Ground has been broken on a $30 million project to deliver culinary and irrigation water more efficiently in Wasatch County.
The project involves construction of 44 miles of pipelines and laterals extending from aging main canals that will be rehabilitated.The laterals will deliver pressurized water through pipelines from Timpanogos, Wasatch and Humbug canals to provide sprinkler irrigation above the Sagebrush and Spring Creek canals. Lower elevations will be served by gravity-flow systems.
Water conserved by the improved irrigation systems will be used to supplement flows in Rock Ditch, Spring Creek, lower Lake Creek, London Ditch and Creamery Ditch.
The project should result in an increase of 2,900 acre feet per year going into Strawberry Reservoir.
The decision on which streams will receive the newly available water will be made by the Utah Reclamation Mitigation and Conservation Commission in consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Utah Division of Wildlife Services.
General Manager Don Christiansen of the water conservancy district said Thursday that the district has a mandatory goal of conserving 50 percent of its water in seven years. "This project will help us meet this goal," he said.