Water savings pledge

The lake needs the water we don't use .

Roughly 60% of Utah's residential water goes onto lawns. That's not a moral failing — it's a habit set by sprinkler timers nobody has touched since May. Pick what your household will actually do, and see what a year of it comes to.

What can your household save?

Pick what you'll actually do. The number is what those choices are worth over a year — for a household your size, using published figures from EPA WaterSense and Utah water agencies.

People in your household

What you'll commit to

Put the sprinklers on a smart controller — or follow Utah's weekly watering guide EPA WaterSense puts a labeled irrigation controller at about 7,600 gallons a year. Most systems are set once in May and never touched again.

Convert 500 sq ft of lawn or park strip to waterwise planting Turf on the Wasatch Front needs about 30 inches of irrigation a season. Waterwise planting needs roughly a quarter of that.

Fix sprinkler leaks and broken heads at spring start-up EPA puts an irrigation leak the width of a dime at 6,300 gallons a month. We count a single month of it, on the view that most get caught partway through the season.

Fix a running toilet and any dripping fixtures EPA puts household leaks near 10,000 gallons a year, with toilets the single largest share. A silently running flapper alone can cost 200 gallons a day.

Water only between 8pm and 10am Midday watering loses 20–30% to evaporation and wind before it reaches the roots. Same lawn, same health, less water.

Keep showers to five minutes The average shower runs eight minutes at about 2.1 gallons a minute. Three minutes back is 6.3 gallons a day, per person.

Run the washer and dishwasher only when full One avoided half-empty load a week, per person, at about 20 gallons for a high-efficiency washer.

Turn off the tap while brushing and shaving EPA says this is worth up to 8 gallons a day. We count 2 — a quarter of the claim, and still 730 gallons a year each.

0 gal

saved per year

No email, no name. We count the gallons, not the people — and you can come back and change it any time.

Where the numbers come from

Every figure is a published estimate, not a projection of our own. Indoor savings come from EPA WaterSense; outdoor figures are built from Utah State University Extension's seasonal turf-watering rates and the Utah Division of Water Resources' landscape conversion reporting.

Where a source gives a range or an "up to", we take the low end — the tap-off figure counts a quarter of what EPA claims, and the sprinkler-leak figure counts one month of a leak EPA measures monthly. The total is meant to be defensible, not impressive.

Some actions scale with the size of your household and some don't: a lawn is the same size whoever lives on it, while a shower is not. That's why the picker asks.

Saving water at home won't refill the lake by itself.

The lake needs a legal floor to be filled to — a number the state has to plan around. That part only the legislature can do, and it only does it under pressure.

Sign the petition