Ammon Water Conservation Successes
Eastern Idaho Water Rights Coalition Members:
I received this exciting report from Micah Austin, city administrator for Ammon. In it he shows the excellent progress the city has made towards water conservation. I highlighted the key points of interest.
Congratulations to Tracy and the city of Ammon for all their hard work to conserve water. As even IDWR Director Spackman indicated in January, we have enough water, we just need to manage it better.
Keith
Mayor and City Councilmembers
With 2022 behind us, I updated my ongoing analysis of our water conservation statistics based on actual pumping data from our wells. Thanks to Nathan (cc’d) and Jim (cc’d) for providing me the pumping data from our wells and for all they do to keep our system running.
The results are exciting and show that our water meter program continues to meet and exceed our water conservation goals as predicted by the original water study. Our water metering program has resulted in significant water conservation, beyond what we had projected. Here are the highlights from 2022:
1. 2+ Billion Gallons Conserved. By the end of 2022, the City of Ammon had conserved and estimated 2,019,612,886 gallons of water, or 6,198 acre feet of water. This has far exceeded our expectations for the success of this program. I am confident that this reduction is due entirely to installation of water meters and charging a metered water rate.
2. Full Year’s Worth of Water Retained in Snake River Plain Aquifer. In an average year, our entire city of ~19,000 people consumes about 2 billion gallons. By the end of 2022, we had saved a full year’s worth of water. This water is retained in the aquifer and will benefit all users of our precious aquifer. In four short years, we have managed to save an entire year’s worth of consumption through the installation of water meters.
3. 2022 Best Year Yet for Conservation. Surprisingly, in 2022, our water conservation reached the highest level yet at 36.12% less than what we would have pumped without metered water! By comparison, in the first year of our program (2019), water usage dropped by 29.79%, meaning 2022 was our best year yet for water conservation. Our “worst” year so far for water conservation was 2021 when we conserved 23.81%.
A big thanks to Tracy and his team that have made these successes possible. I am very proud of our efforts, and I thank you all for your commitment to water metering and water conservation. I have done this analysis for four years now and I think I’ll repeat it next year for one last time to round out five years of water conservation.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Micah