Davis, North S.L. clash on refinery

NORTH SALT LAKE — A political tug-of-war over who governs Chevron land is making company officials nervous about a planned $30 million investment.

Davis County has the land, North Salt Lake wants it and neither side will budge. Chevron plans to invest $30 million to retrofit its current refinery to make government-mandated sulfur-free gasoline.

North Salt Lake leaders call that "urban development" and say that state law dictates the refinery be annexed into the city. Davis County and Chevron officials disagree, calling the project a basic retrofit and not new development.

"As Governor Huntsman and others would say, they want to invite capital, especially from some of these major firms like ours into the state," said Dan Johnson, Chevron's government and public affairs manager for the Rocky Mountain states. "We are trying to do just that. Then we have this situation here where we are being asked to invest, and North Salt Lake sees it as an opportunity to annex us, and we're not sure why they think that's good public policy."

But he won't go as far to say that Chevron could pull the old refinery, which has been at the Davis County site since 1948, out of operation in Utah.

"We've had a long-standing refinery here; we want to make this work," he said. "But we need certain things to be able to succeed. We need some certainty about our investment and about our ability to invest in this state."

The old refinery has been a southern Davis County mainstay for more than 50 years.

What jurisdiction the Chevron land resides on has been debated for decades. In the 1960s and '80s, North Salt Lake and Chevron battled over whether the refinery should sit within city borders, but Chevron continually prevailed in the court system.

North Salt Lake City Manager Collin Wood said the city provides enough services to the refinery site that Chevron should pay city property taxes and reside within city boundaries.

"Even if they don't put it into the city, we're still going to end up servicing them," Wood said.

But Chevron officials said historically the city has not provided municipal services, considering the main entrance to the refinery is via a road in Salt Lake County.

Johnson said Chevron has its own fire department and pays the county every year to defray any possible costs associated with fires that county fire services might assist on.

"What would be any services that North Salt Lake would provide to us?" Johnson said. "We can't fathom that."

City officials said it's not property tax dollars they are after. In an interview with the Deseret Morning News, Wood said the city would contribute any additional property taxes to the project of Chevron's choice.