The chosen spot for Santaquin's new sewer lagoon is just outside the city limits - right in the middle of Reed and Ricki Rowley's fruit orchard.
Santaquin needs 23 acres of the father-and-son team's orchard for its proposed gravity-flow sewer facility. The Rowleys, however, don't want to sell land in the heart of their orchard operation for a sewer lagoon.About a dozen other farmers with property near the proposed lagoon are also protesting Santaquin's plans. But those protests are getting the group nowhere.
The Santaquin City Council is scheduled to vote tonight on a resolution to begin condemnation proceedings against the Rowleys.
The Rowley property is the best place for Santaquin's gravity-flow system, Mayor Lynn Crook said. He characterized Rowley's 23 acres as "mature orchard that has had most of its usefulness and would have to be replanted to be a profitable operation."
The city has already arranged to buy 20 acres of adjoining agricultural land.
"It's come to the point where we have no other choice," Crook said. "The one other alternative is to go west of town and (put in a pump-operated sewer system) and stop all development north of Santaquin for the next 50 years."
A pump-operated system would cost more to build and maintain and would create bigger liabilities for the city if it malfunctioned, Crook said.
But Reed Rowley believes the city does have several other choices, including hooking into Payson's sewer system. On behalf of Rowley, the Utah County Commission is asking Santaquin to delay its condemnation resolution until this and other possible solutions are investigated.
If the city proceeds with condemnation, Rowley said he will fight it in court. Rowley has other problems with Santaquin's chosen lagoon site. His home is about 2,500 feet away and sits on a little hill with a panoramic view of the surrounding orchards.
"I don't think any of them on that council would want to have my house looking out over a sewer lagoon," Reed Rowley said. More problematic is the fact that Rowley's culinary well is 1,200 to 1,500 feet from the edge of the lagoon.
The lagoon may also attract rodents, waterfowl and birds that will damage nearby fruit trees and could limit use of certain insecticides, Rowley said.
The Rowleys farm 185 of the 200 acres they own outside of Santaquin. Rowley said it's true the 23-acre site is mature orchard, but the family intended to replant it next year.
Parting with the 23 acres "wouldn't put us out of business," Reed Rowley said. The sewer lagoon will depreciate the value of the surrounding agricultural ground, however.
"To me, common logic says we would lose the value of the ground quite a ways from the lagoon for either farming or development," he said.
The family also is concerned about how chemicals used on the fruit trees may interact with chemicals used at the sewer lagoon.
But there is a bigger point at stake the way Reed Rowley sees it: The continuing loss of agricultural land in Utah County.
Reed Rowley farmed in Orem for 43 years before development encroached around him from all sides. When Intermountain Health Care offered to buy his land for construction of Orem Community Hospital, he willingly agreed.
"We moved down here to what we figured was the last prime agricultural land in the county," Reed Rowley said. "I figured it would last all my lifetime, but also my son and grandson's lifetimes. It is the largest fruit-growing area in the county and this lagoon would come right down the middle of it.
"They are tapping into the last frontier of prime agricultural ground in the county here, while there is other ground that isn't in agriculture available."