The debate on the future of U.S. 89 through Davis County goes on through a seemingly endless round of public hearings, meetings and debates.
But for Dr. Richard White, improvements to the highway carry a double threat: He could lose his home and his business.White's veterinary clinic is on a corner of U.S. 89 and Shepard Lane in Farmington, targeted in two of the four improvement proposals for either a frontage road or an off-ramp.
His home in Fruit Heights fronts the highway, and intersection designs proposed to carry Farmington's Main Street across the highway at Cherry Hills either put a frontage road through his front yard or an off-ramp through his back yard.
"They said they're sorry, that we're the only ones that are double-impacted by the proposals," White said of his conversations with state highway planners and consultants.
"They said as they started putting names onto the houses and businesses on the maps that would be impacted, ours is the only one that came up twice," White said.
"It's scary for us. My wife is devastated about the house. She's put so much into it, into the yard and the greenhouse, and they mean so much to her. To me, it's more traumatic to have to consider moving my business.
"It really bothers me," said the veterinarian, who built his clinic on the site in 1979. "We were the first ones to locate here on this corner, and now we're the only ones that would be pushed out.
"If they'd done this before the big guys came in, there was plenty of open space to the west of the highway where they could have gone," he said, referring to the construction of the Kmart across the road.
Only two of the alternatives drawn up by Versar, a private consulting firm, would require his clinic be demolished. One is turning the highway into a freeway, which carries a price tag of $150 million to $160 million and, according to the consultants, appears unlikely.
A second alternative is upgrading the highway to a limited access expressway, requiring construction of an interchange at the intersection with on- and off-ramps and a frontage road system.
A third alternative, building an overpass for U.S. 89 and leaving Shepard Lane intact underneath it as part of turning the highway into an expressway, probably would not require the clinic's demolition, according to White.
But access and visibility would be limited, and that could affect his business, he said.
The fourth alternative, leaving the traffic light intact and widening or improving the highway to bring it up to current traffic standards, would not directly impact his business.
But three of those four alternatives require demolition of his home, White said, with only the fourth one leaving it intact.
Money is available for people who lose their homes or other property to highway improvements. White said that if he is forced to move his clinic, he'd like to relocate it in the same area.
Ideally, he would be given time to build a new facility and move into it before the current one is torn down, White said, so there would be no interruption in his business.
UDOT officials have told him that an alternative will be selected by this fall, White said, so he'll know by then the future of his home and clinic.
"But right now, I'm feeling some confusion, a little fear of the unknown, and a little bit of helplessness."