Planners revoke permit for a new sewage plant

RIVERTON — A conditional-use permit for a new sewage-treatment plant along the Jordan River obtained in March after months of deadlock and a 4-3 vote by city planners was revoked Wednesday by the city's zoning appeals board.

The Riverton Board of Adjustments voted 3-1 to grant an appeal of the city's planning commission decision to allow the sewer district to build a plant in the Jordan River bottoms at about 13500 South.

"The whole thing stunk," board member Bryon Dangerfield told the Deseret Morning News after Wednesday's vote. "We just didn't find it fit where it was proposed."

The appeal can be appealed in 3rd District Court by the district, a step the district "absolutely" will take, said sewer district general manager Craig White.

Any new plant must be approved in the county's federally mandated 208 Plan, a water-quality management plan. The County Council held a public hearing on the issue last week and will hold another Nov. 14.

Jeff Salt, a spokesman for Citizens for Responsible Water Resource, the group that made the appeal in August, praised Wednesday's vote.

"This is vindication that the citizens were correct that the sewer district failed to demonstrate the need for building the plant along the Jordan River," Salt said. "We feel that the planning commission certainly erred in granting the permit because of the impact it would cause on the existing neighborhoods and the character of the neighborhood and the Jordan River Parkway."

The district is a part owner of South Valley Wastewater Treatment Facility in West Jordan, but because of recent rapid growth in the southern suburbs the district is dumping more sewage into the plant than it has contracted for. With growth projected to continue, district officials insist they need a new plant — and fast.

The Riverton site, they say, is the best available site because of the natural slope of the valley toward the river, and Riverton water officials tout the projections that the proposed plant would be a boon to secondary water for irrigation.

But CRWRP says there are plenty of other opportunities that won't bring the aesthetic and environmental blight they predict would be caused at the Riverton site. At recent county meetings on the subject, the group has suggested looking at building a plant in the northwest part of the valley, near Kennecott Utah Copper's tailings pond.