This proposal suggests a tax credit for Utah residents who convert their water-intensive lawns into water-wise landscapes. Utah faces increasing water demands from its growing population, but receives little annual precipitation. Most residents use over half their water outside on lawns. The tax credit would cover costs of installing water collection, graywater, or other conservation systems. This would incentivize individuals to reduce water use, helping ensure sufficient long-term water supply as the population doubles by 2050. Estimates show residents could save over 29,000 gallons and $350 annually through such conversions.

1. Ashley Hyde
Jessica Frogley
English 2010
10 December 2011
Proposal Paper
Proposal: Tax benefit for water conservation
Utah is one of the five fastest growing states in the nation, and it shares a border with the
four other fastest growing states. From 1990 to 2000, Utah’s population increased by more than
510,000 people to over 2.2 million. In 2011 Utah reached 2.9 million people. The population
will more than double to nearly 5 million by 2050. Within the Wasatch Front, the population is
1.7 million in a 80 mile radius. That is 40 miles to Ogden which is North Salt Lake Valley. To
40 miles south from Salt Lake to Provo. As Utah’s population increases, so will the demand for
Utah’s limited water resources. (Utah.gov)
If Utah’s residential and industrial water demands swell at the same rate as its population
growth, the state is headed for big trouble. To compound this mounting crisis, Utah is the second
driest state in the nation. Most of the state is classified as a “desert,” receiving less than 13
inches of annual precipitation. Since 1999, Utah suffered through a severe droughts. Utahans
also have the second highest water use rate in the nation. Utahans consume about 293 gallons
per person per day, over half of which is used to water lawns.
Utah is in a progression to an unsustainable situation. Where the water resources are
being used up faster than replenishment can accrue(Cooper). Think of some environmentally
unfriendly choices people make everyday. Spraying off a sidewalk instead of using a broom,

2. washing their cars by hose multiple times a week. The biggest one seen is people water their
lawns during the wrong part of the day. When the water will evaporate faster than it gets to the
lawn. This occurs when people do not having an efficient watering system, so that it sprays the
sidewalk and not the lawn. This is seen by people everyday in residential areas.
This proposal for a tax credit for people who take a social responsibility and transform
their lawns into a beautiful water wise Utah landscape. This tax benefit is an allowable
deduction on a tax return intended to reduce a taxpayer's burden while typically supporting
certain types of commercial activity (Merriam-Webster.com). This would be a incentive for
Utahans to transform their laws. A tax benefit allows some type of adjustment benefiting a
taxpayer's tax liability. The credit should cover the costs associated with installing a water wise
landscape or systems in the taxpayer’s residence located here in Utah.
A water conservation system is a system or series of components or mechanisms that are
designed to provide for the collection of rainwater or residential graywater. Graywater is
wastewater generated from domestic activities such as laundry, dishwashing, and bathing.
Graywater reclamation is the process by which households make use of gray water's potential
instead of simply piping it into overburdened sewage systems with all the black water that
contains fecal matter and urine. A water wise conservation system includes a system that is
capable of storing rainwater or residential gray water for future use and reusing the collected
water for the same residential property.
There will be some easy steps to start the water wise landscaping, but do not conceder
them disadvantages. The water wise tax credit for the people of Utah is not a difficult thing to
get started for their residential area. A project this big seems like it would not be an easy thing to

3. do, with the help of local professionals and specialist to help the project will pay off in many
ways. As well as getting the funds to pay for the entire cost up front. It is estimated that for each
1,000 square foot of landscape area converted from irrigated to non-irrigated the cost would be a
thousand dollars.
The benefits of implementing a tax credit for Utahan's will help invoke people to get
involved in water conservation in a more serious manner. Tax benefits provide an advantage to
the taxpayer while typically benefiting another entity. It will make it easier for people to help
water conservation on a day to day basis with out doing anything after the instillation. This will
allow more people to help save their environment.
Nothing can live without water, if Utahans can reduce per-capita consumption of water
25 percent by 2050, they will conserve the equivalent of over 500,000 acre-feet of water per
year. That is more water than can be held in Jordanelle Reservoir and Deer Creek Reservoir
combined, and more than any water project in Utah has developed.
Estimated annual water use and annual cost of water, sewage and landscape maintenance before
and after.
Before After Savings
Water Use 81,437 51,723 29,714
(gal)
Water Cost $200.00 $133.00 $67.00
Sewage Cost $141.00 $95.00 $46.00
Maintenance $660.00 $423.00 $237.00
Cost

4. Before After Savings
Overall Cost $100,100 $651.00 $350.00
Source: http://water.utah.gov/brochures
One acre-foot equals approximately 326,000 gallons, enough to fill a football field to a
depth of one foot or to supply the water needs of an family of five for a year. The average family
in Utah (3.2 pph) uses about two-thirds of an acre-foot. (utah.gov)
The benefit of improving water use efficiency is the lowering of demand and the ability to cost-
effectively stretch existing water supplies. Conservation can result in saving considerable capital
and operating costs for utilities and consumers. With the increased concern of climate change,
water wise conservation take on a particular importance.
For many people water wise desert landscaping brings to mind nightmarish visions of
huge cacti, red rocks and cattle sculls. When done right a water wise desert landscaping is
simply a set of principles that encourages other people to step in. When it comes to the execution
of landscaping water efficiency people in Utah really never come through. This has become a
real issue in Utah, for decades people have thought that water is an abundant source, with the last
few years in drought people have seen this to be wrong.
Benefits of water wise
• Lowers consumption of imported or ground water
• More water available for other domestic and community uses and the environment
• Less time and work needed for maintenance effort, with gardening simpler
• Less stressful, little or no lawn-mowing.

5. Water wise plants in appropriate planting design, and soil grading and mulching, takes
full advantage of rainfall retention. When water restrictions are implemented, by municipality or
water costs, water wise plants will tend to survive and thrive, while more ornamental plants may
be unable to adapt.
Increasing block rate structures most effectively communicate value and encourage
efficient use when compared to other types of rate structures. Through an increasing block rate
design, the unit price for water increases as the volume consumed increases, with prices being set
for each “block” of water use. People who use low or average volumes of water are charged a
modest unit price and rewarded for conservation; those using significantly higher volumes pay
higher unit prices. Utah communities use a wide variety of water rate structures, ranging from
efficiency-based designs to rate structures that promote little or no efficient water use.
Some have incorporated increasing block rate designs, but have set the block prices and volumes
in ways that do not effectively promote efficient water use. Although some Utah cities and towns
have made progress in developing and instituting efficiency-based rate structures, the results
from this analysis indicate that most still have much room for improvement.(Western Resource
Advocates)
Many people feel like their day to day choices do not have a great affect of the water
circus that Utah is facing. Leave the hose on it is their bill anyway, what is a few house of
running the sprinklers giving the millions of people who water everyday. These are the thoughts
which turn up in the heads of real people when they make everyday choices. The moral case for
the claim that various people in Utah ought to take strong action on water conservation is fairly
easy to see.

6. What is much harder to spot is the moral demand for individual action, for making
conscious wise choices when it come to water conservation. One thing which gets in the way is
the thought that nothing an individual does can possibly matter that much so why bother
concerning water? People think that they are doing good and not being good when they take
certain steps to conserve water. They have a better Utah in mind but not a better character. They
little disaster is the possibility that they cannot really do any good at all.
The little water wise actions people make can make no real difference at all, but people
still ought to undertake them. Society all together have a moral obligation which depends on the
demand of consistency in thoughts and actions of being water wise, on the reason they have for
thinking what they do about governments and what obligations they have, as well as the sort of
life people hope to lead. (Garvey)
Reasons for this conclusion can have a lot of relevant consequences in them
• Consequences having to do with the Earth
• Large scale social change
• Avoiding the suffering of human beings and every living thing on Earth.
Even though many of those consequences have nothing to do with a single persons sprinkler
system. The reasons can be bolstered by a persons consistent position in the rest of their
projects, the rest of their water wise choices. Society choosing to take action with water wise
and live in a certain water wise way, a consistent way with various judgements, principles, and
facts, will make a difference, nevertheless is the right thing to do.

7. Work Cite
1.Western Resources Advocates. “Water Rate Structures in Utah: How Utah Cities Compare
Using This Important Water Use Efficiency Tool” January 2005. Web. 12 Oct 2011
2. Garvey, James. “Climate Change and Casual Inefficiency: Why Go Green When it Makes No
Difference” EBSCOHOST. web. 12 Oct 2011
3. Week, Jennifer. “Water Shortages.” CQ Researcher, 18 June 2010: 529-52. 12 Oct 2011
4. "Tax." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, 2011. Web. 12 Oct 2011.
5. Stout, Linda. “Collective Visioning: How Groups Can Work Together for a Just and
Sustainable Future.” 45.5. 2011. Masterfile Premier. EBSCO. Web. 12 Oct 2011
6. Cooper, Mary H. “Pollution and the Environment.” CQ Researcher. 17 July 1998. Web. 12
October 2011