Division of Water Rights opens Sand Hollow groundwater-management planning after water‑user petition

The Utah Division of Water Rights said a petition from water users has started the formal process to consider a groundwater management plan for the Sand Hollow area, Division officials told attendees at a public meeting. The petition — filed by more than one‑third of water‑right owners in the basin, Division staff said — triggers steps under state code the agency cited as “73515 of the Utah code.”

Division officials said the plan, if adopted, would be a tool to distribute groundwater in an orderly way and could lead to limits on withdrawals where pumping exceeds the aquifer’s sustainable supply. "We had a group of water users come together and petition the state engineer to to create a groundwater management plan. And so that's what initiated this process," Assistant State Engineer Jim Reese said at the meeting.

The plan area under consideration is bounded roughly by the Virgin River on the north, the Hurricane fault on the east and the extent of Navajo and Kayenta geologic formations to the south and northwest, presenters said. The Sand Hollow reservoir and its managed‑aquifer recharge (spreading) operations lie at the center of the area under review.

Why it matters: A groundwater management plan can limit withdrawals by priority date — “first in time, first in right” — if pumping is judged to exceed the basin’s sustainable yield. Reese said the state engineer may adopt a plan on the agency’s own initiative or after a qualifying petition from…