Over 80 acres in the North Fields have been in the Provost family for six generations. But when cattle rancher Bryan Provost heard three years ago that the Utah Department of Transportation was considering building a new highway in the North Fields, he began selling his portion of the land. After selling 60 of his acres, Provost is down to 7 acres, but his worst fears have been realized — UDOT’s preferred route for the highway cuts straight through the North Fields.
Provost was one of more than 50 Wasatch County residents who gathered on Saturday for a “tractorcade” protest, inspired by the 1979 tractor rallies of the same name. The demonstration was to oppose the Heber Valley bypass, the highway planned to divert through traffic, particularly diesel trucks, off of Heber City’s Main Street.
The procession of tractors and cars traveled a six-mile route from Veterans Memorial Park and through the North Fields. Many carried signs reading messages like, “Cows over diesel,” “Your shortcut is our shortfall,” and “Government answers to the people, not the powerful.”
Provost drove a tractor, while his daughter, Josie, rode a hay wagon pulled by Percheron horses Bonnie and Prince. The banner affixed to the hay bales read “Support the American rancher.”
Provost is prepared to move his business elsewhere if UDOT sticks with its preferred route for the bypass. He’s already purchased land in McGill, Nevada, while his brother, who owns the remainder of the family’s acres in the North Fields, purchased land in Wyoming.
Provost believes bisecting the North Fields with a highway would make it difficult to raise his over 500 head because his property lies on both sides of the bypass route. Though UDOT has planned three underpasses to travel across the bypass in the North Fields, Provost is one of several farmers who would have to work with UDOT to ensure he’s able to move his cattle and equipment from one side of the bypass to the other.
“If there are situations where we would be cutting off a field, we would work with those farm owners to try to restore access, so they can get from one side of their field to the other,” said Craig Hancock, project manager. “It’s not our intent to block farmer access.”
Potential pollution of water was a chief concern of Provost and many other protesters.
The entire project area is located above the Heber Valley aquifer, a Class 1A aquifer, which is the most protected aquifer class in Utah. UDOT’s position is that the project’s design will effectively prevent groundwater contamination, but many protesters doubted that promise could be kept.
Heber City Mayor Heidi Franco, who participated in the demonstration, called UDOT’s draft environmental impact statement “misleading at best” and “biased at worst,” saying that the state had not sufficiently proven it could ensure the perpetual protection of water quality in the Heber Valley.
City Councilor Yvonne Barney shared those concerns.
“This aquifer, our water, that’s everything,” she said. “It’s something that we’re in short supply of in the state in general, especially after this winter.”
In the worst-case scenario, she said, a diesel truck hauling fuel could crash on the raised highway, fuel spilling onto the wetlands below.
“No matter how careful you are, we know that those things happen,” she said. “Do we really want to gamble that?”
The procession of tractors making their way down 600 West preparing to cross Midway Lane on the return to the Veterans Memorial Park. Credit: Christopher Reeves 
Micah Gogan, who farms two acres in Daniel, joined the protest on his tractor because he felt residents’ opposition to the bypass wasn’t being heard. Credit: Christopher Reeves 
Protesters held signs reading, “Cows over diesel” and “No bypass.” Credit: Park Record file photo by Christopher Reeves 
The tractorcade protest gathered at Veterans Memorial Park across from the Heber Valley Railroad before moving through the North Fields. Credit: Christopher Reeves 
Mark Webb (left), from Riverton talks to Heber City resident Linda Middleton prior to the tractorcade. Credit: Christopher Reeves 
Protestors carried signs reading, “Stop selling out our valley” and “Protect our watershed.” Credit: Christopher Reeves 
Micah Gogan, who farms two acres in Daniel, joined the protest on his tractor because he felt residents’ opposition to the bypass wasn’t being heard. Credit: Christopher Reeves
Barney was also concerned that the bypass would detract from the beauty of the North Fields.
“I’ve had family members who come in. They think Park City is fun, but when they come to Heber, it’s like, wow,” she said. “Our North Fields are our ‘wow.’”
Heber City resident Linda Middleton shared Barney’s concern, bringing up billboards as an example of how the viewshed could change as a result of the bypass.
While UDOT has committed to preventing additional transportation access in the North Fields, Senior Communications Manager Wyatt Woolley acknowledged nothing would stop a North Fields landowner from installing a billboard on their private property.
Middleton also believed that the bypass wouldn’t fulfill its intended purpose of diverting through traffic off Main Street.
“If you drive even from Provo, that’s 30 minutes, if there’s not construction. By the time you get here, you’ve got to go stop at a restaurant, have a burger, pee, wash your hands and move on,” she said. “Those truckers really do have bladders. … They aren’t going to use the bypass.”
Not all protesters were locals.
Mark Webb made the trek from Riverton to support the cause after hearing about it on Facebook. He and his grandsons, 11-year-old Jaymeson Griffiths and 15-year-old Jaydien Rich, joined the demonstration on tractors from the 1940s and ’50s, one of which was his grandfather’s.
Webb hopes Heber City can maintain its agricultural lands as much as possible instead of becoming another Riverton or Draper.
“My dad had 200-plus acres in Draper, and by the mid-’90s, it was all gone and all paved over,” he said. “I moved away from the farm in the early ’80s and thought maybe I wanted to come back in the early ’90s. And Dad said, ‘Nah. Nothing to come back to.’ … If I’d have stayed, we’d have probably moved out of the valley and had a farm elsewhere.”
Micah Gogan farms 2 acres in Daniel, but didn’t begin speaking out about the bypass until after some of his friends attended UDOT’s open house in January and didn’t feel heard.
“The general feeling was, ‘Yeah, it was an open comment, but we’re going to do whatever we want anyway,’” he said.
Allowing residents an opportunity to amplify their voices was one reason why Heber City resident Bridget Whiting organized the protest.
“You start to wonder where all your concerns are going. Are they just being filed away? And slowly, without realizing it, people are starting to lose hope, and I can see it. It’s exhausting,” she said. “We are real, beautiful people with real concerns, concerns that need to be treated like concerns and not dismissed as opinions.”
UDOT’s public comment period for the bypass ends March 9. UDOT asks for comments that address the data and methods, identify missing impacts or provide new information that could change the analysis.
UDOT plans to release its final environmental impact statement for the bypass, which will include its final route decision, this summer. That statement will also include responses to public comments.