By Julie Johansen
Ferron City Mayor Adele Justice welcomed the citizens of Ferron to an emergency town hall meeting on Wednesday evening at the Ferron Elementary gymnasium. She began by stating the nature of the meeting and that the council felt it necessary to expedite the meeting due to the extreme water shortage situation facing all residents of Ferron.
Mayor Justice explained that they had delayed turning the secondary water on by a week or ten days to try to help the impending situation. She also stated that the council felt that if water schedules and restrictions are placed, more water is actually used.
The mayor continued, stating that the council’s priority is for gardens and fruit trees. The city has cut back water usage at the parks, cemetery and golf course, where they are just focusing on keeping the greens alive. She ended with, “We are all in this together and please be kind to your neighbor.”
Tracy Behling, President of the Ferron Irrigation and Canal Company, explained the change in allocations of water. When they met in April to project water usage, the prediction was nearly 18,000 acre feet. However, every week, it went down and it is now at 9,000 acre feet. Normal runoff on the Ferron Watershed is usually around 38,000 to 40,000 acre feet. According to Behling, this is the second lowest in 70 to 80 years and they are in uncharted territory right now.
The precipitation on the watershed is mainly soaking into the dry soil and not coming into the system as runoff. So far, 3,000 acre feet have made it to the reservoir and they are hoping for another 6,000 by the end of the runoff season.
Behling then explained that the Pacific Northwest is also facing a drought, so the hydro power plants are not able to produce the power they traditionally do. Therefore, PacifiCorp is running at maximum capacity to meet the electric grid needs. The Ferron Irrigation System has 20,600 shares and PacifiCorp owns over 7,000 of those and leases another 7,000, which they generally don’t use. But now, they need it. They also need a reserve for the fall and winter months. He explained that the situation is really not anyone’s fault but just a hand that Mother Nature has dealt, and they have to play it.
Gordon Bennett then spoke on how the water is monitored, delivered and calculated on a daily basis with computers installed in their trucks. He said that as of Wednesday, one-half of the secondary water for Ferron is gone and there is a critical shortage. He emphasized that if everyone works together, we can make it.
Councilman Troy Winter asked everyone to go and reevaluate the situation. Ferron is a city of about 1,600 people and everyone can be stewards of themselves. There is about 212 acre feet of water left for Ferron at this time.
Mayor Justice then asked Dennis Worwood, former council member and retired USU Extension agent, to speak to the crowd about how to best conserve water. He stated that the emphasis should be on trees and shrubs as lawns will go dormant and not die. He gave three water saving tips.1. Fix leaks, 2. Install water saving devices and 3. Better management.
During the meeting, a custodian from San Rafael Middle School announced that they have cut their watering in half. Following a few questions and positive comments by citizens in the audiences, a motion to adjourn was recognized and everyone seem to think that they could do it by working together.