Sandbags and water conservation are both needed in Utah right now

SALT LAKE CITY – While people prepare sandbags for all that runoff, Utah water officials are still calling for conservation this spring.

Scott Paxman with the Weber Water Conservancy District told KSL NewsRadio that the amount of water in the mountains right now shouldn’t lull Utahns into a false sense of water security.

The snow is still coming down strong here at the District headquarters south of the mouth of weber canyon and Highway 89. Our area is creating a new record for this time of year, but we are only .7″ of Snow water equivalent away from a 40-year high. Please be safe out there. pic.twitter.com/ZxqLXK8isR

— Weber Basin Water (@WeberBasinWater) March 27, 2023

“There’s plenty of water up in the mountains, Paxman told the hosts of KSL At Night, “but we’re also still suffering from the (results) of drought.”

And he said that conservation continues to be the focus despite all the water in the Utah mountains and residents stocking up on sandbags. 

While the Weber Water Conservancy District is asking residents to be mindful of what’s ahead, they are doing the same thing. Specifically, they’ve been releasing water from their reservoirs.

“We’ve been releasing water in some of our reservoirs since the middle of February because we’ve seen the forecast. And then it just kept snowing and kept snowing.”

Sandbags are available for Weber County residents, and for most counties across the Wasatch Front. 

Related reading: Great Salt Lake rising, but water conservation remains a must