Jordan Valley outlines treatment-plant expansion, new 1.35-acre-foot-per-acre water budget and drought precautions

Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District presenters told the Draper City Council about a string of capital projects and a new water-budget policy aimed at managing scarce supplies amid a deepening drought.

John Richardson, identified himself as a representative and introduced Chazelle Terry, who the meeting identified as Jordan Valley’s chief operating officer. Terry described two immediate vault-replacement projects on 114th South and at State Street that will require brief shutdowns, and a longer design to relocate a hazardous in-street vault. She also summarized a planned expansion of the Jordan Valley Water Treatment Plant, saying the utility intends in phase one to add roughly 35–40 million gallons per day to treat roughly 16,000 acre-feet of water tied to the Strawberry/Symphony delivery project.

The district also presented a service-area water-budget policy setting 1.35 acre-feet of water per acre for future development. “We came up with what we are calling a water budget for the rest of our service area, which is 1.35 acre-feet of water per acre of land,” Terry said, describing requirements the district plans to apply to significant developments and mechanisms for smaller projects. Under the policy, major developments greater than 50 acres would need to meet the budgeted amount or provide additional water or a fee-in-lieu. For smaller projects the district is considering a three-part decision tree: direct development agreements, piggybacking on member-agency development agreements, or giving member agencies an allocation and asking them to withhold occupancy permits until requirements are met.

Terry warned council members that the region is facing low reservoirs and reduced runoff. “We are in record drought… expected runoff this year is expected to be somewhere between 40–50% of normal,” she said, and outlined a drought-monitoring committee that will evaluate allocations (Central Utah Project, reservoir and groundwater supplies) and recommend conservation levels to the district board.

The district emphasized coordination with member agencies on operations and messaging — including asking jurisdictions to prepare drought-response plans tied to defined reduction levels — and said it is continuing work on feasibility, design and scheduling for the listed capital projects. The board will next consider implementation details and formal adoption of procedures for handling developments that do not meet the new budget standard.

What’s next: Jordan Valley said it will continue coordinating schedules for construction to minimize outages, refine the water-budget implementation approach with member agencies and bring more detailed proposals to its board for approval.