Estimated read time: 5-6 minutes
- A water storage and pipeline project in Logan faces public backlash over potential tree removal and lack of transparency.
- Residents at a meeting Thursday expressed concerns about environmental impact, long-term planning, and landslide risks.
LOGAN — A project to construct a 10 million-gallon water storage tank and 42-inch pipeline has generated a significant public backlash late into the planning phase.
Well over 100 concerned residents packed the Logan City Hall and an overflow room Thursday night to discuss the issue. Project and city engineers presented plans to address what an August 2023 inspection report from the Utah Division of Drinking Water calls a "minor deficiency" in the current water storage capacity for Logan — around 5.5 million gallons.
In that report, the existing water storage capacity was found to be 11.4 million gallons. The state requires 13.6 million gallons, with an additional 3.2 million for fire storage.
The project — which may cost $50 million to $60 million, according to preliminary estimates by J-U-B Engineers — began to generate public backlash after it was learned that 17 century-old green ash trees bordering Canyon Road were in danger of being chopped down to make way for the waterline.
Speaking for the trees
Some attendees wore green shirts representing a neighborhood group, the Canyon Road Coalition, formed to spread awareness of the project. They brought signs, pins and other items centered around Dr. Seuss' book "The Lorax." An online petition from the group has gathered over 2,800 signatures.
Hannah Ristorcelli, a local therapist who helped form the coalition, told KSL.com, "It started out as — We don't want to lose this amazing feeling of driving down Canyon Road, the canopy, and the presence of that in our historical neighborhood."
Her concerns, while ignited by the love of the trees in front of her house, became more generalized as the group struggled to get more information about the project, she said. "Every question we ask brings up five more questions," she explained.
"Why didn't we hear about it in 2021 before they put in all this work?" Ristorcelli asked. "Where are all these reports that they're saying they're making their decisions off of?"
"They say they put all this thought into it, but there's not documentation that we can access about it besides their crafty PR," she said. The city hired a subsidiary of J-U-B, the Langdon Group, to manage public relations for the project.
J-U-B project engineers are advocating for "replacing the trees along Canyon Road with new trees along the street creating a consistent streetscape for the neighborhood," public project documents show.
A local arborist generated a report that assessed the general condition of the historic trees running along the road. Six were found to be in good condition, 10 in fair condition, and one in poor condition. The arborist suggested removing 14 trees and retaining three, depending on proximity to the proposed pipeline excavation site.
The logistics, not the trees, were the focal point of the meeting. "Our purpose tonight was to educate the public," Zan Murray, vice president of J-U-B, told KSL.com after the meeting.
"As engineers, we're more fact-based and not emotion-based," Murray said, adding that the firm developed "specific criteria to try to help create clarity, remove emotion, remove bias, so that we can try to come to the best decision for the community."
Murray outlined different alternate routes for the audience that were considered when selecting the current path. Some options were made more expensive because they forced eminent domain acquisitions, crossed water bodies or Highway 89, ran into other utilities, or extended the pipeline length. Those alternate routes raised costs between $2.8 and $5 million, at a minimum, the firm claims.
"As the city, do I spend more money to go a different direction that will then impact more people and their yards?" said Logan Mayor Holly Daines following the meeting.
Additional project costs would be shouldered by all residents, the mayor argued. "Everybody in the city and the impact of their water bills for 20 years" needs to be considered, according to Daines, "because that would be the term of the financing to even add another $3 million. It is an expensive project."
"What we could be doing is having a totally different conversation about actually conserving water, reducing our use overall, and not driving more unsustainable development," suggested Patrick Belmont, a hydrologist at Utah State University. The 2023 drinking water inspection shows that average annual water usage in Logan decreased by almost 10%, or over 446 million gallons.
According to Murray, "conservation is a good tool to help lower the impacts of water demand," but the state has mandated a certain amount of storage be provided for the Logan water system. There is no timeline required for the fix, according to D. Ginger Zamora, from the Utah Department of Environmental Quality. "Because it is a minor deficiency, this gives Logan time to plan for a solution while also keeping them on our radar to ensure that it gets resolved," she said.
Retired geology professor Susanne Jänecke said she was deeply worried about running that large bore pipe through an area with a history of large landslides. Borings in the side of the slopes where the planned pipeline is set to go have already been collected, Murray told the crowd, and a geotechnical engineer has done an analysis.
Preliminary results are in; they are just waiting on a final report, Murray said.
Moving forward as planned
Officials made it clear that the meeting was not a public hearing to challenge the project. The city plans to start construction months from now, in Spring 2025, hoping to be done by 2027.
Murray told KSL.com he hopes to find middle ground with critics of the project through streetscape improvements — new trees to be planted, shoulder work to provide bike and pedestrian corridors, and more.
"Not everybody is happy, but it's hard when it's in your front yard," Murray said. "When it's directly impacting you, that's difficult. But our goal is to help something, have something that's for the greater community benefit too. At least that's what the city council wants. That's what public works wants."
Correction: Waterline route options that crossed Highway 89 were ruled out, not the interstate as previously written.
