When driving through Cedar City, locals and visitors are met with lush, green grass, new construction and a desire to maintain business as usual during a megadrought. The community is draining its own water supply but doesn’t want to change its behavior. To offset this self-created problem, the Central Iron County Water Conservancy District, also known as CICWCD, is attempting to build a massive water pipeline that will suck water from Pine and Wah Wah Valleys –– and illegally take water away from Places Like Great Basin National Park and Fish Springs National Wildlife Refuge. Not only is this option unsustainable for wildlife, dangerous for ecosystems and harmful to the region’s rural communities –– it is also the most expensive option available.
According to a 2020 report commissioned by CICWCD, the price tag of this water grab will require enormous rate increases for residents of Iron County. As seen here, the most expensive options are the bars in blue representing this project.
To keep your rates low and help stop this project, you can submit a comment of the pipeline’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement, or DEIS for short. The DEIS comment period is only open until February 22, 2022, so you must act now! Learn more about how to comment on our website in the coming days.
