HOLDEN, Utah — A small farm town in Millard County, which has a population of fewer than 500 people, has to come up with as much as $8 million in order to upgrade its culinary water system.
The problem isn’t about water quality…it’s about water quantity.
Holden, Utah sits along I-15 in central Utah and about 400 people call it home.
Continued drought conditions have created a drop in the town's spring water availability by about 40 percent.
Holden Mayor Darren Fox explained how drought issues are not a surprise for the town.
"So we've seen this, this drop over time, and we knew that we're getting down to the point where, you know, we were going to be in trouble," Mayor Fox explained. "So it was not, it was not a surprise."
Springs aren't dry yet, but they've had to put conservation measures in place.
"We've, you know, had to curtail water usage during the summers," Fox explained, "And, you know, taking turns one side of the town water one day, and the other side of the town water, the next that kind of stuff, just, you know, water schedules."
The biggest issue now is coming up with the cash to fund such a massive project for a small town.
The US Department of Rural Development giving a million-dollar grant for drilling wells for new water sources. Along with other grants, loans and local funding, unless current inflated costs come down but still, Holden needs to come up with as much as 8 million dollars.
"Cost is always a concern," Fox explained. "We have a lot of retired people, people on fixed incomes. And so when it comes to raising water rates, it's a concern for the council. It's a concern for myself."
Fox doesn't know the rate increase to customers yet, as it depends on the final cost to build a storage tank and drill wells. It could rise by another 38 dollars per month to cap at 64 dollars.
It will likely be another year and a half before the the upgrade can begin.
