City Councilman Stephen Dickson proposed Tuesday to allocate city impact fees towards funding a pressurized irrigation system to reduce start-up fees for individual residents and to reduce monthly costs.
Dickson said with the impact fees and with $500,000 of retained earning from past years, the council could reduce the originally proposed fee of $615 to $200. He wants to target monthly costs to between $9 and $10.
The work session with limited public announcement was meant to give the council more of an opportunity to discuss the more technical specifics with the city engineer, Kent Wilkerson.
Wilkerson proposed to the city that they put in a pressurized irrigation system to alleviate the culinary system, which is exceeding allotted shares during peak use in the summer months. The system would also provide for the needs of the community for a projected 25 to 30 years.
Wilkerson recommends that the city bypass their unused water rights in exchange for the state allowing them to use a secondary water well located at the park as a source.
“The advantage of this is that (the city) is able to use the current shares that they have,” Wilkerson said, “and it adds to the value of the shares.”
The city turned down a proposal by Weber Basin Ditch Company to either allow the city to put more water in the ditch to allow them to pump water directly out of the ditch at will or to divert turns into a lower reservoir and then pump to a higher reservoir. Wilkerson said the proposals would require a filtration system because the ditch water would contain more sediment and foliage that water from the secondary well in the park.
Dickson said three areas in town already contain the groundwork for a pressurized irrigation system, and they would not be required to pay any installation fee if it was reduced to $200. This summer, Developer Gray Jensen is putting in a small reservoir for his Meadow Creek 1 subdivision because of an earlier agreement that the residents there could not use their culinary water outside.
Contractors for Deer Valley Drive and Mountain Shadow subdivisions voluntarily offered their residents the secondary pipes. Deer Valley Drive has pipes in the ground which would just require residents to install a sprinkler system on their property. The pressurized irrigation system at Mountain Shadow is currently under construction.
One down side of implementing a pressurized irrigation system, as opposed to just upgrading the culinary system, is that there would be a decrease in culinary water revenue for the city, at least for the first few years. Growth and new demands on the culinary system would slowly reduce the loss.
Arnold Smith, who works at the Morgan water waste plant, estimates a $45,000 loss in culinary revenue, but the city would save $2,500 to $3,000 from not having to pump as much culinary water. The city is also retiring a water loan this year, so the true loss would be around $20,000 to $15,000, he projected.
To make up for the difference, Dickson proposed that the city charge non-pressurized irrigation users more for overage on their culinary water.
“This would help to preserve our precious drinking water,” he said. “They (non-users) have the opportunity to use cheaper water on their lawns.”
Smith disagreed with the proposal, however.
“I don’t think we would have enough water loss to require that,” he said.
Wilkerson proposed that the city implement a pressurized secondary system upon demand, focusing specifically on areas with lower water pressure. Areas discussed included residents along a segment of Highway 66, residents along Island Drive, and the South Morgan Cemetery.
Dickson said that if the city can get rates down to a more reasonable cost, “I think people would jump on the bandwagon,” he said.
To pay for the principal cost of the installation, the city will consider taking out a loan through the state Department of Water Resources.
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