New battle is brewing over land for a highway

LEHI — Standing at the edge of frozen Utah Lake, surrounded by towering cattails and a stunning view of the valley's mountains, it's hard to imagine a six-lane highway in the area.

But a battle between environmental conservationists and the Utah Department of Transportation over this swath of land is about to be waged, and the Sierra Club says the entire northeastern portion of Utah Lake's wetlands are at stake.

At issue is the Mountain View Corridor, a proposed road that will run from I-80, near the Salt Lake Airport, down to northwest Utah County, where it will connect with I-15. UDOT is looking at four main options for that connection, from which they will ultimately choose two.

Two of the connector options suggest building a road along 2100 North and 1000 South in Lehi, which would bypass Utah Lake's wetlands. The other two current options, 1500 South and 1900 South in Lehi, are located within the wetland scope.

To defend the wetlands, Sierra Club southwest regional representative Mark Heileson says the club will launch a "full-on public education campaign" that will be reminiscent of their stance against the Legacy Parkway.

Heileson says he has already started working to gain support from local residents and duck hunters in the area who use the lake.

"(UDOT) has the entire northern end of Utah County to work with," Heileson said. "They have chosen, arbitrarily, the wetlands as the route. They could easily go north in several different locations and identify different corridors that would completely miss this wetland system."

Officials at UDOT say they welcome the concerns from Heileson and other groups. The agency is in the middle of a process where they are gathering public input to determine the best place to build Mountain View, said project manager Teri Newell.

UDOT is well aware of the wetland issue, she said. But at the same time, moving the southern alignment farther north puts the road in the way of homes. It's a matter of balance, in terms of trying to impact as few homes and wetlands as possible, Newell said.

In total, the Utah County segment of the highway could displace up to 200 homes. According to UDOT, a recently updated 1500 South option could impact 57.7 acres of wetlands, but conservation biologist and Lehi resident Ryan Barker says that number is an underestimation.

"You could actually have parts of (the) wetland dry up, and obviously if you fragment part of the wetlands on one side, if it dries up, you can lose all of the wildlife on that side," Barker said. "It affects a huge swath, more than they are letting on, really."