Agricultural Conservation

Cedar Valley has a great heritage and culture of agriculture, and agriculture is of great economic value to the Cedar Valley community as well.

However, as the largest water user in the valley (according to numbers from the Utah Division of Water Rights), there must be a large focus on water efficiency and conservation in agriculture. Because of this, CICWCD has put many efforts on helping farmers save water and become more efficient.

In 2018, the CICWCD & the E&I Conservation District, along with the help of Evan Vickers and John Westwood, acquired $220,000 from the legislature to convert traditional center pivot nozzles to high efficiency LESA/LEPA nozzles. Approximately 1776 acres were converted to the high efficiency nozzles through this grant.

Traditional sprinkler and pivot systems are about 60-80% effective, but those that use LESA/LEPA attachments can achieve 95% efficiency. It is believed that using LESA/LEPA to convert to more efficient irrigation practices will save an estimated 20-30% of the agricultural water in our aquifer.

To date, more than 2,000 acres of center pivots have been converted with the help of the Utah Legislature and the E&I Conservation District.

The Quichapa Recharge Project includes a dike that separates high TDS water in the south end of Quichapa from the cleaner water in the northern end that is pumped to the lazy river and then over to agricultural fields in the area. Sending surface water from the project to agricultural fields allows farmers to idle their wells and reduce groundwater pumping.