MILLCREEK, Utah — In an effort to get more residents to conserve water, Millcreek city leaders are launching a game.
The city has agreed to participate in a pilot project with WetX, a tech company focused on water management. They've designed "Water Heroes," a platform that tracks water usage at homes. It's like a video game in its design — with incentives and prizes to use less water.
"We use game design principles to build out an experience that makes water conservation fun for anybody," said Justin Whittaker, WetX's senior vice-president for product development.
Funded with a grant from the Governor's Office of Economic Opportunity, WetX created Water Heroes as a way to get residents more on board with recognizing how much water they use and find ways to conserve.
"We can track their current water usage versus historical water usage," Whittaker said. "As the user saves water in the current year, they earn points that they can redeem for chances to win prizes."
Those prizes include things like gift certificates to Millcreek-area businesses, said assistant city manager Francis Xavier Lilly. The Millcreek City Council approved participating in the pilot project last week.
"It’s really an experiment. It might work, it might not. I think it’s worth a shot," said Lilly.
Water Heroes will launch in the next month or so. Millcreek will soon be looking for residents willing to sign up.
"One of the things we might like to do is find a group of people in one neighborhood to see if it actually makes a difference," Lilly told FOX 13 News.
It's another effort to encourage Utahns to conserve as the state deals with ongoing drought, growth and the shrinking Great Salt Lake. When reservoirs faced crisis levels and the Great Salt Lake dropped to its lowest point in recorded history, Utahns responded and cut water usage, letting lush lawns go brown and even reducing shower times.
But with a pair of back-to-back record-breaking winters, some local water districts have seen people slip. Last month, the Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District noted daily water use increased 9% over the year before. The agency continues to urge conservation to keep reservoirs full and help the lake.
Whittaker hopes WetX's program could help Utahns realize in a visual way that what they save can make a difference. Beyond Millcreek, he is seeking to expand it across the area.
"Water Heroes was funded in part to help conserve water that can stay in and go to the Great Salt Lake to preserve the Great Salt Lake," he said. "So we’re specially targeting partner cities in the Great Salt Lake drainage area."
This article is published through the Great Salt Lake Collaborative, a solutions journalism initiative that partners news, education and media organizations to help inform people about the plight of the Great Salt Lake—and what can be done to make a difference before it is too late. Read all of our stories at greatsaltlakenews.org.
