Months of rationing both culinary and irrigation water, a greatly diminished production of hay and grain and hydroelectric plants generating at less than half of rated capacity tell the story of the 1988-89 water year in the Sanpete Valley.

And so do the precipitation totals for the water year that ended at midnight on Sept. 30.At the Meadows course near the summit of Ephraim Canyon, Gary Jorgenson, who measures precipitation for the Great Basin Experimental Station, recorded 30.51 inches for the water year. That's only 85 percent of normal.

And at the Headquarters Station, 10 miles above Ephraim, he measured 26.73 inches - 87 percent of the long-time average.

"Those figures account for a short high-water period and the small midsummer runoff," Jorgenson says. They also represent, he said, much less than average water in storage.

Cooperative weather observer Lee J. Anderson totaled 11.76 inches of moisture for the 1988-89 water year in Manti. That's more than an inch under the 80-year average.

"Two months did it," Anderson says. "February, usually one of the wettest months of the year, delivered only .61 inch. And June was even stingier, with .51 inch."

In fact, water year 1988-89 is the third consecutive year of average or below-average precipitation, Anderson points out: 1986-87, 88 percent of average; 87-88, average; 88-89, 91 percent of average.

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