Blue Lakes -- Located on the north side of the Snake River Canyon, Blue Lakes is one of the sources of water for Twin Falls city residents. There are about 34 million gallons available for daily use through the Blue Lakes wells. The city also owns wells south of town and east of Twin with the combined capacity of 9 million gallons per day of drinking water. Peak-day usage for the summer of 2009 was about 25 million gallons, with about 17 million coming from the Blue Lakes source. To give you an idea of how much a million gallons is, visualize the city swimming pool, which holds about 500,000 gallons.

The record for water use was set in 2003 when residents used 31 million gallons one hot summer day. Since then, a water conservation program has been put in place; and also, several hundred home have begun using canal water, rather than drinking water, for irrigating lawns and gardens. This year the cooler weather certainly affected water usage, but overall, using canal water for irrigation inside the city limits has worked well. While the city grew by about 25 percent since 2000, peak-day usage of domestic water during that time dropped by about 16 percent.

Garbage collection

Opportunities for citizen participation

Public information requests

Utilities -- water, sewer, pressurized irrigation