From The Desert Valley Times – Article by David Bly
Too thick to drink, too thin to plow.
It’s an old joke about muddy rivers, but there’s some truth to it when it’s applied to the Virgin River.
The Virgin Valley Water District has rights to nearly 10,000 acre-feet of Virgin River water it’s not using. While that’s enough to supply drinking water to supply more than 24,000 residential units, treating the water to make it drinkable is extremely expensive. The murky river water even causes problems with landscape irrigation equipment.
Consulting engineers Forsgren and Associates were asked by the VVWD to chart a direction for assessing the district’s water supply as it relates to future growth and how secondary water (mainly water from the Virgin River) fits into those projections. The engineers presented preliminary findings to the district’s board of directors in a work session Thursday, recommending that the district focus on developing groundwater resources, rather than looking to surface water to meet drinking water requirements.
