Ground-water Conditions in Cedar Valley, Utah

Cedar Valley is in north-central Utah about 20 miles west of Provo in Utah County. The valley is mostly a topographically closed basin, developed in a structural trough caused principally by faulting, and is bordered by mountains largely composed of Paleozoic sedimentary rock. The valley is filled with semiconsolidated to unconsolidated alluvial, colluvial, lacustrine, and eolian deposits of Tertiary and Quaternary age.

Ground water occurs under both water-table and artesian conditions, but most of the wells are developed in the artesian aquifer. The source of most recharge to the ground-water reservoir is in the Oquirrh Mountains in the northwest corner of the valley. After seeping into the ground, water moves directly from the bedrock in the valley fill, thence east and southeast across the valley. The estimated subsurface outflow along the east edge of the valley ranges from about 10,000 to 20,000 acre-feet per year.

Water levels and spring discharges generally fluctuate in response to variations of precipitation, but they have declined markedly in response to pumping at nearby irrigation wells. During 1965, about 1,900 acre-feet of water was pumped from eight irrigation wells in the valley.