03/04/2026
🤠 Last week to submit comments and tell UDOT a hard NO to alternative B! We’re making it easy to submit your comment! Just copy the first paragraph and paste it in an email [email protected]. If you want to add any of the additional 7 points, just copy and paste those as well! Thank you for loving the Heber Valley- It’s now up to us to protect it. 🌾🐴🐄. Dear UDOT: As a Utah taxpayer, I urge UDOT to remove Alternative B from consideration. It fails to meet NEPA, Clean Water Act, and LEDPA requirements and exposes taxpayers to unnecessary long-term financial and environmental costs. Less damaging, fiscally responsible alternatives exist and were not meaningfully pursued. 1. Non-Compliance with Environmental Law - Alternative B impacts more wetlands, springs, irrigation infrastructure, and aquifer recharge zones than other feasible options. Lower-impact alternatives, including those proposed by the North Fields Irrigation Company, were not properly advanced as required under LEDPA standards. 2. Foregone Conservation Opportunity - UDOT refused to adjust the project boundary to accommodate a federally funded NRCS conservation easement, disrupting plans to permanently protect nearly 300 acres of prime farmland. 3. Incomplete Cost Disclosure - The EIS omits substantial costs, including utility relocation, irrigation reconstruction, agricultural crossings, stormwater infrastructure, and long-term maintenance — obscuring the project’s true fiscal impact. 4. Understated Growth and Traffic Impacts - Induced growth is under-modeled. Highways generate development, and development generates traffic. Main Street congestion is largely local and will not be meaningfully solved by a bypass that simultaneously accelerates growth and doesnt account for the mass East-side developments. 5. Irreversible Agricultural Loss - Alternative B converts prime farmland to pavement at the highest rate among options, fragments working farms, and relies on vague mitigation measures inconsistent with the Farmland Protection Policy Act and state land-use policies. 6. Water and Air Risk - The route cuts through aquifer recharge zones and wetlands that naturally filter runoff. A 65-mph design increases pavement width, noise, dangerous wildlife accidents, and the pollutant load running into groundwater and the Provo River. 7. Misaligned Public Purpose - The alignment prioritizes regional through-traffic and resort access over local mobility, contrary to adopted city and county preservation goals.⸻Alternative B maximizes environmental harm, fiscal exposure, and long-term development pressure while offering limited traffic relief. UDOT must select the least damaging, fiscally responsible alternative — one that protects water, farmland, air quality, and the rural character that defines the Heber Valley. Sincerely,
