A month or so ago I received my South Ogden Conservation District (SOCD) letter after my meter for secondary water was installed. This is to somehow allocate water to me I already paid for back in November on my property tax notice of some $400+.

The letter “encourages” the Customer to set up an account thru a “WaterScope Portal” to view the usage and allotment of water during the season.

I’m in the boomer generation and by choice I have not become that proficient with or on a computer, cell phone, eye pad, smart phone, or laptop (or any of these other type devices).

I’ve never been able to do something only by trying to do it “online”. Last Friday I ended up calling my credit union because I could not, after numerous attempts, reorder personal checks on the computer.

I have no idea what a portal, or app, or cookies, or a dashboard is. In trying to open this account I had to agree, on the computer, to certain Terms and Conditions (T&C). When I would not agree to this (I didn’t click on that box), I could not continue to set up the account. In reading over the 6-8 computer screen pages of these T&C, I decided to call the SOCD.

The young lady I spoke with was courteous and polite but gave the Utah Way answer of “I don’t know” or “That’s not something we deal with” or “Its not our program or system, we hired Metron and the agreement is with them and you have to agree with them to monitor your water.”

The closest I got in those T&C that might refer to me as a ‘water user’ or ‘a water utility client’ or a property lot owner is the definition of “occupant” which is a resident or tenant of the property. The T&C, as many legal documents start out, read that this ‘agreement’ is between Metron Farnier (an LLC out of CO) and the ‘Utility’ (which I’ll assume is the SOCD, Pineview, WaterScope, or Weber Basin Conservation District. Nothing about me. Granted, I’m never the smartest person in a room but I do try to understand these new procedures but in my older years it’s getting more challenging.

With all this current news about data centers, AI, faster computers, quicker speed for electrons or whatever flows thru a fiber optic cable, it doesn’t appear to me to be making my life easier or better or more convenient. Why couldn’t the account be set up using, in my simplistic mind, my Weber County property tax notice account?

That’s where and how I’m charged for the water. Why do I have to set up another account, agree to T&C I clearly don’t understand its relationship to me, and have to come up with another password and website for something I have already paid for?

We are making things way more complicated than they have too be. In the 1980s I first heard that these “computers” and “consolidation” was going to save us so much time, that we would have more time for training, to spend more time on other items, to get the job done better, faster, get more proficient in our specialty, and with more accuracy. Its been 46 years and none of those things have happened yet.

It would be nice if we would get notices at the 97% or 98% usage instead of the 100% mark when SOCD then will shut off my water AND access me a $500 service fee to pay before the 2027 season to turn the water back on.

I guess I’m just going to have to monitor my secondary water through mail notices.

JH Thompson is a resident of Ogden.