Peanut the goat is a classic redhead, sassy and spicy, as described by his 12-year-old owner, Ryker Butler.

The 6-month-old baby goat loves to wrestle, jump on people and clumsily pretend to be a mountain goat. If anyone other than Ryker tries to feed him, Peanut will snootily turn his head away. When he sits, obscuring his legs, he looks like a “jelly bean.” 

Peanut’s original name was Biscoff. Ryker renamed him Peanut Anderdingus. His surname comes from a viral meme and the fact that “he can be a dingus,” Ryker explained.

Ryker knew when he bought baby Peanut from a family friend that he’d be raising him as a meat goat to be auctioned off at Wasatch County Fair Days’ junior livestock show. It was the first year Ryker or anyone in his family had participated. Though he loves Peanut, Ryker accepted his fate.

“You’ve got to eat something. It’s the life cycle,” Ryker said Friday. “Some people like eating goat, and some people don’t. So, it’s dependent on the buyer if they want to eat him as brisket or lamb chops or just keep him as a family pet.”

But at the auction Saturday, the bond that Ryker and his mom, Kylie, had formed with Peanut proved stronger than they anticipated.

Local company Epic Engineering bought the goat for about $700 and decided to send him to Springville Meat Company for processing. That’s when Kylie attempted to buy Peanut back — but Epic Engineering donated the goat to her instead.

“It was a huge thing that Epic did for us in just donating him back, because Ryker will still get that donation money for all of his work,” Kylie said.

Peanut now lives on a friend’s farm in Duchesne, where he will continue to be raised as a pet.

Though Kylie and her son learned that the livestock auction isn’t for them, Ryker became a more responsible and patient person by raising his rambunctious goat.

Kylie and Ryker also appreciate the role the junior livestock program plays in the community.

“The farmers that raise the beef? This is where it starts, with generations of this,” Kylie said.

The livestock auction involves goats, sheep, cows and swine. The animals are judged for their potential meat quality, hence why the goats and sheep are shaved.

“Then, you can see their muscles,” Kylie explained. “You just don’t go past the knees, and then you’ve got to leave the tip of the tail.”

The resulting haircut made it look like Peanut was wearing woolly boots and had a feather duster tail. 

Peanut won second place in the lightweight division, earning Ryker a pink Reserve Champion ribbon.

Participants can also win awards for how they handle their animals and present them to the judges. Children aged 8 through 18 participate in the auction either through Utah State University’s 4-H livestock program or the Future Farmers of America, or FFA, of which Wasatch High School agriculture students are members. 

Kody Clyde, a Wasatch High School agriculture teacher of 23 years, said there are always a few tears during the auction as youth say goodbye to their animals.

“It’s a hard lesson, but they learn that they’re actually doing something really good that’s going to benefit other people afterwards,” he said. “They’re actually making a difference in someone’s family, where they’re going to have a high-quality meat product to enjoy all winter.”

For Heber City native Billy Hansen, the junior livestock program is a way to keep in touch with the Heber Valley’s agricultural roots even amid rapid growth and development. Hansen participated when he was growing up. This year, his four kids, aged 9 to 18, raised sheep for the auction.

“It’s so expensive to raise livestock and to have animals because land is so expensive and feed is so expensive. So, this is a way that kids can still get a feel for raising livestock and still be able to do it on not as much land,” he said.

Hansen and his kids also participate for the life lessons. His oldest son learned one last year when his sheep died unexpectedly the night before the auction.

“They work hard for it, and it doesn’t turn out the way they wanted it to or imagined it to. That’s part of life, too,” Hansen said. 

Wasatch County 4-H livestock coordinator Abigail Johnson has also participated in livestock auctions since childhood. She said another thing kids get out of the experience is a chance to be a leader as they help younger kids in the program take care of their animals.

Clyde agreed. He was raised in Heber City and said participating in FFA was “the one thing that gave me confidence.”

“I was pretty shy, not very outspoken, made a lot of friends and was forced to become a leader,” he said.

Raising animals also gave him that sense of responsibility all kids in the program benefit from.

“They’re learning how to take care of a living organism. You can’t go on vacation and not worry about who’s going to feed your pig,” Clyde said. “You have to go out twice a day and feed and water and walk and wash and train and all these things. It’s a really big commitment.”

Their kids’ work culminates in community members — family, friends, companies or hotels — buying their animals for sometimes thousands of dollars. One year, a lamb went for $50,000 as a fundraiser for a local family whose barn had burned down.

But to Clyde, at least, the money is secondary to what youth learn from the program.

“In my opinion, we’re raising kids, not livestock,” he said. “It’s nice that they’re getting these big paychecks. But to me, the product we’re getting in our community is a well-rounded kid who knows how to work and knows how to go out into the industry and get things done.”

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Any notions of Heber Valley’s agricultural industry being on its last legs are quickly shattered with a tour of Wasatch High School’s 1-acre farm.

Two adolescent goats curiously poke their heads through fences in a secluded barn. Greenery sprouts everywhere, both outdoors and in the greenhouse: mint and rose hips, watermelon beginnings and plump cherry tomatoes that students pluck for a sneaky snack while they work.

The labor is constant. Even in the July heat, a handful of students kneel on the ground, weeding the landscape instead of taking refuge in the air-conditioned indoors.

Tending to the farm is the students’ summer job, and they’re compensated well for it — $13 an hour, matched by $13 an hour set aside in a scholarship fund.

Agriculture teacher Matthew Zierenberg launched the farm, Ideal Farms, five years ago as a way to give his students hands-on experience and summer employees with a gateway to university.

“A lot of kids that come and work are not your typical … generational-wealth kids,” he said. “When we hire kids, we look for the kids (for whom) there’s a real need.”

The employees’ salaries and scholarships are funded entirely from revenue generated by Ideal Farms, which sells its wares to local vendors, including the Utah Department of Natural Resources. 

The farm has generated about $400,000 in its five years of operation, according to Zierenberg. Anything that does not pay for student employees rolls back into the farm’s continued operation. 

Zierenberg’s local advocacy for agriculture has not gone unnoticed. This month, the National Future Farmers of America Organization named Zierenberg a national teacher ambassador for the upcoming school year. While most states have multiple ambassadors — as many as six, in Texas’ case — Zierenberg is the sole ambassador in Utah. 

Zierenberg will provide training and resources to fellow agriculture teachers, assisting them in establishing work-based learning programs and tweaking national curricula to be relevant to Utah’s unique agricultural industry.

“Agriculture’s not just corn and animals. Agriculture is all the timber and the rangeland and the ranching that we do here, wildland firefighting, keeping our forests healthy, prescribed burns and all that kind of stuff,” he said. 

Zierenberg will also continue as an advocate for agricultural education in Utah.

“We see a lot of pressure from our Legislature right now. They’re looking to cut certain programs, and the summer ag is always right there on that (chopping block),” he said. “Luckily, we’ve kept it, but we want to make that a lot stronger and show this is hugely beneficial to our students as they go on to their future careers. But it’s also helping them to give back and build an economy right here in our state, right now.”

Recent graduate Trey Torres worked in the summer agriculture program all four of his years at Wasatch High School. The money he has earned will help fund his entomology studies, as soon as he can pin down which university to attend.

If Torres’ passion for insects was not apparent by his T-shirt reading, “Easily Distracted By Ants,” it shines through in his voice as he talks about the ant colonies he keeps in his room. 

“The first thing I remember, I ate a roly poly. That was I think where it started,” he said, half joking. 

In taking various agriculture classes and working on the farm in the summer, Torres has earned valuable skills — time management, teamwork and leadership — that will stay with him as he pursues his creepy-crawly career.

Seventeen-year-old Zadie Mitchell said something similar about her experience growing tomatoes.

“We had tomatoes at the beginning, but they really weren’t good, so we had to start over and plant different kinds and learn how to problem solve,” she said. “I think that’s a really useful skill in the future because you’re always going to run into problems.”

For Zierenberg, the appeal of teaching agriculture is instilling grit and critical thinking in students. 

He has been a teacher for 17 years, entirely at Wasatch High School. He’s currently one of five agriculture teachers in the Wasatch County School District. He began by teaching biology, physics and chemistry, later teaching an agricultural biology class. Within a few years, he’d transitioned completely to the agriculture program. 

Zierenberg found the constant hands-on learning a welcome change from the sparse, controlled labs in other science classes. Running a farm is also an excellent way to keep students off their phones, both because they’re engaged and their hands are too dirty to touch their screens.

“Meeting the kids with something that’s real is the key, and that’s what agriculture does,” he said. “They feed the goats. They’re like, ‘Oh, I have to keep this thing alive. This is real. I actually have to do this. If not, the thing dies.’ You don’t get more real than that.”

Growing plants and raising animals are also excellent Trojan horses for Zierenberg to sneak science concepts into his students’ minds.

“(In growing apples,) we talk about the roots, the shoots, the gibberellins, all the stuff that goes into raising a tree and raising healthy plants,” he said. “We bring all that science into it. But they see it as, ‘I’m learning to make apple sauce!’”

The high school’s agriculture program also teaches students about sustainability. 

Zierenberg’s students in the agricultural track of the high school’s Center for Advanced Professional Studies are installing solar panels on the farm to fuel its entire electrical output. The walls of the goats’ barn are lined with recycled Plexiglass instead of plywood. And the greenhouse uses a closed-loop aquaponic system. The students look after goldfish and koi, whose waste becomes fertilizer for plants. In return, the plants clean the water pumped back into the fish’s tank.

“It’s basically an ecosystem just running right here. We take the benefit of fish waste and put it into growing lettuce and tomatoes,” Zierenberg said.

Students learn how to take care of the environment through the projects they participate in through the agriculture program. 

They’ve sold thousands of willows to the Division of Wildlife Resources to plant along rivers to regenerate stream banks eroded by overgrazing or wildfires. They’ve raised thousands of chukar partridges for Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife to sustainably hunt. 

Not all of Ideal Farms’ projects make a profit. Students are currently growing trees to replace native plants destroyed by construction at the new Deer Creek High School. They also donate lettuce and tomatoes to local food banks every year. 

While agriculture has certainly shrunk in the Heber Valley, Zierenberg is consistently surprised by the popularity of the high school’s program. 

“Some of them, they come from legacy farm families here in the valley. So their grandparents owned a dairy. I mean, we had 40 dairies in this valley at one time,” he said. “Their parents skipped a generation, and we just see this resurgence … that interest in learning about where their families come from.”

The waitlist for Wasatch High School’s agriculture program is constant, Zierenberg said. The program will expand to accommodate more students when Deer Creek High School opens next month.

Zierenberg said it’s hands-on learning that draws in most students, even those with nothing more than a passing interest in agriculture. He said he hopes that even his students who do not go into the industry remember the National Future Farmers of America Organization’s motto as they cultivate their futures: “Learning to do, doing to learn, earning to live and living to serve.”

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Sheila Probst Siggard’s big, red barn on nearly 8 acres in Midway has been in her family for as long as she can remember. All that time, it has been a muse for artists across the Heber Valley. 

During the Midway Art Association’s annual plein air contest, painters flock to the public roads surrounding her property to set up easels. There seems to be at least one artistic depiction of its two silos and Park City pine logs for each of the four seasons. 

“With all the development coming in Midway, I’ve thought about leaving, but I said, ‘I can’t leave my barn,’” Siggard said. 

The 73-year-old owner even considered having the barn moved to a new location, possibly by dismantling and reconstructing it. But Siggard has found another solution to preserve her barn: by establishing a conservation easement on her and her neighbors’ properties. 

The conservation easement, referred to as the Heart of Midway Project, encompasses more than 17 acres from four neighboring properties north of 250 N. and west of N. Center St.

Siggard’s idea originated when the city passed its first $5 million open space bond in 2018. It wasn’t difficult, she said, to convince her three neighbors to collaborate on the project.

“We’ve seen so many pieces of property get developed, and then there’s all the traffic and the ugliness of houses instead of a beautiful, open field,” she said. “We’re kind of old timers. We just love agriculture and hate to see Midway be destroyed. So, we want to help preserve it.”

The combined land value is appraised at about $5 million, according to Wendy Fisher, executive director of Utah Open Lands. The landowners are donating a combined $1.8 million of the cost. Three landowners are donating 25% of the cost of their land. Andrew Larson is contributing the full value of his 3-plus acres. 

“We’re not in it for the money. We’re in it for the preservation of the land,” said Phyllis Shelton, one of the landowners and Siggard’s cousin.

Shelton has been on board with her cousin’s plan since the start, agreeing before she’d even told her husband. She hasn’t had to do too much work, either. The effort has been “Sheila-driven,” she joked.

Siggard said she was the first to apply for funds for Midway’s first open space bond. In 2023, the Midway City Council committed $250,000 of those funds to the project.

Since then, the community Volksmarch fundraiser in September raised an additional $85,000. 

Midway passed its second $5 million open space bond in 2024. Fisher and the landowners approached the City Council on Tuesday, seeking $750,000 more for the Heart of Midway Project. The City Council unanimously approved the funding. 

“It’s pretty outstanding for a piece like this to be contiguous through this agreement of owners,” said City Councilor JC Simonsen.

The land is being preserved for its use by livestock and as an essential winter foraging ground for wildlife like deer. It is also being preserved for its open field views and the potential establishment of a public trail easement on Siggard’s property. The mapping of that trail will occur at a later date.

The landowners, with the assistance of Utah Open Lands, have to raise funds for the remaining $2.1 million value of the conservation easement. That could come from various federal, state and local sources, as well as private foundations. 

Fisher added that Utah Open Lands recently received approval for a Regional Conservation Partnership Program through the National Resources Conservation Service, which would have provided federal funding for projects including the Heart of Midway, but “claw(ing) back of funding” by the federal government has stalled the program.

Once the Heart of Midway conservation easement is established, the landowners will have the ability to continue to occupy and farm their land. Larson was also approved to construct a new home on his property, the details of which are to be determined.

For Siggard, finally establishing the conservation easement would mean everything. 

Her family was Swiss immigrants who lived in Midway for at least four generations. Her father raised beef cattle, and she has plenty of fond memories being his assistant, filling syringes for vaccinations and keeping the fire hot for the branding irons. 

“I remember one time there was an Angus cow. They’re very good mothers. … My dad got too close to the calf, and the cow started to chase him. My sister and I were in the barn, yelling, ‘Run, Daddy! Run!’ And he made it,” she remembered with a laugh. “Lots of good memories.”

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The Utah Department of Transportation is currently refining its environmental impact study for the controversial Heber Valley bypass to have a lesser impact on the North Fields where the new highway is planned.

The North Fields is a freshwater wetland area northwest of Heber City’s downtown that has seen agricultural use for generations.

Project Manager Craig Hancock told the Wasatch County Council on Wednesday that UDOT representatives visited the North Fields last month for a site visit with members of the North Fields Irrigation Company, which has controlled farmers’ water use in the area since 1860.

“Some of our team members met with them in the field, spent the morning going over some of the key historical features that they wanted to point out to us, focused primarily around historic ditches,” Hancock said. “We thought it was a very productive meeting, and we’re continuing to coordinate with them.”

Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 requires UDOT to review the adverse effects the Heber Valley bypass could have on historic properties and collaborate with stakeholders to minimize them. 

Despite having infrastructure dating back to 1860, the North Fields Irrigation Company was not invited to participate in the Section 106 analysis for the draft environmental impact statement UDOT published six months ago. The irrigation company identified this as one of 99 deficiencies with the study in a press release published in February. Now, the irrigation company is a Section 106 consulting party for the final environmental impact statement.

Hancock said that UDOT may have had “some incomplete data” about ditches in the North Fields and that the North Fields Irrigation Company plans to share “a more complete map” that UDOT can compare with its own information. 

Time will tell how collaboration with the North Fields Irrigation Company informs UDOT’s engineering and alignment of the bypass. Beyond the ditches’ historical significance, the irrigation company was also concerned that the ditches could become polluted through stormwater runoff from the bypass.

UDOT expects that mitigation measures will prevent any pollutant discharge that would significantly degrade water quality in the area. UDOT will create a mitigation plan that will be reviewed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. However, that plan will not be created until the design stage, after a final decision has been made about the highway’s alignment.

Hancock also reminded the County Council that UDOT is considering a shift in the bypass alignment further east in the North Fields. He added that UDOT recently received additional funding through the Utah Transportation Commission for further analysis, including field work and a traffic analysis.

Numerous local and state elected officials made the request to shift the bypass east in a letter they sent to UDOT in March. The letter, drafted by County Councilor Erik Rowland, argued that a re-alignment closer to U.S. 40 would avoid bisecting existing farmlands, better align with the county’s goals of establishing open space and conservation easements in the North Fields and more effectively prevent groundwater contamination. UDOT in May agreed to consider a re-alignment east.

County Councilor Luke Searle was excited to hear that UDOT is addressing the concerns of local farmers and elected officials.

“It sounds like, based on the letter we wrote, you’re hearing us,” he said. “This process is going in the right direction.”

UDOT will begin mapping wetlands in the North Fields in the next few months, Hancock said. That analysis will inform UDOT’s plan to protect at least 2 acres of wetlands, canals, ditches and perennial streams for every acre impacted, which is 54 in the current alignment. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will approve or deny that plan.

Hancock said he was unsure at this point whether UDOT will delay publishing its final environmental impact statement, which has been expected by the end of the year.

UDOT will begin determining funding sources for the bypass only after the final environmental impact statement is published and a record of decision has been made with the Federal Highway Administration. The current bypass route has an estimated price tag of $760.5 million, but that will likely change with the re-alignment. UDOT representatives have said that costs are bound to increase by the project’s horizon year of 2050.

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Midway farmer Randy Lundin’s great-grandfather established himself in the Heber Valley on just 7 acres in 1892. Today, 27 head of cows and calves, a handful of horses, foxes, coyotes, raccoons and the occasional mountain lion roam the now 119-acre property, which the Lundin family has fought to preserve through a conservation easement for the past four years. 

The process has been about as strenuous as the backbreaking labor the Lundins have performed for generations. But the project achieved a significant milestone on July 1, when the Wasatch County Council unanimously finalized a purchase agreement funding $2 million of the land’s purchase price from the county open space bond fund.

The Midway City Council in December also voted for funding its portion of the conservation easement, $1 million, coming from its open space bond fund.

The purchase can now go forward as soon as all conditions of the agreement are met.

The final condition is that the Lundin siblings settle a struggle over the property that has been in litigation since 2021. The siblings entered into a settlement agreement in May 2024 and have since been in negotiations to finalize it.

The next status hearing on the case overseen by a Fourth District judge is scheduled for Aug. 14.

The exact terms of the settlement agreement do not matter as long as they protect Wasatch County, Midway and Utah Open Lands, allowing the purchase agreement to go forward, said Wasatch County Deputy Attorney Jon Woodard.

As soon as the purchase agreement goes into effect, the Lundins will have three years to secure funding of the $4.5 million that constitutes the rest of the purchase price. They will be assisted by Utah Open Lands. 

Executive Director Wendy Fisher expected most of that funding to come from the National Resource Conservation Service. Utah Open Lands is also looking at other federal, state and local sources and private foundations, and is accepting donations.

“This was the first hurdle in what is still a long journey, so it’s been amazing to see the Lundins stay at the table,” Fisher said. “We’ll need every oar in the river to get this one done.”

If the Lundins cannot raise the $4.5 million after the three-year period ends, Wasatch County and Midway’s combined $3 million will be returned with interest, Woodard said. 

If established, the conservation easement would allow the Lundin family to continue farming the land while preserving it for future generations. 

“Development’s going on all around this, so there is a threat of imminent loss of the existing open space,” Woodard said.

The land is visible from Main Street in Heber City, Wasatch Mountain State Park and much of Midway, justifying its aesthetic importance, Woodard said.

Midway would transform a ditch running across the Lundin property into a public trail that would also serve as an emergency access and wildfire evacuation route.

Public access would also be allowed for educational tours, allowing residents to take in the echoes of the past found on the Lundin property, from a plum orchard the siblings’ great-grandfather planted over a century ago to the 10-by-10-foot brick homestead the siblings were raised in.

“It was warm in the winter. Cozy,” Randy joked.

He said establishing the conservation easement has taken longer than expected, but that he will be happy when it is finally established.

“This has been a long process. It has been emotional, and it has been trying, I think, for everyone involved,” Fisher said.

She added that the Lundin family is selling the land for less than it has been appraised for.

“This isn’t something they’re doing to make money. They’re actually going to be making a sizable contribution to the value of the conservation easement,” she said. “I think that needs to be recognized. All of these projects that we work on, really, they don’t happen unless the landowners love their land, and the Lundins love their land.”

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Heber City is preparing to weather the storm — or rather, lack of it — during the outdoor watering season in light of Gov. Spencer Cox’s issuing of a statewide emergency declaration over drought conditions on Thursday. 

The latest Water Supply Outlook Report by the Natural Resources Conservation Service, released May 1, said this has been Utah’s “worst winter for snowpack going back to at least 1930.” Snowpack — the accumulation of snow, which melts seasonally into bodies of water like reservoirs — provides approximately 95% of the state’s water, according to the Utah Division of Water Resources.

Currently, 22 counties in Utah are in severe drought, with the remaining seven, including Wasatch County, experiencing varying levels of extreme drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Just over half a percent of Wasatch County’s land area is experiencing extreme drought.

Heber City has been preparing for Cox to make an emergency declaration since the state-federal Drought Response Committee recommended he do so on May 7. 

In preparation for an emergency declaration, the City Council on Tuesday agreed to draft and vote on a resolution to enter into the second phase of the city’s four-stage water shortage plan during its next meeting.

The second phase indicates a moderate water shortage that is expected to last the rest of the pressurized irrigation season, which is April 15 to Oct. 15. 

The city encourages residents to voluntarily conserve water in several ways, including limiting hard surface washing, covering swimming pools when not in use and reducing the water level by four inches below spill line and washing vehicles using a bucket and hose nozzle. 

The city also asks that residents limit lawn watering to three days a week June through August and two times a week in April, May, September and October, and that residents to not water their lawns during rainy, snowy or windy days or between the hours of 10 a.m. and 6 p.m.

The third phase would make mandatory the guidelines around lawn watering, swimming pools and hard surface washing. The fourth phase would create more stringent water conservation mandates.

The full water shortage plan can be found in the agenda materials for the meeting.

Now that Cox has issued a state of emergency due to drought, Heber City could initiate the third phase of its water shortage plan. 

However, Cox’s emergency declaration does not include any statewide water conservation mandates, instead recommending that cities and counties implement their own restriction plans. As such, Heber City would coordinate with Central Utah Water Conservancy District, which includes Wasatch County, and local irrigation companies before entering the third phase, Mayor Heidi Franco explained.

“We have to rely on (the Central Utah Water Conservancy District) and what they tell the irrigation companies about how much is going to be coming through the canals that can be used for outdoor watering,” Franco said. “I’m expecting next month to get a report from (the Central Utah Water Conservancy District), as well as the irrigation companies, on if there would be any cutbacks, you know, 10%, 20%. Who knows if there would be any cutbacks for the outdoor watering levels that we’re used to?”

City engineer Russ Funk meets with representatives from the Central Utah Water Conservancy District on a monthly basis and said the district expects mandatory cuts at some point in the irrigation season.

“Right now, their message is voluntary reduction. Whatever we can save now is going to help us extend the irrigation season later,” he said.

Franco, for one, is eager to enter the third phase and wanted to do so before Cox issued his declaration.

“It’s not going to be a pretty sight when Deer Creek (Reservoir) gets lower or Jordanelle (Reservoir) gets lower. And I’m sure that when we see that happen throughout this summer, depending on moisture, people will be more cautious,” she said.

No phase of Heber City’s water shortage plan requires indoor water conservation. Nonetheless, the city will be including both outdoor and indoor water conservation tips in its newsletter.

Additionally, City Councilor Mike Johnston and Public Works Director Matthew Kennard recommended that residents download the EyeOnWater app, which tracks household water use.

Any cutbacks or mandates on agricultural water use would be issued by water districts or irrigation companies rather than Heber City. 

Agricultural producers can apply for the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food’s Emergency Disaster Relief Loan Program to help cover “disaster-related losses.” The six-month application period opened on Thursday in response to Cox’s drought declaration. 

Johnston expressed some frustration with agricultural water use on Tuesday.

“I don’t want us to save, save, save, cut back, cut back, cut back, and all the farmers don’t,” he said. “It’s kind of tough when you’re saving, and you’re not watering your park strip, and you drive by the billions of gallons being thrown on the hay. It kind of makes you feel stupid.”

City Councilor Yvonne Barney responded that that was no reason for individuals not to do their part in conserving water. She also recommended meeting with local farmers to better understand their water needs. 

She also alluded to the controversial 40,000-acre Stratos data center project in Box Elder County, which since its approval by the Military Installation Development Authority has prompted concern about its proximity to the Great Salt Lake and protests to its water rights applications. It’s still not clear exactly how much water the data center would use.

Barney said that “we may be frustrated” with “huge data centers going in” but that there was “nothing wrong with us being wise nonetheless” about individual water conservation.

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Laren Gertsch inherited his first 5 acres of property in the Heber Valley during the 1980s after his parents passed away. Over time, he started acquiring more. Now, the 74 year old is one of the largest landowners in Wasatch County — owning nearly 300 acres in the North Fields.

Standing with Gertsch on his lush green, somewhat swampy land, it’s easy to see why he was drawn to collecting hundreds of acres in the grassy area north of Heber City. The North Fields are one area of the arid, high-desert Wasatch Back landscape that is classified as a wetland, allowing vegetation and livestock to thrive.

Gertsch stepped to avoid walking into the puddled water table during a tour of his land. He looked around at about one hundred black and brown cows, shaded by towering willow trees. Hands on his hips, satisfaction on his face.

He’s more familiar with his land in the North Fields than anywhere else.

Gertsch is a farmer through and through. He drove through it at 5 a.m. sharp every day when he worked full-time in the corporate world. Now, he has a bit of a daily lie-in and starts his duties about an hour later.

His commitment to planting roots, figuratively and literally, in the Heber Valley goes beyond him, dating back generations. But Gertsch has known for more than five years that his way of living is threatened.

Hundreds of acres across up to eight of Gertsch’s parcels may feature a highway running through them. That is, if the Utah Department of Transportation proceeds with one of two proposed alternatives for the Heber Valley corridor bypass route. 

Both Alternative A and Alternative B are free-flow variations of a bypass route that would skirt around Heber City’s Main Street.

Alternative B is the choice Gertsch is most worried about. Instead of sticking to U.S. Highway 40 from Potter Lane to 900 North as proposed in Alternative A, Alternative B cuts through the North Fields — directly through Gertsch’s properties. 

“If (UDOT) picked someone out to go through their properties, I’m it,” he said. 

Gertsch drove on a somewhat dusty back road used by farmers and private landowners, pointing out what he uses each parcel of his land for. Some are used for irrigation. Some are for grazing. Some are for both.

He empathized with other North Fields landowners, saying the second alternative feels personal because it cuts through their properties.

“When you draw lines on a piece of paper, you don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gertsch said. “These are all small businesses.”

Gertsch said that, when creating the route alternatives, UDOT had not visited the area enough in person. But UDOT Region Three Project Manager Craig Hancock said the selection process was rigorous.

“We’re trying to minimize the impacts to wetlands, and that’s how it was selected,” Hancock said. “It was trying to find those areas where it would be the least harmful as we develop through there.”

But Gertsch remembers when he first heard about the bypass route. It was more than 50 years ago in a school social studies course. Since then, Gertsch said he has lost count of how many times proposed routes and alternatives have been approached. And, over the years, the number of possible routes has diminished.

In 2020, when UDOT began early scoping of today’s in-the-works Environmental Impact Statement, the purpose and need for the project were identified first. That’s when UDOT determined the bypass road should improve highway mobility and help Heber City reduce traffic on Main Street.

Then, UDOT began identifying alternative routes to combat the nearly 50,000 vehicles projected to travel through the area by 2050. That’s similar to Bangerter Highway now. Over the last five years, UDOT has tweaked its five initial designs. Two route options remain today.

The Environmental Impact Statement is set to be finished this fall. Once it’s completed, a route will be chosen and UDOT will initiate a 45-day public comment period. UDOT’s next update will happen at a Heber City Council meeting on Aug. 19.

A stalled decision

Hearing about the possibility of the routes years ago, North Fields landowner Nathan Wright said he felt paralyzed. 

“This has dragged on for so long, people are afraid to make any kind of additional improvements to their property. Like, I’ve wanted to build a new barn since I’ve owned that property. There’s no way I’m going to put money into a new barn until I know whether this highway is going to go through there or avoid us,” Wright said. “I’ve noticed that story kind of repeats itself with every piece of property.”

The result is that property owners like Wright are letting upgrades, improvements and maintenance fall to the wayside.

Gertsch describes himself as a “well-oiled Swiss machine” who has perfectly functioning aquifers, wells, stables and irrigation systems. But Wright said other landowners and farmers in the North Fields have less motivation to do the same. 

“You’re getting to the point where some of the property out there is starting to be run down because people are not able to put money back into their property, to continue to preserve it and improve it,” Wright said. 

At a County Council meeting on Oct. 9, UDOT Executive Director Carlos Braceras said he remembers talking with the Region Three director in 1987 about the bypass route. 

“We had fully designed plans to build a bypass around the north side of the city, ready to go. And then there was nothing,” Braceras said, adding that UDOT faced hurdles with community input for infringing on open space. “There was open land, and the community went nuts. (Clayton) didn’t want to lose the business on Main Street. And I get it, but we kind of lost an opportunity back then.”

Now, UDOT has narrowed the playing field to two alternatives: One — Alternative B — cuts through the North Fields. The other does not. 

With Alternative A, the bypass sticks to U.S. 40 from Potter Lane, through Coyote Canyon Parkway and until it banks west at 900 North. According to Hancock, both Alternative A and B will involve widening U.S. 40. Alternative A widens the highway from 900 North to the River Road intersection. Alternative B widens the highway from Potter Lane to the same point. 

Either way, landowners will be taking a hit. UDOT has acknowledged that landowners will be compensated after acquisition assessments, but right now, details and potential impacts are still being taken into account.

Landowners’ conservation efforts

About 20 years ago, Gertsch said he felt it was time to try to protect his property. That’s when he called up Wendy Fisher, executive director of Utah Open Lands, for coffee. In 2022, about 17 years later, the $5 million open space bond passed on Midway’s election ballot.

That’s when their idea became something they felt was achievable. With conservation easements, multiple avenues of funding need to be secured in order to move forward with a project. Most often, Fisher said Utah Open Lands will help gather funding through entities like Wasatch County or Midway — both of which have open space bond funding set aside. 

With help from Fisher, Gertsch attempted to turn about 200 acres of his land into a conservation easement. More than 100 supporters turned out in droves to encourage Wasatch County Council’s dedication of $3 million toward the project in March 2024. The council voted 6-1 to award the money to the Gertsch property.

The same year, Fisher received word that the Gertsch conservation easement project’s request for $6.125 million in funding from the Natural Resources Conservation Service was successful. With that funding, Fisher, Gertsch and Utah Open Lands would have the go-ahead to preserve Gertsch’s 200-plus acres.

For Gertsch and Fisher, it felt like a win. They had been working toward the conservation easement for two decades. It was, however, short-lived. 

Skeptical of its leeway to provide reasonable bypass alternatives considered through an Environmental Impact Statement, the Utah Department of Transportation sent a letter to the Natural Resources Conservation Service on May 24, 2024. 

“UDOT is concerned that if the [Gertsch] easement is recorded as proposed, UDOT would face significant challenges in the future in acquiring the portion of the easement needed from the NRCS and the landowner,” the 2024 letter signed by UDOT Region Three Director Rob Clayton reads. “This could jeopardize the construction of a western bypass around Heber City.”

Gertsch’s hopes for a conservation easement were smothered when he never received a final award or obligation letter.

“A lot of folks who are out there would also consider doing the same thing,” Wright said about Gertsch’s efforts to protect his property. While Wright also owns property in the North Fields, it’s only a fraction of the acreage compared to what Gertsch has acquired over the years.

For Wright, his 28 acres are for his own recreational use. He has a barn and plenty of grassy, open land. He said he tries to assist farmers in the area by leasing out his land for cattle grazing. It is, he said, a good deal for everyone. 

Wright was most interested in lumping his 28 acres with a larger conservation easement in the North Fields, if possible. That way, he could more easily protect his property. With a conservation easement, there would be a binding legal agreement that permanently limits the use of preserved land in order to protect conservation values. That’s like what Park City has with the Swaner Preserve, which used a conservation easement to preserve 1,200 acres of open space.

“You know, nobody’s gonna establish a conservation easement for a 30-acre plot of property. But, combined with another 300-acre piece of property like Laren’s, it would be very, very easy for us to tack on,” Wright said. “But in shutting Laren down, they kind of shut us down also.”

Wright said when he bought his property, he was looking for a way to acquire open space where he could pursue his hobbies and have a quiet place for his family to recreate. About five years ago, he started hearing about a possible highway running through the corner of his land or, potentially, on top of his barn. 

“Having a highway right out through the middle of the North Fields changes that completely. That piece of property will no longer be sort of the beautiful, quiet place where people like me want to have just open land,” Wright said. 

Loss of income, history

Robert Hicken was born and raised in the North Fields. He still lives there now, with his wife and three kids. His six brothers and sisters roam in and out of farm duties — they’re used to it.

The Hicken family owns just 25 acres of land, but they’ve owned it for as long as they can remember. They still have the Homestead Land Grant signed by President Ulysses S. Grant. 

“It’s never been out of our family,” Hicken said. “Deep roots, you know, livestock, farming, agriculture. I mean, that’s as thick as it can be in our family name and our blood.”

When asked if any of his land would be affected by bypass Alternative B, Hicken answered simply: Half. 

“Then, indirectly, all of it, because it would split everything right in half,” Hicken said. 

As a farmer and livestock owner, Hicken said he and his family still garner a good amount of their income from their North Fields operations. They run about 100 head of cattle, which is critical to their spring and fall feed. The cattle go on the mountain to feed in June, which is when Hicken said they grow hay to feed the cattle in the wintertime. If his 25 acres were split, Hicken said all operations would cease because the land would be divided by a concrete highway.

“I wouldn’t have any feed for them in the winter. And so that’s critical,” Hicken said, adding that it would be an extreme economic hardship. “It would probably affect our cow and calf operation and our feed operations by plus or minus $100,000.” 

Hicken said his corral and calving pens are probably some of the oldest that exist because they are maintained. His farming and livestock operations keep the family’s history alive and their coffers financially sound. But he knows that could change.

“I don’t think we could run it at all if the highway went through it,” Hicken said. “It would just destroy the opportunity.”

Commercial impacts

Dave Nelson is a landowner with large-scale commercial properties in and around Heber City. For Nelson, who owns properties on the north, south and east end of Heber City, all roads south lead to eminent domain.

“It really makes no difference, because they all go through the same point. One of the properties we own will actually be totally consumed by UDOT. I’ve already had meetings with them, and that is their plan for that property just south of the Holiday Inn Express,” Nelson said. 

Nelson is referring to his land at the conjunction of Heber City’s Main Street and the proposed bypass alternatives. For both Alternative A and B, the bypass road cuts west at 900 North, loops south around Heber City and then directs traffic back east toward U.S. 40 while also offering the option to exit toward S.R. 189. Nelson’s commercial land sits at that crossroads. 

“Right now, that’s vacant land. We had under contract for a couple of entities that we have subsequently had to terminate the contract because of the information from UDOT. So, currently, there’s no business there, but there was going to be,” Nelson said. “Probably five or six.”

Nelson thinks Alternative A would more dramatically affect his operations.  

Because of the changes that would take place north of 900 North, Nelson said it could “dramatically economically impact” the businesses he had planned on stationing there. He said that includes upwards of 16 businesses, including up to eight different buildings, potential future hotel sites and smaller commercial operations. 

The hit, he said, would not be to him but to Heber City and Wasatch County. 

Wasatch County Manager Dustin Grabau explained that when a business makes a sale within city limits, 1% of that transaction goes directly to the general sales tax revenue. There are also county-wide sales taxes — such as the county-option general sales tax, the Tourism, Arts and Parks (TAP) Tax, the Transient Room Tax, and the Emergency Medical Services Sales Tax — that apply to all transactions, regardless of location. The larger the business, the larger the sales tax revenue it generates for both the city and county.

That means if Nelson can’t develop commercial property because of the bypass route, the city loses out on a potential boost to its local sales tax base, while the county misses out on county-wide taxes.

According to Heber City Finance Director Sara Nagel, total general sales tax for the city in fiscal year 2024 amounted to $6.6 million. That’s revenue generated city-wide. She noted that the amount a business collects in sales tax isn’t necessarily the amount the city receives because the state redistributes a portion of sales tax revenue based on a formula that factors in population.

Nelson assumes that upwards of 16 businesses taking a hit from the bypass would then impact revenue for the city and the county. Economically, Nelson said the cost of the bypass road might be more than its worth. But according to Hancock, the local economy is something UDOT considers in the research process.

“There is an economic section [of the Environmental Impact Statement] where we do look at the economics that are associated with the two alternatives. And so that’s, that’s something that we do look at,” Hancock said, adding that UDOT would come up with a plan to address any changes to the economy once a route has been finalized.

According to a 2025 UDOT study of both alternatives, Alternative A would have fewer impacts on waters and wetlands (22.3 acres impacted overall) with a $590.4 million cost. Alternative B, which cuts through the North Fields, would total $583.9 million and impact 51.2 acres of waters, including canals, ditches, streams and wetlands. 

Will it work?

The purpose of the Heber Valley Corridor Project, as stated by UDOT, is to improve regional and local mobility on U.S. 40 from S.R. 32 to U.S. 189 “while allowing Heber City to meet their vision for the historic town center.”

Both the Heber City and Wasatch County councils have stated that one of the driving factors for the creation of the bypass road is to reduce traffic on Main Street. In October, Braceras said growth has made the situation untenable. 

The United States Census Bureau reported Heber City’s population to be just under 5,000 residents in 1990. It was estimated last year that Heber City’s population had quadrupled, with just over 19,000 residents. And that’s not including the 18,000-plus others residing elsewhere in Wasatch County. 

The big question is: Will a bypass solve Heber City’s Main Street traffic problem? 

Braceras himself said probably not. He said 75% of traffic is caused by local congestion. 

“People go line-of-sight. People will go the shortest distance from point A to point B, even if somebody tells them it’s quicker the other way,” Braceras said, adding later, “And so if you go out there and you count the traffic and say we’re only going to get 25% of that traffic off. Is it going to solve the problem? Because most of your traffic, over half of traffic, is internal.”

When the county articulated in 2024 that — if the bypass takes “two more years to figure out” — route options were likely to shrink rapidly, Braceras said UDOT will commit to doing more. 

“I will commit that we will push harder than we’ve done before, that we will move farther than we have before,” Braceras said. “And we will communicate better than we’ve done.”

The point, however, may be moot.

Traffic studies presented to the County Council in December showed that travelers might only save up to seven minutes of driving time. Research also shows that expanding highways results in “induced travel,” which sees a return in congestion about five to 10 years after the highway is widened. 

And, perhaps most importantly, there is no funding in the UDOT budget currently available to build the bypass road. According to Hancock, that’s because the Environmental Impact Statement needs to be completed before funding can be allocated. 

“There are a lot of options, lots of sources. There’s state funding, federal funding, local funding,” Hancock said, though adding, “I don’t think there’s been any, as far as I know, there hasn’t been any real discussion about how that funding will happen.” 

For North Fields landowners like Hicken, Wright and Gertsch, the biggest issue is not traffic — it’s how the land will change as a result of trying to reduce traffic. 

Heber’s future annexation

It’s Gertsch’s and Wright’s concern that, if Alternative B is chosen, Heber City would then choose to annex into the North Fields and up to the new highway. Mayor Heidi Franco said it has been assumed that Heber City would annex up to wherever the highway lands if a bypass route is constructed.

“It’s been a gentleman’s agreement with the county for, you know, more than a decade, before I came along, that Heber City would annex to wherever that bypass road came through,” Franco said. “They would annex to the north and the west and to the bypass, the future bypass road.”

Franco said how much Heber City has the potential to annex depends on where the bypass road goes in the future.

For Wright, that’s to be expected. He said that he has already been approached by developers who would want to purchase his land. At first, Wright said it was a firm “no.” Now, he’s not so sure. 

“I don’t know if I want to own a piece of property right on the edge of a four-lane highway, right?” Wright said. “Now I think it’s sort of a stand by and let’s see what happens with the highway … if they run a highway through my farmland, I don’t intend to continue to own it.”

When it comes down to it, Wright said he knows that UDOT will likely compensate him in one way or another. But, not harshly, Wright said it doesn’t matter so much to him. 

“It’s almost irrelevant relative to, you know, this property going from this beautiful rural parcel to what’s going to be an ugly highway through the middle of the North Fields,” Wright said. “So it doesn’t really matter what they pay me for the little piece of property that the actual highway is on.”

For Hicken, whose family history lies in his 25 acres of land, he and his family feel the same. 

“The real challenge is,” Hicken said. “How do we replace that?”

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The Swaner Preserve & EcoCenter hosted their annual Meet The Producers event Thursday evening, March 30, 2017. The event featured 22 local producers and allowed locals to meet, greet and sample a variety of fresh, local goods. (Tanzi Propst/Park Record)

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