The Utah Department of Transportation will delay its decision on the Heber Valley bypass route until the spring of 2027, representatives from the state agency told the Heber City Council on Tuesday.
UDOT had formerly anticipated publishing its final environmental impact statement for the new highway, which will divert through traffic off of Heber City’s Main Street, by the end of this year. It published the draft environmental impact statement in January. That document included a preferred route that cut through the North Fields, a freshwater wetland habitat that has seen agricultural use for generations.
The announcement about the proposed route provoked months of pushback, public comment and protest by residents, farmers and elected officials.
Numerous local and state elected officials jointly signed a letter to UDOT in March rejecting the proposed route. The letter requested the bypass be shifted further east, as close to existing U.S. 40 as possible, to avoid bisecting existing farmlands, protect groundwater quality and preserve open space and conservation easements.
UDOT is considering shifting the bypass east, but exactly how far is to be determined. That’s one reason why the state delayed publishing the final environmental impact statement.
UDOT is also considering other amendments suggested by the City Council, like moving a section that runs along 1300 South into undeveloped land to minimize impacts to existing homes and businesses, and redesigning an interchange at Midway Lane to be more pedestrian- and cyclist-friendly.
UDOT Project Manager Craig Hancock said the group secured $1 million in funding from the Utah Transportation Commission to consider these changes and conduct additional traffic and wetlands analysis.
“We have our wetland experts who are actually on the ground doing the wetland delineations. So, it’s a much more granular look than the general wetland data that’s available (from state and federal agencies),” Hancock said.
UDOT is also collaborating with stakeholders like the North Fields Irrigation Company, which has controlled water use in the area since 1860, to better understand the potential impacts the bypass could have on the North Fields.
This information will help UDOT formulate a plan to preserve at least 2 acres of wetlands, canals, ditches and perennial streams for every acre impacted by the bypass. That’s 54 acres affected by the route UDOT proposed in January. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will approve or deny UDOT’s mitigation plan.
UDOT, in the final environmental impact statement, will also respond to the over 700 comments received during the public comment period between January and March.
“There were a lot of comments that were very similar, so there will be some aggregation,” Hancock said. “What we’ll be doing is developing a response that could go to several comments. So, when we respond to those comments, it may (refer) back to a similar comment.”
After publishing the final environmental impact statement, UDOT will submit its record of decision to the Federal Highway Administration. Then, it will determine funding sources for the project.
The alignment proposed in January was estimated to cost $760.5 million. UDOT representatives have acknowledged that costs will likely increase by the project’s horizon year of 2050.
Hancock and other UDOT representatives plan to return to the Heber City Council with another update sometime next month.