Spring is here and so is pressurized irrigation.
Heber-area water managers began final preparations of pump stations this week to send water to residents and farms.
While they don’t have an exact schedule for who will get water when, people in Heber City and Midway are expected to have access beginning Wednesday through Friday, according to Heber City Public Works and Midway Irrigation Company managers.
The Central Utah Water Conservancy District supplies irrigation water to Heber City and some surrounding areas. Unlike culinary water, which flows in homes year-round, the company usually makes pressurized irrigation available between mid-April and mid-May.
Operations and maintenance engineer Chris York said the long and snowy winter made it a challenge to meet that timeline this spring.
“Basically, something we do over a month or two, it's kind of been condensed into two to three weeks,” York said. “We had about a two-week window where we had a bunch of stormwater in the canals that was kind of taking up our time, and so it's an interesting swing for us in trying to get water out of the canals, and now we're trying to get back in there.”
Public works offices also ask residents to make sure the valves inside their irrigation boxes are closed now that water is set to flow again. That helps to prevent wasteful runoff and flooding. Then residents can reopen them when they want to use the water.
“Most people have a green box located kind of between the curb and the sidewalk, and so you can look for a brass quarter-turn valve, and you should be able to kind of turn that if not by hand, with either a key or a wrench will get the job done,” York said.
He also encouraged anyone who has questions to reach out to city and public works offices or irrigation companies.
Water in Charleston comes from a different provider, which has already begun delivering to customers there.
This year people inside city limits won’t be allowed to water lawns during the hottest hours of the day. In January, the Heber City Council passed an ordinance that bans residential pressurized irrigation between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. Councilmembers supported the move unanimously as a way to conserve water.