While a groundbreaking ceremony has already happened for the proposed Heber Valley temple, and the county changed dark sky regulations at the LDS Church’s request, it still hasn’t been cleared to build.
Many in the area have praised the news of the future temple, while others have concerns it will block their views and add to the light pollution.
More recently, resident Alissa Haynes said she and other neighbors have concerns about water. Her questions formed after she read a church-funded study suggesting the proposed 200-foot-tall building site is in a floodplain, and will require “dewatering,” or pumping out groundwater so the area doesn’t flood with a multi-story new building on top.
“Our concern,” she said, “is all of that going into the creek, then it's going downstream and into the Provo River and then eventually down into the canyon. So it is not benefiting the Heber Valley for the, you know, the residents in Heber Valley, or for what's been removed from the aquifer or the groundwater.”
In late July, Wasatch County staff asked church planners for details, including how it will counteract the upward force of water in underground aquifers.
Core Architecture, in charge of designing the temple, said it will reveal the design for a deep foundation during the building permit process. The LDS Church media office declined KPCW’s requests for interviews about the dewatering study.
“When they talked to us about the requirements of building on that site,” said Dustin Grabau, Wasatch County manager, “our engineers indicated that they would need to examine water levels in order to build into the ground, and that's pretty typical in areas where we know there's a high water table.”
The study suggested the plan could require wells almost 40 feet deep, capable of pumping 500 to 700 gallons of water per minute. That would mean from 720,000 to 1,008,000 gallons per day. The study says builders would need to do that for four to eight weeks to prepare the ground.
After that first “dewatering” phase, the study says the flow rate should decrease dramatically, but it will still need to pump 150 to 250 gallons per minute, or 200,000 to 350,000 gallons a day, to keep the ground dry enough.
According to Grabau, the county is most likely to approve the project if it meets the legal requirements. He said the church does not have to own water rights to pump out groundwater for its building, and it’s something people in the neighboring Triple Crown neighborhood do regularly.
Grabau said the church will need to secure a “no-rise” permit from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which regulates floodplains. According to FEMA rules, “development is not allowed unless… [there is] no increase in flood elevations greater than 0.00 feet,” certified by a registered professional engineer.
Grabau also said if the church proposes to pump hundreds of thousands of gallons a day in the future, the county’s water board will determine whether the canal can handle it.
He said planners still want to iron out more details before they schedule the first planning commission meeting, then eventually a county council meeting to confirm the application.
“I believe that there are still some technical issues that they're working through with the development review committee,” Grabau said, “and that once they have resolved those technical issues, it'll then proceed to the planning commission. I don't think we have a specific date yet, but I think it will be in the near future.”
He said he expects the county to handle a site plan and development agreement applications from the church simultaneously in public meetings.
Haynes said she hopes the temple will eventually be built somewhere else, or at least that church planners will listen to her and other neighbors’ concerns.
“We have our doors open or phone lines open for communication, but we just haven't been able to get any responses from the church project manager or Core architects’ engineers,” she said. “They just have not been interested in talking with us.”
Grabau said the county will announce the first planning commission meeting for the site plan and development agreement application process as soon as it’s scheduled.
