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Show • Two acre- feet per acre per year for high elevation alpine meadow lands. • Three acre- feet per acre per year for high elevation valleys such as the Heber Valley and along the Sevier Drainage due to limits on irrigation practices. • Four acre- feet per acre per year for average valley areas such as those along the Wasatch Front ( with the exception of the Salt Lake Valley) • Five acre- feet per acre per year for the Salt Lake Valley and warm climates in the southern portion of Utah. • Six acre- feet per acre per year for hot areas with long growing seasons such as the St. George area. Duty allocations are subject to change during the adjudication process as increased knowledge of hydrology and soil/ water/ plant relationships is increased. Water Conservation Potential Similar to the M& I sector, metering or measurement of water use has very little to no impact on water conservation in the agricultural sector unless it is used as a measurement tool as part of programs, and/ or controls that encourage water conservation. Therefore, simply installing metering or measuring devices is not anticipated to result in any noticeable water conservation. Little information is available concerning the potential for water conservation resulting from metering or measuring agricultural water use and applying an applicable rate structure. The Lake Chelan Reclamation District in Central Washington State has a policy of metering all agricultural connections and charging for water use based on a graduated rate schedule. Water use data from this district indicates water use savings are approximately 20 percent, the same as can be expected from metering domestic connections. ( Stephen, Gulick, and Johnson, 1992). Because Utah is a semi- arid desert area and most agricultural water users already have short supplies of water, it is doubtful that water use would be reduced significantly if individual metering were implemented. Federal Water Measurement Efforts The Bureau of Reclamation currently is developing guidelines and proposing rules for water conservation in the agricultural sector that call for the measurement of water at the point of use. If implemented, the guidelines and rules may provide a good chance to observe the practicality and measure the success of implementing measurement of individual water users in the agricultural sector. Water Metering or Measurement of Secondary Water Systems Secondary water systems include pressurized systems that may provide less costly, lower quality water to communities for outdoor landscape watering. Status According to data in a 1985 report by Vaughn Hansen Associates ( VHA), there were about 39,000 secondary water connections in the Weber River Basin in 1985, which amounted to 97 percent of the 40,000 connections along the Wasatch Front area. The WBWCD currently serves about 11,000 secondary water connections and supplies water to many other secondary water systems through municipalities and other irrigation companies within the Weber River Basin. Based on population estimates provided by the state of Utah, the Weber Basin area has experienced a 19.8 percent growth rate over the past 10 years ( Governor's Office of Planning and Budget, September 1994, and Governor's Office 31 |