Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District (JVWCD) will be hosting the annual Utah Green Festival on Saturday, September 11, 2010, at the District’s Conservation Garden Park, located at 8215 South 1300 West, in West Jordan. The Festival will be held from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and will offer attendees an opportunity to explore the grounds of the Conservation Garden and learn more about the importance of water conservation and sustainability and ways to reduce their carbon footprint.
Admission to the Festival and all activities are free. There will be scrumptious food and live music throughout the day including performances by renowned singer and songwriter Peter Breinholt. There will also be numerous activities offered including: kids’ garden and science projects featuring composting and creating reusable message boards, an obstacle course, a rock climbing wall, bounce house, and face painting artists. Attendees can learn more about their carbon footprint, and ways to reduce it, by taking a carbon footprint quiz. The Festival will also feature vendor booths, showcasing garden products and sustainability wares, as well as informative and fun green living workshops and demonstrations.
“The Utah Green Festival provides a great opportunity to inform individuals not only about the benefits of conserving water, but also the importance of conserving energy and other natural resources,” says JVWCD Assistant Manager, Bart Forsyth. “The more people incorporate green and sustainable living practices into their daily lives the more they can reduce their carbon footprint, which is something many of us are striving for.”
Utah residents currently consume about 258 gallons of water per person per day. That makes us Utahns the second highest consumers of water in the nation.
JVWCD’s goal is to reduce water consumption 25 percent per person by 2025. If Utahns can achieve this goal, thousands of acre-feet of water will remain in rivers and lakes and costly water projects could be postponed.
Created as a community learning place, the Conservation Garden Park at Jordan Valley teaches and illustrates the beauty and ease of landscaping in both residential and commercial settings. The Garden contains several styles of water wise landscaping and two acres of hands-on exhibits to teach homeowners how to achieve their own beautiful water wise landscape.
JVWCD is primarily a wholesaler of water to cities and improvement districts within Salt Lake County. JVWCD is a political subdivision of the State of Utah and one of the largest water districts in the state. It was created in 1951 under the Water Conservancy Act and was called the Salt Lake County Water Conservancy District until 1999. Jordan Valley Water has a retail service area primarily in unincorporated areas of the county, making up about 10 percent of its deliveries; approximately ninety percent of its municipal water is delivered on a wholesale basis to cities and water districts. In addition, JVWCD treats and delivers water to Metropolitan Water District of Salt Lake & Sandy on a contractual basis for delivery to Salt Lake City and Sandy City.