Lehi, UT Water Use Rules: Leak Reporting Duty (2026)

Lehi City Code § 9-2C-1, Waste of Water Prohibited; Time Period for Use, defines waste of water from the city's secondary water system to include the excessive use, loss or escape of water through breaks, leaks or malfunctions in the water user's plumbing for any period of time after the escape should reasonably have been discovered and corrected. The section builds in a specific evidentiary presumption: forty eight hours after the water user discovers the break, leak or malfunction, or receives notice from the city of the condition, whichever happens first, is deemed a reasonable time to correct it.

Waste of water from the secondary system is flatly prohibited under subsection B, and subsection C separately limits secondary system use to April 15 through October 15 regardless of when the system is physically turned on or off. Every water consumer is deemed under the section to have control at all times over the water lines and facilities on their premises (other than city-owned utility facilities) and to know the manner and extent of their own water use and excess runoff, which places the burden of monitoring squarely on the property owner rather than the Water Department.

The rule was adopted by Ordinance 50-2018 in 2018 and amended by Ordinance 11-2022 in February 2022. It sits within the Secondary Water System Conservation article of Title 9, alongside the city's broader Water Shortage Management Plan, which draws pressurized irrigation supply from Lehi City wells, Central Utah Water, local irrigation company shares and Deer Creek storage, and phases restrictions based on monitored drought conditions during the May-through-September peak season.