Top Water Reform Items:

1-Add water to the Land Ombudsman Office.

2-Ban gas/diesel/oil powered water craft and snowmobiles on all State waters and watershed. Restrict all water craft and snowmobiles to propane or natural gas powered engines.

3-Require all applications to be approved or denied within 12 months like Nevada.

4-Have cities and towns report what water they use & own. Improve the level of detail of questions on the “Utah Water Use Data Form” to include a complete & transparent water inventory of all water direct or indirect owned or claimed by the public water supplier including but not limited to water claims, decreed rights, water shares, water delivery contracts, leases, etc..  This information is available.  The State is simply not collecting meaningful data which would alleviate expensive determinations and re-adjudications.

5-Make is a policy that all “surplus” water sales under 10-8-14 by pubic water suppliers are only authorizable under temporary change applications–no permanent change applications for “surplus” water sales. This insures the state retains control of it water.

6-Increase the protest fee to from $15 to $25 making two categories of protestants: General Protestants with no standing to appeal a memo decision & Qualified Protestants with standing to appeal.  A qualified protestants must pay a $25 fee, provide a water inventory with proof of beneficial use for the past seven (7) years of the water to be used as the basis of the qualified protest. Under the Washington doctrine, an impair-able water rights is required for standing.  The parties able to appeal a memo decision with no impair-able water right need to be screened out of the application process before the appeal door.

7-Require meters for all wells in Utah with a nominal $10.00 reporting fee to cover operational costs. After 5 years, the state would have accomplished what general adjudications have not–real data for real decisions.

8-Equalize water duties within a drainage basin so equal soils, equal crops, and equal climate mean equal water duties in Utah by filing the needed pleadings with the Court.

When a city files an application to bank water, why doesn’t the Division of Water Rights require an complete inventory along with the application?  How can the State Engineer make a determination with any degree of certainty regarding application?

Salt Lake City is a good example which files numerous applications to bank water, yet has yet to produce any inventory.  How can a public utility with an 83 million dollars budget balanced to the penny not have a water inventory for the public to review posted on its website?  How do the voting public make an informed decision regarding water bond issues without an inventory? How can the Board of Water Resources make an informed decision on Applications for Financial Assistance without seeing a water inventory?  Is it a valid project, or a hippopotamus project?

The lack of detailed information that is available and not requested by State Water Officials is perplexing to the public.

If a city wants to bank the state’s water, why can’t the state ask for and see an inventory?  So much engineering and lawyering, but no inventories.

Utahwater.net challenges the Division of water department request water inventories and to post these water inventories  on its website in a transparent manner.

If the level of reporting detail were improved on the “Utah Water Use Data Form” to show how much water is sold inside and outside a city, transparency would improve, and management of water resources would improve with greater efficiency and the need for adjudication or re-adjudications as the case may be would be reduced.

Cities will be the largest water right holders over time if not presently.  A “Utah Water Use Data Form”  with better questions would alleviate some or all need to adjudicate or re-adjudicate critical water areas within the state.

Cities must inventory their water assets for audit purposes, why couldn’t the Division of Water Rights have a “Water Ownership Data Section” within the current “Utah Water use Data Form” for cities which provided detailed ownerships of all water sources with reporting authority under 73-5-8 –shares, deeded rights, contracts, water district agreements etc.

Example:

“Salt Lake City provides drinking water to 400,000 people in Salt Lake City, unincorporated Salt Lake County, Holladay City, Cottonwood Heights City and Murray City east of 1300 east.” Source: “Public Utilities Purchases Donut Falls Watershed Property line 14  January 16, 2007

Utah State “2006 population figure 178,858”

“2006 Population 319,186″ reported to the Division of Water Rights under Water Use Data sub-page Salt Lake City Corp. Culinary Water

On or about June 19, 2007 Salt Lake City claims it barely has enough water thru 2050.

On December 10, 2007 Salt Lake City claims it may need another 180,000 acre-feet thru 2050.

Salt Lake City claims it pumps an average of 15% of its water from wells while reporting it pumps an average of approximately 6% to the State Engineer.

It is difficult for the public to reconcile the numbers of 400,000, 319,186, and with a population figure of 178,858, 15% and 6% figures as well as determine how much water is sold inside city limits and outside city limits for any given city.  These figures would be very useful to the public.

In 2009, a new State Engineer, Kent Jones was selected by Governor Huntsman. There were 16 applicants which were narrowed down to 10 qualified applicants who were interviewed on December 7th.  The interview committee was the following:

• Dallin Jensen Water Attorney
• Leland Hogan President Utah Farm Bureau
• Gene Shawcroft Deputy Director CUP
• Pat Painter Car Dealer/Developer State Representative
• Kerry Gibson State Representative
• Bob Morgan Retired State Engineer

Hopefully, Kent Jones will have fun at new post.  The slight pay increase is hardly worth the added responsibility, so  one must conclude the motivation is for fun and the good one can do.