By Rebecca Dopp
Times-News Correspondent
There may be more to it than just transferring some county roads to any entity. Seth Atkinson, Nephi City administrator, said that there was an agreement between Nephi City and Juab County for easements for the natural gas line on county roads. “As you know,” Atkinson said, “Nephi City operates the main line natural gas system for all of East Juab County. It was put into place back in the ‘90s through an interlocal agreement between Levan, Nephi, Mona and Juab County. It’s pretty unique in all of the state of Utah. There’s only one other municipal natural gas system in all the state of Utah and that’s Blanding.” In order to benefit the system, along with all the entities, this agreement—which was put in place in 1991—granted Nephi City access to county roads to install, remove, construct or maintain natural gas pipelines so they could perpetuate the gas system and benefit all residents in East Juab County. The agreement was not recorded, but it was made and put into the minutes for each entity back in 1991. “It has benefitted us,” he said. “We’ve been able to maintain that gas system very easily. Nephi City acts as that agent for the main line.” He said that as the county commission looks at potentially transferring county roads to any entity, they needed to make that entity aware of the agreement and to make sure it was referenced within any new agreement. “We have this one in place right now, but also, every entity would then know when these are transferred that this is in place and these easements are on those county roads and will be transferred. That will help us perpetuate the maintenance that we need for the gas system going into the future.” This is an important step, he said, especially after the event this past summer when the wildfires endangered the main gate station in Payson. “We were extremely fortunate in that Dominion Energy was able to pack our main line with gas several times during the course of this fire, but had the wind shifted, or that fire done something different, that would not have been the case, and we could have potentially run out of gas all over East Juab County,” he said, They would have had to go all over the county to relight pilot lights with an extremely limited staff, he said. They estimated that work would have taken a few months to get done. Nephi City has been working on installing a redundant gas line so that they would have a secondary source of gas if the other had to be shut off for some reason. The gas shut off over the summer was especially hard on commercial customers. Nephi City appreciated everyone conserving where they could. They hope they will not be put into that position again. A copy of this agreement had been passed along to the county attorney. The agreement covers existing gas lines as well as any future gas lines. Atkinson said that when the agreement had been made, Bob Steele and Randy McKnight (then Nephi City Mayor and city administrator respectively) who had been instrumental in putting the agreement in place, said the map that accompanied the agreement referenced all the county roads at the time, in 1991. Atkinson felt the intent was that the agreement would apply to any new or additional county roads. “So we can all benefit from the expansion of the gas system,” he said. “This benefits everyone in East Juab County.” County commissioners thanked Nephi City for making them aware of the agreement and said they would work with the county attorney as the transfer of roads proceeds. Back in December, Mona City requested the transfer of county roads—from the city/county line, north and south in Mona, and 200 North to the city line—from Juab County to Mona City. They would take over all responsibility for the roads within their city limits. Commissioners said they supported that request and would instruct county attorney Ryan Peters to prepare an agreement.
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