End sought to sewage-plant fight

RIVERTON — Threats of legislative involvement and a moratorium on new sewer connections have elected leaders seeking a speedy solution to the nearly three-year battle over a proposed sewage treatment plant.

South Valley Sewer District general manager Craig White said a bill being drafted for the upcoming legislative session seeks to make treatment facilities — both water and waste water — permitted uses.

White declined to name the bill's sponsor Thursday, saying he was awaiting confirmation from the lawmaker.

Sewer-district officials have been working since March 2002 to get approval for a treatment plant in Riverton to keep up with growth in its service area — roughly the southern third of Salt Lake County.

The Riverton Board of Adjustments' decision in November 2005 to revoke the conditional-use permit for the plant has sparked a legal battle that's headed to the state Court of Appeals.

If the bill goes before the Legislature and passes, White said the sewer district's battle with Riverton residents over the conditional-use permit "would completely go out the window ... We wouldn't need a conditional-use permit," he said.

Elsewhere, another possible solution is brewing.

Riverton Mayor Bill Applegarth has organized three sit-downs over the past two weeks among city leaders, sewer district representatives and residents who have opposed the facility being built in the Jordan River bottoms at 13500 South.

At the last of those meetings, held Thursday, residents said they would support the treatment plant being built at the Riverton site if the sewer district builds a smaller, odor-free facility that uses membrane technology.

Such a facility could be built on about half of the 20 acres needed at build-out for the sewer district's proposed treatment plant.

In addition, sewage treated at the suggested facility would result in a higher quality of water that could be immediately discharged into secondary-water systems of surrounding communities.

"It's a very proven technology," White said.

The only hang-up is the cost, he said. The price tag for a sewage-treatment plant using membrane technology is about $130 million — $50 million more than the proposed conventional facility.

White said some of the sewer district board members have balked at the increased cost.