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LEHI, Utah (KUTV) — Some people starting to water their grass and plants for the first time this year are running into unexpected problems.
Yards are flooding due to the new secondary irrigation system metering that went in last fall.
Lehi, in particular, has seen a number of complaints from homeowners.
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In 2022, the legislature passed a law that requires all secondary pressurized connections to be metered by 2030.
Cities like Lehi have started installing them in homes, but since they're installed during the fall and winter, and people can't turn the water on until April, it makes all the issues come up at once.
Last week, Bryan Sansom turned on his secondary irrigation system for the first time since his meter was installed in December.
He left it on overnight, and the next morning, he got a surprise.
“This was a swamp,” Sansom said, gesturing to his yard.
He took and posted pictures and videos on Facebook and found he wasn't the only one in Lehi having problems.
"I’d seen a lot of people saying, 'Oh, this is a disaster,’” Sansom said.
Sansom called the subcontractor who installed the meter a few times that same day and was able to get someone to come by and fix it.
He was appreciative of the quick response, but understands why some people still haven’t had their issues addressed.
"There's so many people, so many houses they've had to service that they can't do it all at once,” he said.
"There are things that need to be fixed, but a lot of it, too, is just a little bit of a learning curve with kind of a new setup with homeowners,” said TJ Beveridge, with Lehi City.
Beveridge is the Compliance and Meter Supervisor for Lehi, and he said a valve and a tiny hole in the valve are the culprits for some of these issues.
It's called a “stop and waste valve,” which helps keep the lines from freezing in the winter.
Beveridge says homeowners need to make sure that the valve is either all the way on or all the way off. If it’s not, then it can lead to the problems many homeowners are seeing.
"It allows for that hole to be pressurized. So, the water will come in and spray right out of that hole. And that's what we're seeing a lot of,” Beveridge said.
Beveridge said 14,000 houses around the city needed the meters after the law passed. So far, they've gotten about 6,800 done. They need to finish the rest by 2030.
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