Consequently, the City Council is doubling its request for water from the proposed Lake Powell pipeline. Instead of 20,000 acre-feet, Cedar City wants 40,000.

The city of 25,000 - with a projected population of 51,000 by 2030 - also may require developers to funnel their own water to their projects.

"It's time to acquire more water," City Engineer Kit Wareham told city officials recently.

That means tapping more water from Lake Powell, advised Scott Wilson, executive director of the Central Iron County Water Conservancy District.

"What's before us is a historic opportunity that will never be presented again," he said. "It's now or never. We need to make a decision."

Wilson said the price tag for bringing the water to Cedar City would be $125 million and would include increasing the proposed 60-inch diameter pipeline - from Lake Powell to Washington County's Sand Hollow Reservoir - to 66 inches. From there, water would be pumped through a 30-inch diameter line to Cedar City.

Wilson suggested hiking impact fees and boosting water rates by about $100 a year on a $100,000 property to help pay for the project.

"If we start now, we should be able to have growth and development shoulder some of the cost," he said.

Wilson warned that past estimates of the Cedar Valley aquifer - which supplies much of the city's water - were too generous and that users are draining more of the aquifer than is being replenished. And much of the water from surrounding basins - such as Beaver County or Escalante Valley - already is claimed.

"St. George is blessed with reservoir capacity," Wilson said. Cedar City is "blessed with Coal Creek, which has a high sediment load, meaning any reservoir would quickly fill with sediment."

Although an acre-foot of water in Cedar Valley goes for about $1,750, Cedar City Mayor Gerald Sherratt said, the price in New Harmony, just over the county line, jumps to $30,000.

"Only rich people will be able to afford to move here if water goes that high," Sherratt said. "If students at [Southern Utah University] want to stay and live here, they are not going to be able to find affordable housing."

Wareham, the city engineer, said Cedar City has 45,000 acre-feet of water available annually - 33,000 from the aquifer and 12,000 from surface water, including Coal Creek. Doubling water from the Powell pipeline would lift that total to 85,000 acre-feet.