4/13/2006 4:00:00 AM Council voted for the community
The Prescott City Council has approved two ordinances in an effort toward enacting a comprehensive water-conservation plan. One of those ordinances will halt the growing practice of installing water meters for irrigation of tracts of undeveloped land. Apparently some property owners have irrigation meters on their undeveloped Prescott properties for the sole purpose of watering the land.
The good news is they are hoping their pro-active efforts will stave off the drought conditions at least on their land, and ward off bark beetle attacks. (When drought conditions stress pine trees, they cannot fight off the beetles, which can and often do kill them.) The bad news is that those 19 properties use about 4.2 acre-feet of water per year. An acre-foot equals 325,851 gallons of water. That is a total of more than 1.36 million gallons.
Under the recommendations of the city's Water Conservation Committee, the new ordinance aims to curb the amount of water going to ward off the bark beetle infestation. So, on one side we have private property rights: do what you want with your property. On the other side are the concerns of a community and the use of one of its most vital assets: water we can't afford to be pouring so much water into so few private pieces of land when the city needs all of its residents to conserve water.
In the end, the ordinance will not affect the 19 meters that are already in place, but will prohibit installation of new meters for undeveloped land.
Good move. Community concerns, at least in part, win this water war.
