One of the last free-flowing streams on the Wasatch Front apparently won't turn into a reservoir, much to the delight of environmentalists.
The Central Utah Water Conservancy District passed a resolution this week that all but kills the controversial Monk Hollow Dam project on the Diamond Fork River in Spanish Fork Canyon.The district now prefers to build a series of tunnels and pipelines to deliver irrigation water to south Utah County and Juab County as part of the Central Utah Project.
Lee Wimmer, Central Utah Project Completion Act program director, said the board opted for the so-called Diamond Fork Tunnel Alternative because of concerns raised by many interested parties.
"It was certainly a response to comments made," he said.
The decades-old Spanish Fork-Nephi plan to build a 258-foot high concrete barrier on the river was not only questioned by environmental groups such as the Utah Rivers Council and Sierra Club but by public agencies such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Division of Wildlife Resources. The dam would have inundated a three-mile stretch of river where the narrow canyon's red rock meets high alpine vistas.
The change in plan will add about $15 million to the project. The dam was estimated to cost about $47 million; the tunnel will run about $62 million. Wimmer said the coordinating agencies will have to come up with the difference. The water district raised the property tax just last month to generate additional revenue.
A draft environmental impact study on the new proposal will be out late this year or early next year, and then will be open for public comment.
Zach Frankel, the Utah Rivers Council director who doggedly opposed the project, applauded the water district's decision.
"I think the district realized the public was not going to stand for a dam in Diamond Fork Canyon," he said. The dam, he said, would have destroyed flora and fauna, including habitat for many of the canyon's 175 species of animals.
Although Frankel hailed the resolution as a "huge victory," he said the battle is far from over. The Utah Rivers Council will continue its effort to steer the approximately 98,000 acre feet of water from the Strawberry Reservoir away from Utah and Juab County farmers. Frankel believes the water should be sent north to Salt Lake County.
"Salt Lake County has paid 70 percent of the property tax to CUP but will not receive one drop of water from Diamond Fork," he said.
Don Christiansen, water district general manager, has said that it would be illegal under the CUP Completion Act to redirect the water. When the original 12 counties formed the CUP and made specific plans to send water to each region, part of the compact included delivery to Juab County and southern Utah County. Based on need, he said, the CUP has completed systems the past two decades to provide water to the Salt Lake Valley.
It's time to follow through with the commitment to those areas, he said. The $2 billion CUP was set up about 40 years ago. Two counties have since pulled out of the project.
"He's talking about a commitment that was made three decades ago," Frankel said. "There's no other justification."
Farmers say the water is desperately needed on one of the state's final agricultural frontiers. Some of the water will be converted to municipal and industrial use.