By Lara Gale

Anyone wishing to connect to Hyrum's irrigation system will have to wait until a recently placed moratorium is lifted after improvements are made that will allow more connections.

According to Brent Jensen, city administrator, Coward and Associates, a Provo-based consulting firm, was hired to assess the condition and needs for the irrigation system and presented its findings to the council on Feb. 17. The irrigation system has reached its capacity, not because of pipe size or water availability, but because of a need for more pipes to connect existing pipes to the pump houses and reservoirs, the consultants found.

Several new pipelines will need to be installed before the moratorium can be lifted, Jensen said. Without imposing a watering schedule, adding connections to the system as it is now would cause a drop in water pressure, which could result in crops being under-watered, said Jensen.

With the improvements drawn up by Coward and Associates, there will be room for about 1,000 new connections with no need for a water schedule. Imposing a moratorium is the fairest way to deal with the problem, said Jensen, because people who are connected to the system now have paid for their connection and expect to receive certain benefits, including steady water pressure and not being restricted to a certain watering schedule.

He said it isn't known what effect the moratorium will have on development in Hyrum, but he doesn't think it will make much of a difference. The culinary water system has no problems, and anyone needing water while the moratorium is in place can use culinary water in place of irrigation water until the moratorium is lifted, he said.

Culinary water can actually be less expensive than irrigation water for people in homes on small lots, he said. Depending on acreage, it would cost less for homes without extensive property to use culinary water for lawn and garden care than to pay the flat monthly rate for a connection to irrigation water.

The moratorium is scheduled to be lifted July 1, but it will be extended until the improvements are completed, said Jensen. Traffic shouldn't be impeded by work on the pipes, he said. An exact cost for the improvements is not yet known, but estimates are high, he said.

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