With continued concern over Utah’s drought, Kamas City has started to implement water restrictions.
About a month ago, the Weber Basin Water Conservancy District had to reduce all of its irrigation contracts because of drought conditions in Utah. Kamas, which sources water from the district, was notified that this would affect the city.
Now, Kamas -along with the district - is working to reduce water usage by 20%. To do so, the city had to enforce their water conservation plan, which they set up in December 2019.
The plan separates conservation regulations in order of least to most restrictive. The first step was reducing watering on city property, the next was educating the community.
Kamas Mayor Matt McCormick said the city is now imposing the first mandatory conservation measure, which limits the time residents can water their lawns from 6 p.m. to 10 a.m.
"Watering your lawn between 10-6 is thought to be the least effective time just because of temperature," McCormick said. "If we don't water during that time and choose more efficient things, then the water will do more for keeping the lawns green or whatever."
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox set up similar restrictions earlier this week at state facilities. He encouraged local governments to implement comparable protocols on public landscaping.
Many municipalities throughout the state have culinary and secondary water supplies, which delineate how water is used, but McCormick said Kamas doesn’t have a secondary supply.
"So all of our water is culinary meaning water that people can use to water their lawns is the same water that we have coming out of our faucet," he said. "So it's really basically all a concern, making sure that there's enough water for basic needs of our residents."
If water conditions continue to worsen, the Kamas Public Works Director can restrict outdoor water use ranging from restricting culinary use for water features such as fountains and pools to prohibiting outside water use altogether.
Residents who don’t comply with the restricts are subject to infractions such as fines and water shut-offs.
