LEHI, Utah — For nine years, the Utah Rivers Council's RainHarvest program has offered residents the opportunity to conserve water in an affordable way.
Wednesday night, Utah County residents were able to pick up a rain collection barrel in Lehi.
"We're distributing 600 rain barrels to Utahns in the cities of Orem, Lehi and across Utah County."
Zach Frankel, the Executive Director with the Utah Rivers Council says what is wonderful about the partnership is that Orem and Lehi have lowered the price and subsidized the barrels for their residents. That means those residents had to pay $55 per barrel when they were made available for purchase back in March.
Volunteers spent Wednesday night loading up car after car with rain barrels.
"We have distributed 11,000 rain barrels to Utah over the last nine years," said Frankel. "Every time it rains enough to fill a 50-gallon barrel, we'll save about half a million gallons of water."
Frankel says a long-term investment in saving water is needed, especially if we are going to keep the Great Salt Lake at a high-water level.
"With outdoor water use being 75% of the water we use in our cities saving water outside our homes and businesses and government institutions, that's really the lowest hanging fruit for water conservation here, especially in northern Utah," said Frankel.
With a historic winter in the Beehive State, Frankel says the demand for rain barrels this year has dropped about 20%.
"Because I think they figure the urgency to save water might not be as high as it was a year ago or a year before then," said Frankel.
However, it's a demand Frankel expects to pick up.
"We would need four more winters like this to make a big difference with the Great Salt Lake, so, we still do need to conserve water," said Angie Parkin with the Lehi City Sustainability Committee.
Liz Woolf is one of the estimated 500 visitors who came to pick up a rain barrel Wednesday night.
"I'm leaving here with four," said Woolf.
Woolf tells FOX 13 News she bought rain barrels elsewhere last year.
"We were able to water our gardens almost exclusively using the water that was collected in the rain barrel," said Woolf.
After hearing about the RainHarvest program, Woolf says she feels it is a use of a good resource.
"It feels like it helps lessen the amount of effects on the community water because we use less water to water our gardens," said Woolf.
Frankel says 2,000 rain barrels will also be distributed to more than 1,400 Utahns on Saturday at the Murray Public Works building.
