Utah Senate committee debates prison relocation

Utah lawmakers are considering a plan to relocate the state prison in southwest Salt Lake County.

Sen. Scott Jenkins introduced legislation that creates an authority to manage the relocation of the Utah State Prison and evaluate proposals from companies seeking to build a new prison or develop the old site.

The Utah State Prison occupies about 700 acres in Draper where tech companies such as eBay and Microsoft have opened offices.

Gov. Gary Herbert has called on lawmakers to fund the relocation so the corridor can develop as a technology hub. State officials have been weighing relocation for several years.

The Utah State Prison was built in 1951 and houses about 4,500 inmates. Before that, Utah's state prison was at what is now Sugar House Park.

The state also operates a prison in Gunnison, the Central Utah Correctional Facility.

The goal is to get the legislation passed quickly so the authority can get up and running by April 15, as required by the bill, Sen. Scott Jenkins said.

The authority would then seek proposals from companies and come back to the Legislature and governor with a viable option.

It's unlikely any proposal would be ready to come before the Legislature by the time next year's session concludes, but the governor could convene lawmakers in a special session to approve the plan.

Some of the possible sites that have been considered for the new prison are in northwest Utah _ specifically Box Elder County, Juab County and Tooele County. Cache Valley Daily

Canal rebuilding digs up negative reactions

Construction to rebuild the Logan northern canal enclosed in six miles of underground pipe is ongoing.

Andy Neff, a contractor with JUB Engineers and a member of the Cache Water Restoration Project Team, said the story goes back to July 2009 when the landslide caused a breach in the canal.

After the disaster, Neff said the first step to reconstruction was to work with the Natural Resource Conservation Service to prepare an environmental impact statement, and the statement was finished in 2011 and construction has since begun. Rebuilding the canal is a very important project for the City of Logan.

Mark Nielson, public works director for the city of Logan, said the canal is used for irrigation in most of Cache Valley.

Neff said farmers with fields along the canal have been affected the worst by the broken canal, and because of the strain on the farmers for the last three years, the canal team hopes to have the project completed by spring. There are several other benefits to containing the canal in an underground pipe.
While many residents realize the canal must be fixed, some are upset about the way things have been going.

Nielson said citizens are mostly upset about the changes enclosing the canal will make in their yards.
Neff said the city wishes to appease the wishes of the residents as much as possible, but legal rights to the canal belong to the canal companies who built the sections of canal affected by the incident. Utah Statesman

Utah's Thirst for Water Comes with $13.7 Billion Price Tag

The ability to turn on the tap, flush the toilet and water the garden over the next 20 years will be a multibillion-dollar challenge in Utah because of new water and sewer systems that state officials say must be put in place.

A statewide list of water projects, including their costs, is being shopped to Utah lawmakers, along with the warning that it is better to plan now and pay now, rather than wait until dams fail or taps run dry.

The numbers are staggering, adding up to $13.7 billion. And that doesn't include billions identified for controversial projects such as the Lake Powell Pipeline or the Bear River Development project.

The Utah divisions of water quality and water resources and other public agencies compiled the list of water infrastructure needs in Utah that provides just one glimpse of a national problem decades in the making.

A roundtable highlighting the water infrastructure challenges across the country estimated the cost to maintain and replace drinking water systems alone at $1 trillion. Hosted by the Conservation Leadership Partnership, the discussion earlier this month took on new urgency as most of the nation continues to recover from the worst drought in 50 years.

The partnership is an initiative seeking to broker new alternatives to persistent conservation problems, emphasizing the need for public-private partnerships and entrepreneurship and "ground-up" solutions. Deseret News

Logan city celebrates new fire station's official opening

The residents of a Logan city neighborhood helped put a new fire station into service Monday night.

Station 72, located in the Woodruff neighborhood at 573 W. Golf Course Road, is the third fire station in city limits, and Fire Chief Jeff Peterson says he is thrilled with how it turned out.

Shirley Smart is the Woodruff CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) representative. Some time ago, she was asked to go door to door throughout the neighborhood and help inform the public about the coming fire station, which was still under construction at the time.

Peterson said the city committed to the construction of a new station six years ago and started collecting impact fees. Herald Journal

Residents show support for Willow Park Zoo

Several local residents turned out Tuesday to speak in favor of Logan’s Willow Park Zoo during a Municipal Council meeting.

Options for the zoo’s future include closing it down, giving ownership of the facility to Cache County or reverting back to a joint ownership/funding arrangement between the city and county, according to Russ Akina, Logan’s parks and recreation director. He has noted the zoo may have trouble getting through the next fiscal year, which begins July 1.

County Councilman Val Potter committed Tuesday to work with the county’s RAPZ (Restaurant, Arts, Parks and Zoos) Tax committee and the Cache County Council “to make sure that we get additional RAPZ funding for the zoo this year and ongoing.” He asked Logan councilmembers to commit to matching that potential increased funding. Herald Journal

USU students create solutions for Bear Lake area's design problems

More than 50 posters covered an entire wall inside the Garden City Office Building on Wednesday night ready for government officials to view possible solutions to local problems.

Complete with text, full-color artistic renderings and charts, each poster showed ideas of how to solve some of the Bear Lake region’s most urgent design problems.

A group of students from Utah State University’s landscape architecture and environmental planning, or LAEP, department shared these solutions with the Bear Lake Regional Commission, a group of city and county officials created several years ago tasked with finding solutions to the Bear Lake Valley’s future growth and development.

The team has worked with the commission since the beginning of the school year on designs for several cities in the region, including Garden City, St. Charles, Laketown, Paris, Bloomington, Pickleville, Fish Haven and Montpelier. Daily Herald

Logan plans to straighten road, install light at troublesome intersection

According to current plans, the south leg of the intersection will be extended, and the north leg will be realigned with 600 East. The city plans to put the existing north leg of the intersection into landscaping, says Mark Nielsen, Logan public works director. The Herald Journal

Federal grant helps laid-off ATK workers get jobs

The U.S. Department of Labor is announcing a grant of nearly $620,000 to help laid-off employees of a Utah aerospace company find jobs again. The grant announced Monday will provide job placement, skills training and other services for former workers at ATK Launch Systems in Corrine. The money is administered through the Utah Department of Workforce Services. The money is the second installment of a $1.2 million federal grant awarded to Utah in April 2010. New funds will continue to support former ATK workers that received help through the first round of grant money, as well as another 25 workers. Ogden Standard-Examiner

North Logan agrees to canal plan

The North Logan City Council has agreed to pay for a portion of a multi-million-dollar canal project designed to restore irrigation water to users impacted by a fatal landslide and accompanying canal breach in the summer of 2009. North Logan's approval means all four municipalities and Cache County have now approved the plan to collectively put $2.58 million toward the project. The Cache Community Emergency Watershed Project is a multi-agency plan to restore irrigation water use to those impacted by the breach. Herald Journal

New USU athletic training facility planned

The USU Board of Trustees on Friday approved its support for the school to proceed with the approval process for developing a new Strength and Conditioning Center for Athletics. The new facility is slated to be approximately 20,000 square feet with an estimated cost of $6.2 million, which would be paid for by private donors. Herald Journal

Cache County canal rebuild to divert at 1500 North, cost valley $6.45 million

A project is in the works to restore irrigation water to users impacted by a canal breach in Logan more than two years ago. On Oct. 3, the Natural Resources Conservation Service officially selected the way forward from a handful of options.

According to the NRCS, the project will include the construction of a box culvert in the Logan, Hyde Park, Smithfield canal - often referred to as the "upper canal" - between the point of diversion at the Logan River to 1500 North in Logan. The flow conveyed will be approximately the same amount of water diverted from the river at both that canal and the Logan and Northern canal prior to the fatal landslide and accompanying canal breach on July 11, 2009.

The maximum total cost of the project is $25.8 million, according to the NRCS. Of that, the NRCS will cover $19,350,000, and the remaining $6,450,000 will be paid by the canal companies, the four cities and the county. Logan Herald Journal

Feds help pay for Utah’s flood damage

Utah will receive federal aid to pay for this spring’s flood damage. President Barack Obama signed a Utah disaster declaration and ordered federal funds to supplement the recovery effort from flooding between April 18 and July 16.

The funds are available to state, tribal and eligible local governments, and certain private nonprofit organizations, on a cost-sharing basis for emergency work and repair or replacement of facilities damaged by the flooding in the counties of Beaver, Box Elder, Cache, Daggett, Duchesne, Emery, Millard, Morgan, Piute, Salt Lake, Sanpete, Sevier, Summit, Tooele, Uintah, Utah, Wasatch and Weber, and the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation. The state could be eligible for $9.5 million in federal aid. Salt Lake Tribune

Logan plans several road projects for coming fiscal year

Logan city has released its budget for the upcoming fiscal year, and the public works department is mulling over what to do with its usual slice of the pie - and another $400,000 it will be allocated this year for roads. Several projects are in the works for the upcoming budget year, including:

• 1000 North from 300 West to 550 West - Adding sidewalks along 1000 North, increasing pedestrian safety for children walking to school. Includes curb, gutter, drainage, park strip and sidewalk.

• 1000 North and 600 East - The department is considering two options for this skewed, confusing intersection: A two-lane roundabout or a realignment with a four-way stop.

• 1800 North from 800 West to 1000 West - Connecting 1800 North to 1000 West. Includes sidewalk, curb, gutter, park strip, drainage and pavement. Logan Herald Journal

Nibley officials break ground on new City Hall

Officials in Nibley broke ground for a new $1.4 million City Hall on Thursday, bringing to close a long debate on whether the city would build a new headquarters. Nibley Mayor Gerald Knight said the 6,300-square-foot facility will set a new standard in city development both in quality and scope. The new community center, he says, will meet the needs of Nibley residents for at least 15 years. Herald Journal

Richmond planning for 2-million-gallon water tank

Richmond city officials say they are in the planning stages of building a 2-million-gallon water tank. Discussions about this tank have gone on for about three years, and the city is still looking for financing. He estimates that cost for the tank and the accompanying work will be $3.5 million to $4 million. With the tank, the city will also need a chlorination facility and additional pipe. The tank will be built at the mouth of Cherry Creek Canyon. Adkins hopes work on it will begin this year. Herald Journal

Micro-hydro spooling up: Logan city project will power 185 homes

Logan Light & Power hopes to kill multiple birds with one stone when its new hydroelectric generator goes online in the near future. The facility, installed last week on the culinary water pipeline at the mouth of Logan Canyon, will provide enough electricity to power nearly 200 homes while emitting no carbon into the atmosphere.

Two years ago, Logan city built a new drinking water line to replace the decaying older pipeline. With the new pipe, however, came new complications in the form of excess pressure. For the past two years, the city has used a pressure reducing valve to address the excess build-up. It works, but it creates new problems of its own. Enter the new hydroelectric generator, which will not only bleed excess pressure from the pipeline, but will also convert it into usable, sustainable, eco-friendly electricity. Logan Herald Journal

Utah State University lands big contract for weather sensors

Better information about storms and unpredictable weather in Utah and around the world is on the way, thanks to a new collaboration involving Utah State University's Space Dynamics Lab. The lab is teaming up with Nevada-based company GeoMetWatch to design and build weather-sensing instruments for satellites. "We're anticipating that the sensor contracts at Utah State will be about $60 to $70 million each for six sensors, so around $420 million" in all, said David Crain, GeoMetWatch CEO. Deseret News

Library sun roof: Hyrum installs Utah's biggest city solar array

Lining the roof of the public works building in Hyrum, a series of solar panels harness the energy of the sun. Electrical power that's generated goes directly onto the city's grid. Meanwhile, a computer terminal in the library records the energy and power produced.

"The project is the largest municipal solar electrical system in the state of Utah to date," Hyrum Mayor Dean Howard proclaimed to an audience gathered for a ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday at the library. On an annual basis, the panels are projected to produce 62,000 kilowatt-hours, resulting in a yearly savings of about $5,000, Howard said. Logan Herald Journal

CVTD buys North Logan property, plans $40M facility

The Cache Valley Transit District has purchased 17 acres in North Logan, where a new state-of-the-art facility is being planned for future operations. Todd Beutler, the agency's general manager, said the CVTD acquired the land at the Eagle Creek Business Park for roughly $2.9 million, paid in part through a federal earmark.

The plan is to build a new facility that would cost about $40 million and be used for the next 30 to 50 years; when constructed, it would include more than 210,000 square feet for office space, maintenance and vehicle storage. The planned facility is a long-term project to be done in phases, and construction on it may not begin for several years, according to Beutler. Herald Journal

Improvement time: Logan-Cache Airport works on multiple projects

Multiple improvement projects are under way, planned or already completed at the Logan-Cache Airport. The facility's main runway is closed to all air traffic until Friday as construction crews resurface two 1,000-foot-long safety strips at each end. The project is being funded by the Federal Aviation Administration and the state. Next on the agenda is to address a long-standing problem with one of the airport's lighting arrays. Logan Herald Journal