How your business can help the drought: The Salt Lake Chamber is calling on local businesses to help save water.

• Author: Miller, Derek

THE HEATWAVE AND DROUGHT should be on everyone's mind. Water reserves are shrinking, rain isn't falling, and wildfires are beginning to rage. Utah has been dubbed the thirstiest state in the union due to secondary water usage for lawns, gardens, and landscaping. Utah gets roughly 5-12 inches of rain per year, yes per year, leaving our snowpack or lack thereof to fill in the gap for our water needs. Add this to the fact that Utahns consume more water per gallon than almost any other state and things are looking grim.

Governor Cox has asked Utahns to pray for rain to alleviate the drought but more can be done by the business community to protect and conserve this precious natural resource. To that end, the State of Utah and Salt Lake Chamber are asking businesses to take the Water Champions H20ath to be water-wise. This pledge provides business leaders action items to follow right away, and acts as a guiding light for Utahns' water conservation.

By taking the Water Champions H20ath, businesses pledge to:

* Use the Utah Division of Water Resources as a resource to implement water-efficient methods, technologies, and practices

* Adopt the conservewater.utah.gov Weekly Lawn Watering Guide and limit watering landscapes between 10:00 am and 6:00 pm, which supports Governor Spencer J. Cox's executive order to state facilities

* Audit and repair all landscape irrigation systems so they are operating at maximum acceptable efficiency

* Implement leak-detection and repair programs for both indoor and outdoor water use

* Shut off systems manually during rain and wind events in areas without rain and wind sensors

* Evaluate opportunities to:

** Fix irrigation inefficiencies and update irrigation technology with devices that are WaterSense certified and include rain and wind shutoff functions and soil moisture sensors

** Limit turf areas surrounding facilities and replace turf with water-wise plants

** Conduct periodic checks of restrooms, boiler rooms, etc., to ensure appliances are working at maximum efficiency, and replace inefficient plumbing...