MORGAN -- While county officials wait for the end of a water moratorium and the overdue publication of a water study, they are saying that municipalities should shoulder future responsibility for water infrastructure.
"As development continues to occur, one of the biggest issues is water infrastructure," County Council Administrator Garth Day said.
When the county council created a water advisory board in 2008, growth projections caused some to speculate water could run out in 10 years.
The State Division of Water Rights, the Utah Geological Survey and the Weber Basin Water Conservancy District commissioned a groundwater study of Morgan County in 2008, which was expected to be published in May 2010.
Council Chairman Sid Creager said water officials have been in contact with him, and the rough draft of that study is awaiting final approvals. A preliminary copy could be issued by the end of the month, he said.
Until the results of the study are published, a moratorium on transferring water shares initiated by the state Division of Water Rights in May 2008 will remain in effect.
In the meantime, the county water advisory board has been studying water issues in areas that are seeing the heaviest residential growth: Mountain Green, Peterson and Enterprise. The assignment has been an overwhelming one with few people interested in serving on the board, said Randy Sessions, member of the county water board.
"A lot of citizens in the area are all spun up, extremely concerned about water," Creager said. "It really should be the responsibility of the citizens of Mountain Green to create a municipal service district for themselves. If there is a prime time to move forward, I can't see a better time than now."
Until municipalities step up to accept such responsibility, county officials would like to see a countywide master plan for water systems created. The master plan can be "handed over" to municipalities at that time, Creager said.
"The county gets dragged into things if it wants to or not, simply because of timing," Creager said. "We've watched a lot of developers learn the hard way how (difficult) it is to find water."
The county would do well to put water ordinances in place "to protect the citizens," as well as learn how to validate water will-serves produced by developers before building.
Without such ordinances, developers have no incentives to make systems that would benefit others outside their own developments, Sessions said.
"It is short-sighted," he said.
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