Gazing out the large, rectangular windows of his home after a cleansing rainstorm, Hugh Allred sees five frolicking foxes, three dancing deer and a dirt road in the meadow.
"I love mornings like this," he says, inhaling the fresh mountain air.Residents in exclusive Canyon Meadows always wake up to picturesque scenes tucked behind majestic Mount Timpanogos just east of the Utah-Wasatch county line in Provo Canyon. Wispy clouds form heavenly wreaths on mountain peaks. An elk herd numbering 50 to 60 head often saunters over the ridge. A moose sometimes drops in.
Beauty and serenity above ground belie the existence of an unpredictable monster below. The 17 homes in Canyon Meadows sit on what are known as the Hoover Slides, several slow-moving masses of earth. Geologists say the prehistoric slides could amount to a modern disaster along the lines of a mudslide that destroyed the town of Thistle in Spanish Fork Canyon 14 years ago.
"There is a possible potential for that," said Francis Ashland, a geologist with the Utah Geological Survey who studies the area. "It might not take a lot to make it move and move in a catastrophic way."
The Wasatch County Commission temporarily halted lot sales and construction in Canyon Meadows in January pending the outcome of a comprehensive geotechnical study. "We don't dare allow any new building permits in that area until we're sure the ground is stable," said Commissioner Sharron Winterton.
Steep slopes, mountainous terrain, certain rock types and narrow, debris-choked canyons make Utah subject to landslides. The Thistle mudslide caused an estimated $337 million in damage in 1983. The U.S. Geological Survey assigns Utah a "severe" landslide-hazard rating, the highest of five classifications.
The geologically complex Hoover Slides started getting antsy some 50 years ago, about the time the Utah Department of Transportation widened U.S. 189. The two-lane canyon road crosses three of the active slides. The toes of the deep-seated slides extend into Provo River. Inclinometers show the entire mass creeps about three to 30 millimeters annually.
Groundwater and weight drive the landslides. Geologists have measured regular slipping and sliding of underlying Manning Canyon shale, a form of clay that becomes like a sheet of ice when lubricated. Weight from multiple soil and rock layers above pushes the shale, causing the highway to crack and sink.
Road damage is particularly pronounced this year. Water ran across the highway at one point. Regular canyon travelers said they've never seen it as bad. UDOT chief geotechnical engineer Carlos Braceras attributes it to the large amount of water in the soil due to record snowfall.
"I think May is going to be active," he said.
Geotechnical studies show the Canyon Meadows development itself has remained stable for thousands of years. Homes are free of structural damage. Some studies, however, indicate it has potential for serious movement.
Allred enjoys the pastoral view through a living room telescope poised on the meadow, except for the dirt road cutting through a saddle parallel to the canyon highway. That relatively new sight not only mars the landscape, he says, but also brings the danger of a landslide closer to home.
UDOT crews carved the road last year to haul dirt and rocks blasted from the mountainside for the current Upper Falls-to-Wildwood widening project. The material is dumped near Weeks Bench where fill is required for the next highway reconstruction phase.
Allred and Canyon Meadows property owner Vic Orvis say the year-old haul road changed the way groundwater runs down the mountainside. Rather than filtering through, the road backs water up, they say.
"It's like a whole dam all the way across there," Orvis said.
Barbara Williams, who has lived in Canyon Meadows for a decade, said the meadow is soggier than she has ever seen it. Homeowners fear the saturated soil has greater potential for sliding.
"A very reasonable assertion to make," says Matthew Mabey, a Brigham Young University geologist.
Mabey, however, qualifies that saying there are several complicating factors. "What fraction is the road and what fraction is the weather is where the lawyers come in and make all the money."
The Canyon Meadows Homeowners Association Board, of which Orvis and Allred are members, hasn't sued UDOT. But it recently put the department on notice that it expects compensation for any damage.
"Furthermore, we must insist losses that are traceable to the movement or unusual water retention of the land be borne solely by UDOT," according to a March letter sent registered mail.
Homeowners want UDOT to monitor soil movement and moisture content and take steps to ensure slope stability.
"We're just walking point for the rest of the army," Williams said. "The fact is, the guys walking point get hurt."
Braceras, the UDOT geotechnical engineer, disagrees that the haul road is the source of potential landslides.
"That's really not the case. There's drainage on the haul road. We never try to use the roadway as a dam," he said. "We are not seeing any evidence of movement due to the presence of the haul road."
The dirt road marks UDOT's preferred alignment for the third phase of Provo Canyon reconstruction from Upper Falls to Deer Creek State Park. Officials decided to move the proposed four-lane highway upslope because of constant fracturing in its current location. They concede there will likely be movement on a road through Canyon Meadows, but not as much.
Ashland, of the Utah Geological Survey, said the situation could actually be worse if the highway were widened where it's at. "The new alignment doesn't really modify the slope very significantly," he said.
Homeowners believe moving it higher ground will have greater impact than anyone can predict. "Why move the risk farther up?" Orvis said.
UDOT and its consulting engineers who studied the Hoover Slides apparently are more concerned about new housing in Canyon Meadows, particularly the installation of septic tanks. Developers have plans for 160 homes. Septic wastewater could further saturate the slides.
A Parsons Brinckerhoff Quade & Douglas Inc. study concluded in 1994 that the injection of wastewater in the ground "could lead to failures of the existing and future highway slopes."
Another firm concluded the opposite in a study for Canyon Meadows in 1995. AGRA Earth & Environmental said that "individual wastewater absorption systems will have no adverse effect on slope stability" in the development.
At least 15 sometimes competing, sometimes complementary studies and countless opinions, however, are no match for nature. There are ways to remove the groundwater and stabilize the mountainside. But geologists and geotechnical experts agree the earth will continue to move under people's feet.
"The fact of the matter is nature hates a high spot and loves a low spot," Mabey said.
Adds Braceras, "There's not much man's puny efforts can do to hold that back really."