St. George • Just turning on the faucet for the first time in a new home here in Utah’s corner of the Mojave Desert could cost more than $20,000 a generation from now.
That’s not a worst-case scenario. It’s the plan.
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Powell pipeline: Is it needed?
The Utah Legislature’s Water Issues Task Force has recommended the state set aside 15 percent of future growth in sales taxes for a water development fund that would finance a Lake Powell pipeline. Before voting, members viewed a graphic showing that even after meeting a 25 percent conservation goal by 2050, Utah would need to develop 330,000 acre-feet of municipal and industrial water to meet growth needs.
Trouble is, that projection was based on 2000 usage figures, which the state pegged at 295 gallons per person per day. But by 2005, per-capita use already had dropped to 260 gallons. Conservationists say the 25 percent goal by 2050 is too conservative and the projected shortage a scare tactic.
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Washington County charges about $5,800 in impact fees for each new residence to cover water development that quenches growing demand in this retirement haven. The fees rise about 5 percent a year in anticipation of a planned $1.2 billion Lake Powell pipeline that Utah lawmakers will be asked this session to finance with statewide sales taxes.
The impact fees are the primary device that the Washington County Water Conservancy District intends to use for repaying the proposed state loan, and the district expects them to exceed $20,000 by 2040 to cover the payments.
"New growth’s going to pay for new growth," said water district General Manager Ron Thompson, and he doesn’t see the gradual rise in tap fees as especially onerous, given a 50-year inflation average of 3.7 percent.
Washington County is the biggest, but not only, envisioned pipeline user, and Thompson figures its share of the project is $800 million in present dollars.
What if $20,000 doesn’t do the trick? If the county doesn’t resume and sustain its pre-recession growth trend, pipeline foes warn that home purchasers would be stuck with a much higher tab, and current residents would face steeper taxes and monthly water surcharges.
Although some lawmakers in recent task force hearings have dismissed the naysayers as anti-growth environmentalists, these anti-pipeline forces are not alone: Some Washington County real estate developers worry the costs would choke the quality of life.
Brooks Pace, a lifelong resident and developer, fears growing to a half-million people. That’s another Utah Valley, with the air pollution to match.
"We’re already big enough," he said. "Doubling it would really be big enough, and we have enough water to double it."
His friend Jim Dredge, a developer from Virgin, calls the pipeline a boondoggle.
"I always get in trouble with lots of people when I compare it to the pumps they put by the Great Salt Lake to use once," he said, referring to a 1980s flood-control project not needed in the low-water years since. "It’s vastly unnecessary."
"It’s not about growth," said Zach Frankel, executive director of the Utah Rivers Council. There’s enough local supply and conservation potential to soak up the growth that the pipeline’s 70,000 acre-foot payload would enable, he said. "It’s a bad idea to build projects that aren’t necessary."
Opponents argue better conservation in a place where most water is used outdoors would sustain growth for at least 50 years, and that no serious effort at conservation is possible until Washington County property taxes quit subsidizing low water rates. The Utah Taxpayers Association last month called for an end to such subsidies for water.
"It so flies in the face of the fiscal conservatism and the free-market advocacy that Utah espouses," said Christi Nuffer, director of the local smart-growth coalition Citizens for Dixie’s Future. Property taxes make up more than half the water district’s revenues — more than water bills — and that could drive away seniors. "They’re looking to subsidize waste on fixed incomes."
Change that, and cut consumption in half, and what’s to keep Washington County from doubling its population without a pipeline?
Thompson has heard it all before. For years he’s sought water for growth, and he said the conservation/true cost model isn’t real-world.
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