Federal funds are on their way to help ranchers and residents of Hanksville in Wayne County after the county's irrigation system was ravaged by a swollen Fremont River last fall.
Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, received an update on the area's watershed problems during a visit Wednesday with representatives of the Natural Resource Conservation Service. Wayne County officials, Farm Service Agency employees and local canal company leaders attended the meeting, held at the county courthouse in Loa.
Bennett's stop in Loa coincided with the announcement of a $5 million Emergency Watershed Protection grant that will help pay for repairs to Hanksville's irrigation system that was literally destroyed during the floods. The grant is a 75/25 match, which means local entities must pay for 25 percent of a project.
"Hanksville was wiped out as thoroughly as New Orleans got wiped out," Bennett said in a telephone interview with the Deseret Morning News. "Residents there were faced with the potential loss of their town. Without the irrigation water, the town would literally dry up."
In October 2006, two days of nonstop rain fell on Wayne County, producing a gorged river that breached its banks, flooded farmland and eventually washed away the only diversion dam supplying water to Hanksville. The town of Caineville also suffered when tons of silt clogged irrigation pipes, ruined canals and tore down fence lines.
"Hanksville is like an oasis in the desert," said Bennett. "If this town were to disappear, it could affect the local tourism and construction industries. This town is important to Utah."
The $5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture will be used to help bring the dam and miles of irrigation lines back to a usable state, said Sylvia Gillen, state conservationist for the USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service. Gillen said an NRCS team has completed a damage-survey report and will recommend the best alternatives to "help restore vital irrigation water supplies to the land as soon as possible."
Hanksville Canal Company president Ronnie Albrecht said irrigation system won't be rebuilt in time for this year's crops, so farmers in the area will have to get creative when it comes to watering their fields.
"We've got a few options," he said. "We might be able to pump some water out of the river and pipe it in."
Another $97,000 allocated by the Farm Service Agency's Emergency Conservation Program will help ranchers in Caineville and Notom repair culinary and irrigation pipes. It will also be used to help clear the land of mud for this year's crop of oats, said Paul Pace, Wayne County Farm Service agent.
"You either had 8 feet of mud deposited on your land or from 2 to 3 inches on it," said Pace. "Ranchers had to either scrape it off or till it back in."
Hanksville Canal Company president Ronnie Albrecht is a cattle rancher whose family has been working the land there for generations. He farms 40 acres of his grandfather's land and another 70 acres for other landowners, in addition to raising a herd of up to 300 head of cattle.
"The majority of town depends on the irrigation system," said Albrecht of Hanksville's 250 residents. "Without it, there's no point in us being here. We'd have to try and move on, but we don't want to do that."
Caineville Canal Company president John Jackson, who owns 185 head of cattle, said the floods washed out miles of fencing, plugged irrigation pipes and gobbled up a dirt diversion dam in his town. Without the irrigation system, he said, residents there would also have to move or find another way to make a living, which could prove difficult in rural Wayne County.
"If I had to go a year without any crops, I'd be out of business," said Jackson.
E-mail: nperkins@desnews.com