourage grass but urge you to use it only where it makes sense.
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