PRWID Considers Watering Livestock

By Sun Advocate

The Price River Water Improvement District’s main charge is to provide culinary and sewer services in the unincorporated areas of Carbon County. But PRWID may tie into a system to water cattle in parts of Carbon and possibly in northern Emery County.
“It’s all very, very preliminary right now,” said PRWID assistant manager Jeff Richens after the district’s regular board meeting on Tuesday night. “There are a lot of things to be done and a lot of agreements to be signed before it could ever happen.”
The possible project that is growing out of the continuing wishes of many in the county is to get Carbon Canal Company piped and pressurized. But this is a complete separate step from that project which would make the piping more possible at a future date.
Most local residents realize that the company provides water for crops during the late spring, summer and early fall. But people may not realize that canals play a crucial role in providing water for livestock in the area. General flows are shut off in the winter. However, the canal company releases water a few times during the cold season to supply the animals. But the situation poses a problem the Federal government would like to resolve – high salt levels in the Price River.
Water released by the company flows through the canal, picking up settled or leached salt. Some of the water goes to cattle, but a significant amount of the release flows through the canal system and back into the Price River,
Recently, the Carbon Canal Company got money to put in a project to stop the winter stock watering operations from the Federal government, and have approached PRWID about being the providing agency for such a system. Generally, piped secondary water systems do not operate during the winter for reasons of flow, as well as the fact the pipes could freeze up. This newly installed system would become part of PRWID’s culinary system.
“There are a lot of questions about how this would operate and how we would handle it,” district manager Phil Palmer told the board. “Again it is just preliminary, but they have the money and they want to do it.”
Richens has a map in his office that shows some of the new lines that would have to be run to supply the system. Some are in the Wellington area and a great many are in the Miller Creek area. The drawn up preliminary plan also has some extensive lines running into Emery County where there are customers of the Carbon Canal.
“That wouldn’t be totally new,” said Richens. “We already have a few hookups there just across the county line.”
While the money is there to do the project and connect it up with PRWID’s system (over $3 million), the questions about how the water would be provided to PRWID and how many shares would be involved are unanswered. The board also wondered if the system would be used to provide summer water for stock as well. Palmer told them the project is for winter watering only. Regardless of what transpires, however, a number of issues will have to be resolved like the questions of who will pay for the water and if it is used outside its designated season, how will that play into the costs.
“We basically just started discussions [Tuesday]'” said Palmer. “There is a lot that has to happen before this can be done including many approvals from this board and from the county as well.”
Richens told the board that the canal company’s engineers are beginning to work on the design and then there will be more information on that part of what would need to be done.
Palmer also gave the board a report on “The Hill” subdivision pumphouse, stating that the footings and lower walls are in and that the crews will be ready to start pouring the floor of the building by the end of the week if the weather permits. He also provided a letter from the engineering firm Creamer and Noble that recommended the companies to contract for the mechanical and electrical work, based on their review of the bidding process.
The board also reviewed a request that was presented to that body at the last meeting from Tom Boyack of Spring Glen. The request was to build a sewer extension project for a home he intends to build and another existing home. The staff has assembled a cost on the materials to do the project and it totaled $3,422.21.
“The good thing about this project is that it would provide service to that whole area,” stated Palmer. “That way if there is development around the proposed home the system is in.”
Board members wondered about the costs and how they could be met. While Boyack was not at this meeting, he did say that the homeowners would be willing to share some of the costs.
“Maybe if our crews do the project, we could get them to share the cost in thirds,” said board member Tom Matthews.
The board decided to have Boyack come back to a future meeting with a proposal about what they could do to help the district with the project.
Richens also reported that the Carbonville-Wellington water project is nearly done and that the contractor only has a few things left on the punch list to complete his list. He said that a temporary service line needed to be replaced and a small section of curb is going to be replaced around Nov. 1.
“The county is also going to put an overlay on 1500 West and at the bottom of 750 West because of where the pavement had to be torn up and repatched for both the sewer project last year and the water project this year,” he said. “The county is going to provide the labor and we are going to pay for the materials.”
Palmer also asked the board for authorization to look at funding sources (grants) to do a total water system study on PRWID’s infrastructure. The board authorized him to do so.