Express graphic by Erik Elison City of Ketchum annual water use is represented in the top graph in millions of gallons. The number of water system hook-ups is represented in the bottom graph. The number of new hook-ups each year is at the top of each year’s column. The two graphs in tandem show that despite the continued addition of new hook-ups, water production leveled off in 2001 when the city implemented mandatory night-time watering and emergency odd-even watering restrictions.
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Water in the American West flows uphill toward money.
It's an assertion made in Marc Reisner's seminal work on Western water, "Cadillac Desert," and figures from the Wood River Valley's municipalities confirm that it is at least in part true.
The leading single-family water users in Ketchum during a four-month period in 2006 and 2007 were Thereza Heinz Kerry and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. The couple owns a home north of town. The leading users in Sun Valley during a four-month period in 2007 were George and Julia Argyros. George Argyros, a Southern California real estate magnate, ranked 562 on Forbes' 2006 list of the world's wealthiest people.
Confronted with the Ketchum home's water use for a particular time period, an aide to the Heinz-Kerry family told the Mountain Express, "to reduce water usage on the property, a new, state-of-the-art system has been installed to save significantly on water usage."
Pat McMahon, manager of the Sun Valley Water and Sewer District, didn't disagree that some of the heaviest per-capita water use in Blaine County's cities occurs in his district, which serves the city of Sun Valley, one of the wealthiest areas in a wealthy region.
McMahon referenced a report compiled by the water district to submit to the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality. The draft report, which he declined to release for public consumption, is being authored in order to provide the state with information about supplying water for Sun Valley Co.'s new White Cloud Subdivision, part of its golf course expansion.
"It will reveal that we're really big water hogs," he said. "We're way off the scale."
In the upper Big Wood River Valley the average household uses between 400 and 600 gallons a day, compared with the national average of between 160 and 180 gallons per day, but it's something about which the valley's water managers are aware and a tide they're working to turn.
"Both human and non-human demands are placed upon moisture the moment it enters the watershed," wrote Wood River Valley hydrologist Lee Brown in a recent analysis of the Big Wood River system. "Ultimately, these demands will consume about three-quarters of annual precipitation while the remaining quarter will pass through the system."
Figures obtained from the Wood River Valley's water managers over the past two months indicate several predictable trends. Condo associations use more water in general than single-family homes. Water use in the north Wood River Valley is higher than in the south valley. Graduated rate scales that make water more expensive the more it's used definitely encourage conservation. And odd-even watering restrictions are an effective means toward reducing water consumption.
In the past 10 to 20 years the Wood River Valley's municipalities have gradually been converting household water distribution to metered systems, which can facilitate graduated rate scales. In unincorporated portions of Blaine County, water is distributed through irrigation systems and wells, which are not comparable and are more difficult to quantify.
"We have a rate structure that the more water you use the more expensive it is," said Ketchum's interim City Administrator Jim Jaquet. "The people who use a lot of water—they pay for it. It is a system that encourages conservation of water."
Hailey and Ketchum use meters to institute such rate structures, but Sun Valley does not. There, irrigation water costs 90 cents per 1,000 gallons, and only irrigation water is metered.
"Water rates (here) don't encourage conservation," McMahon said, and that is something he hopes to take to the Sun Valley Water and Sewer District's five-member board of directors sometime in the coming year. "The more you can reduce use the less facilities you need and the less cost to the ratepayers," he said.
Bellevue is working to install meters as the city's budget allows, said George Tanner, the city's water manager.
In 1992 Ketchum became the first city in Idaho to institute an "increasing block rate structure," which penalizes higher water users with higher rates. Further, in 2001 Ketchum became the first Wood River Valley city to institute watering restrictions during the day said utilities manager Steve Hansen.
"We were the first city in the valley to basically institute no watering between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. daily," he said. "We also have an odd-even ordinance that is based on a triggering mechanism that is based on the amount of water that remains in fire storage in our reservoirs."
When the reservoirs drop below 20 feet for seven consecutive days, residents are required to begin watering on alternating days.
"Since instituting those regulations in 2001 our summer water flows have leveled off," Hansen said. "Since then I've only had one year that was higher in production than others, and it was only slightly more, by about 100,000 gallons. Our odd-even policy and our drought policy we feel are very effective."
Hansen, too, admitted that some of the city's largest water users include some of the city's largest homes, particularly those in the Northwood and Big Wood subdivisions, where there are a number of homes that use about a million gallons in a typical irrigation season.
"July 2007 was definitely our highest month of water production," he said. "Before that you'd have to go back to 2003."
During July 2007 Ketchum pumped 181 million gallons of water. Prior to that the record was July 2003 when the city pumped 185 million gallons. The city's 12-month average is about 94 million gallons, with figures hovering near 50 million gallons in the winter and between 160 million and 180 million in the winter.
"Looking at these numbers, I've always felt that basically about 50 percent of our total production over a year is estimated to be for irrigation, even if we're only irrigating for four or five months," Hansen said.
But the fact is that new water hook-ups have continued to grow in Ketchum while water production has leveled off, and even dipped.
"That tells us the message is getting out in Ketchum," Hansen said.
Other arid states in the West are ahead of the curve in instituting water conservation measures, Hansen said. States like Colorado, Arizona and California, where surging populations bumped up against this finite resource 10 to 20 years sooner than here, have long been pioneering ways to wean people from their water dependence.
"They've been on this water conserving mode since long before Idaho," Hansen said. "We are a semi-arid, high desert area. Grass—blue grass—is not natural here."
He and other valley water managers recommended planting a minimal amount of grass to reduce the need for irrigation. Also, technological advancements in irrigation systems have made it possible to minimize demand for water.
"We all just need to be smarter as we use these natural resources," he said.
Hailey, too, has been active in instituting measures to conserve water, including a graduated rate pay scale instituted in 2006 and permanent odd-even watering restrictions enacted this past spring.
Water use decreased from 6,000 to 7,000 gallons per household per month in the winter of 2007, to 4,000 to 5,000 gallons per month during the winter of 2008. During the winter months the city gets nearly 100 percent of its water supply from a spring at the eastern end of Indian Creek Ranches subdivision, east of Hailey.
"There seems to have been an effect during the winter months," Hellen said. "Now we hope to see a reduction during the summer months."
During the summer, Hailey pumps water from four wells within the city limits in order to meet increased water demand.
Water pumped from Hailey's wells during summer is directed toward the city water tank installed above Quigley Canyon last year. How much water gets to the tank depends on how much is siphoned off along the way by household use.
"If we can't supply enough water and people keep sucking it out, more and more there won't be enough pressure to run the system," said Tom Hellen, the city's public works director and city engineer.
In August 2005 Hailey pumped 8 million gallons per day to meet demand. In the winter that figure was close to 2.5 million gallons per day. It goes to gardens, lawns and car washing.
"The water use really is almost all irrigation in the summertime, and that's 80 to 90 percent of it."
Hailey has been tracking 40 properties for the past year to gauge how its water policies are influencing water consumption. From last year to this year household use dropped by an average of 1,000 to 2,000 gallons.
Most watering in Hailey occurs during two peaks, the first between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. and the second between 4:30 p.m. and 7 p.m.
"Those are the periods when we really see the problems," he said.
The penalty in Hailey for breaking the odd-even water restriction is a warning followed by a certified letter followed by turning off a home's water. It's a $75 feet for water to be turned back on.
"If all else fails it is a citation we can issue with up to a $300 fine," he said. "I don't believe we've ever gone to that step, but it's out there."
Helen also pointed out that there have been improvements in irrigation systems and spray heads.
"They're way more efficient than they were," he said. "If you have something over 10 years old it's probably a very inefficient system by now. There's been a lot of improvement in the irrigation systems."
Helen grew up in Milwaukee where he said there was plenty of water to go around and was surprised upon moving to Hailey where water cost $13 per month, and people were able to use as much as they wanted.
The city's metered rates went into effect in October 2006, and that has also helped reduce use.
Bellevue, too, relies on odd-even watering restrictions, but the city is still working to install meters as its budget allows. Tanner said the city pumps and average of 391,716 gallons in the winter per day, and an average of 1.32 million gallons per day in the summer.
"We don't have very many meters right now," Tanner said. "As soon as the budget frees up, or as soon as we get a grant or something, we're going to try to meter the entire system."
In Ketchum, Hansen pointed out that the city is working proactively with its largest water user, the Weyyakin Homeowners Association, which drew 18.261 million gallons in September 2007.
He said the city is brokering a deal to trade Weyyakin treated sewer water for an 1883 water right.
"We're looking at reused water as one of the alternatives for production in Ketchum," he said. "We do have conservation measures. We're looking at our highest water user, which is Weyyakin, and highest by a long shot, and we're going to develop some answers to that account, and the answer is the reused water.
"It's not the total answer, but it's certainly part of the answer."
Sun Valley municipal water use
Top single-family water users (condo associations omitted)
Four months, from May 1, 2007, through Aug. 31, 2007.
· George and Julia Argyros: 2.076 million gallons
· Peter Stott: 1.969 million gallons
· Parker Gulch Holdings: 1.924 million gallons
Ketchum municipal water use
Top single-family water users (condo associations omitted)
Four-month total: December 2006, March 2007, June 2007 and September 2007.
· Heinz family: 4.489 million gallons
· Ali Fayed: 3.284 million gallons
· James Baldwin: 2.271 million gallons
Hailey municipal water use
Top single-family water users (condo associations omitted)
One-month total: August 2007
· 3971 Woodside: 1,024 gallons
· 870 Maple Leaf: 922 gallons
· Holly Merrill: 527 gallons
