$6M Project, at times biggest ‘headache,’ now ranks as biggest accomplishment

By Suzanne Dean and John Hales

            MORONI—Earlier this year Moroni City completed “final cleanup items” on a $6 million expansion of the culinary water system, unquestionably the biggest project in city history.

            On the whole, the project went smoothly. But there were times, especially at the beginning, when the project seemed to be the biggest headache in city history.

            Yet on the spring day in 2024 when Brennan Russell, Moroni public works director, turned everything on, and water from a new well flowed into a new 600,000-gallon water tank, and from there into people’s homes, the project had to rate as one of the biggest accomplishments in Moroni history.

            “It took four and a half years,” Russell says.   

            “It was a long process. They all are,” says Councilman Thayne “Fred” Atkinson, whose council role includes oversight of capital projects.

Typical of local projects

            The Moroni project, with its challenges, is typical of public works projects launched and managed, year in and year out, by towns throughout the county.

            Part-time mayors and city council members, with help from consulting engineering firms, decide what projects will include, find funding, award bids, solve the problems that come up and pay the invoices, one by one, as they’re presented.

            In 2020, Moroni had two culinary wells, Well No. 2 drilled 1965 and Well No. 3 installed in the 1980s. Water from the older well had a nitrate level above the 10 parts per million (1 gallon of nitrates per 1 million gallons of water) permitted by the EPA. In Well No. 3, the nitrate level was 1 part per million.

            As long as Moroni mixed water from the two sources, the town complied with EPA requirements and the public was safe. Then in February 2020, the pump on Well No. 3 broke down so it wasn’t possible to get any water out of the well. Well No. 2, with the high nitrates, became the town’s only water source.

            Babies 6 months or younger, including babies in gestation, cannot process nitrates. They develop blue baby syndrome and if untreated may die. Moroni put out a warning for pregnant women and babies under 6 months not to drink tap water.

Needed two wells

            Within a month, a new well pump had been installed, the city started mixing water from its two wells again, and nitrated readings stopped. But the incident served as a wakeup call. “Where we rely strictly on wells for culinary, we knew we needed to have two good wells,” Councilman Atkinson says.

            More than that, the town was growing. It not only needed a better source of water, it needed more water period. And more water required a bigger tank. And it happened that state grant money was available for water systems.

            The city council asked Sunrise Engineering, its primary consulting engineering firms, to update the town’s water master plan. By mid 2020, Sunrise had completed a 50-page study reporting on the town’s available water rights, population projections and tank capacity.

            The final recommendation was for what turned out to be an eight-part project, including: (1) a new well, (2) a 600,000-gallon water tank, (3) an overflow line connecting the water tank to the city irrigation pond in case of an accidental tank overflow, (4) a 2-mile pipeline running along city streets between the new well and the new tank, (5) a well house containing controls for the new well (6) a new SCADA system (“supervisory control and data acquisition) for monitoring all components of the system, (7) a backup generator to keep both Well No. 3 and the new well pumping in a power outage, and (8) more than 50 new valves on water pipes throughout the city.

            “It will be a good project that will ensure the city has a good quality source,” Trent Brown, the project manager for Sunrise Engineering told the city council at the time. “It’s good for the city to be proactive in planning.”

“We needed something to supplement our irrigation system anyway. And we needed something where if our tank overflowed, it wasn’t going to flood homes and damage property. Sunrise found a way…where we could capture that water and use it in our irrigation system.”

Brennan Russell, Moroni public works director, regarding an overflow pipeline that was part of the Moroni water project.

Hired Sunrise Engineering

            In November 2020, the Moroni City Council hired Sunrise Engineering to design the new system, including writing an application for funding to the Utah Division of Drinking Water (DDW).

            DDW awarded a grant for just over $1 million and a loan for $2.48 million to be repaid over 30 years at 1% interest. Total funding came to $3,535,000. The loan would require an annual payment of $106,000.

            In March 2021, a little more than a year after the nitrate water crisis, the city council approved the whole project, including the funding obligations. To afford the loan payment, the council raised water rates an average of $11.50 per household per month and imposed the $3,244 water impact fee on new homes constructed in the city.

            “It is hard, because when we do these types of projects, it is coming back on the citizens of Moroni to pay for it, not just the new ones coming in,” Councilman Atkinson says. “But people understand it’s part of being in these small communities.”

            Under the direction of Sunrise Engineering, the city broke the project into two parts: first the well and then everything else, including the pipeline and tank.

            In August 2021, Moroni awarded a contract for $491,264 to White Mountain Operating Co., a drilling company from Pinedale, Wyo., for the new well. White Mountain started drilling a test well in a known water aquifer north of the Mud Boggs and near Well No. 3.

            Two months later, in October 2021, Robert Worley, vice president of Sunrise Engineering had a rosy report for the city council. The test well was “really promising,” he said, with a nitrated level of 0.7 parts per million, lower than Well No. 3.

            White Mountain should be able to start drilling a production well by December 2021, he said. And he predicted construction of the pipeline and tank could begin the next spring and be completed in 6-8 months, or by the end of 2022. But because of obstacles that came up, the prediction proved to be off by nearly two years.

Source protection zone

            State regulations require municipalities to have vacant land, called a “source protection zone,” around a culinary well. At the same meeting where Worley reported on the success of the test well, the city council voted to purchase about 200 square feet of land from Sheldon Holgreen, a local resident, for $15,000.

            But in December 2021, when White Mountain was supposed to be drilling the big new well that would actually serve the city, delays cropped up.

            It took time to close on purchase of the source-protection land. But until the city could show it had title to the land, DDW would not draw up loan documents for the city to sign. And without signed documents, the state wouldn’t release any of the loan funds.

            While waiting, the Moroni City Council decided to take a $30,000 risk. Based on the test well results, the city and engineers were confident enough about the water source to direct White Mountain to expand the test well into a production well. But before beginning a production well, White Mountain needed $30,000 worth of pipe.

            If White Mountain waited until the city was able to sign the loan with the state, and for funding to be released, before ordering the pipe, and then, in the face of post-COVID supply-chain problems, waiting for pipe to arrive, drilling of the production well, and thus the whole project, could be delayed six months or longer.

            So the city decided to order and buy the pipe itself. If anything went wrong and the pipe couldn’t be used, the city would be stuck with the cost. “I think it’s unanimous,” Mayor Paul Bailey said at a council meeting. “All six of us [the mayor and five council members] think it [the pipe] should be ordered.”

            By February 2022, two years after the nitrate crisis that precipitated the whole project, the city had met DDW requirements and signed loan papers, and drilling on the production well had begun.

“I think it’s unanimous. All six of us (the mayor and five council members) think it (the pipe) should be ordered.”

Mayor Paul Bailey at the time the city ordered $30,000 worth of pipe before the well where the pipe would be used had been approved by the state.

More problems

            Then more problems. A headline in the Sanpete Messenger on Feb. 17, 2022, said it all. “Moroni forced to drill major well three times.”

            To drill the production well, White Mountain needed to enlarge the hole where it had drilled the test well from 8 inches to 12 inches. But the 8-inch casing White Mountain used for the test well, essentially a pipe that holds back dirt, wouldn’t come out.

            “After sitting for months, sometimes they (casings) just won’t come out,” says Trent Brown, the Moroni project manager for Sunrise Engineering. White Mountain gave up, and as required under state regulations, plugged the hole with concrete.

            The driller moved 10 feet to the south of the first well and drilled another hole. The company started positioning a casing, with a screen across the bottom to prevent extraneous materials from getting into the well water. Workers put the casing and screen into the well hole.

            That’s when the drill got lodged in the screen. Workers worked through the night trying to pull the drill out of the screen—and the casing and screen out of the well. Most of the screen and casing came out, but some of it remained stuck in the hole. “The well needed to be plugged and abandoned,” Brown says.

            White Mountain had to move another 10 feet to drill the third hole. That required the city to buy a little more land at a cost of $2,100. But the third attempt worked. The well was established at the third site. With the well already delayed, White Mountain worked 24 hours a day for about a month to get it completed.  

            The council voted 4-1 to pay White Mountain $16,000 for some of the costs of abandoning and plugging the test well. The company didn’t request extra money for plugging the second well.

            “Drilling a well, there are no guarantees,” Councilman Atkinson says. “You’re always expecting the worst. But White Mountain, they were great…They really went above and beyond to get that well going. And it’s a great well. We’ve got tons of water, good water.”  

            While the final well was being drilled, the city, supported by Sunrise, put the second part of the project—the pipeline, tank, etc.—out to bid. The second phase was expected to account for 90 percent of project costs. 

Sticker shock

            That’s when Moroni got sticker shock. “The price was $2 million more [than the Sunrise estimate] because of materials cost,” Councilman Atkinson says. “Everything had skyrocketed.”

            Sunrise went back to the DDW, and after negotiations, the agency approved supplemental funding in the form of another $1,178,000 grant and $1,179,000 loan, increasing total approved funding from $3,535,000 to $5,892,000.

            “From June through September 2022, we were chasing additional funding,” Trent Brown recalls. A “notice to proceed” was issued Oct. 4, 2022. “That’s when we authorized the last phase of construction to begin.”

Awards $4.14M

            By then, the city had awarded a contract for $4.14 million covering all work except the well to Terry R. Brotherson Excavating of Mt. Pleasant. The Brotherson company subcontracted the tank and well house to Dale Cox Contracting of Manti.

            Notably, consulting engineers, such as Sunrise Engineering, have a very broad role in public works projects. In the Moroni project, the company was responsible not just for deciding what to build and where to build it, but for the science, logistics and financial supervision of the project.

            Sunrise had to make sure the well pump would pump water through the pipeline at sufficient pressure to push the water up a steep hill and into the new tank with no supplementary pumps or lift stations. The company had to map the route of the underground pipeline so it would have the fewest conflicts with utilities already in the ground.

            All invoices from contractors went to Sunrise first, which verified that the contractor involved had completed the work invoiced, such as putting in a certain number of feet of pipe. Once verified, the invoices were forward to the city council for approval and payment.

            The site for the new tank was on the lower part of a mountain at the far north end of 100 West. Over the winter of 2022, the Brotherson company put in the overflow line between the tank and the irrigation pond.

“Drilling a well, there are no guarantees. You’re always expecting the worst. But White Mountain (the drilling company), they were great…They really went above and beyond to get that well going. And it’s a great well. We’ve got tons of water, good water.”

Councilman Thayne Atkinson

Supplement irrigation

            “We needed something to supplement our irrigation system anyway,” Russell, the public works director, explains. “And we needed something where if our tank overflowed, it wasn’t going to flood homes and damage property. Sunrise found a way…where we could capture that water and use it in our irrigation system.”

            The tank was installed in the spring and summer of 2023. “The tanks are pretty cut and dried,” Councilman Atkinson says. “(Contractors) know what they need to do. They (tank projects) are usually fairly slick.”

            At the time the new tank went in, Moroni had two other tanks, one holding 180,000 gallons and one with a 500,000-gallon capacity. After the new tank went into operation, the 180,000-gallon tank was abandoned. The city now has 1.1 million gallons of water storage.

            The next step was the pipeline, constructed of 12-inch-wide pipe. Both Atkinson and Russell say the work went smoothly. The contractor followed the Sunrise map, but “we ran into a few difficulties because we as a city didn’t know where our other utilities [power and sewer] were” along a particular road, Russell says. “There were a few times we had to stop…and realign, move further to the east or west.”

            By the end of the summer, Terry Brotherson Excavating had submitted invoices for $4.14 million. City council members flinched a little when they received requests for $400,000 to $500,000 at nearly every meeting. But considering the total project cost, Atkinson says, “You’re going to get invoices that are $500,000.”

            Toward the end of 2023, Dale Cox Contracting put in the well house, a concrete building, perhaps a few hundred square feet, which houses the controls for the well and well pump.

            That’s when another wrinkle came up. The city asked Rocky Mountain Power to run power to the building, which was located a few hundred feet from the well.

            Part of the power line could run along a road. But at a certain point, where the line hit private property, the city agreed to put the line underground. At a meeting Oct. 19, 2023, the city council approved a $35,000 addendum to Terry Brotherson’s contract to trench for the power line.

            At the same meeting, the city council approved a contract for $109,000 for the new SCADA system. That included installing sensors at the well house, each of the two tanks, the three wells and the irrigation pond. Data from the sensors is transmitted to a computer on Brenan Russell’s desk in the Public Works Building north of the Pitman processing plant, enabling him to monitor water system operation, such as how full the tanks are at any given time.

            In March 2024, the state issued an operating permit for the system. Russell said he can’t remember the date when he turned everything on. Despite the time-length, cost and difficulties the city had overcome, there wasn’t any fanfare.

            “All that day was switching valves over to come into the system. We did our final walkthrough with the Division of Drinking Water. Everything was ready to go.”

            Water from the new well started filling the new tank and running from there into people’s homes. But the customers “never knew the difference,” he says.

            The final, final component of the project was replacing valves, estimated to be 40-50 years old, on water pipes throughout the city. The city awarded a supplementary contract to Brotherson for the work, which was done in fall, 2023, and spring and summer 2024.

            The valves were so old they wouldn’t turn. When there was a pipe break or the city needed to work on the water pipes, “We couldn’t just shut a block off. We had to shut the system off. The whole city,” Russell says.   

            “Now we’ve got 19 isolation zones,” each of which can be segregated from other parts of town, “to do repairs or whatever.”

            In an interview in January 2025, Trent Brown, the project manager for Sunrise, said the project was “substantially complete.” He said the final cost had come in at $6.01 million.

            So, after four-plus years, what’s the bottom line?

            “When you’re supplying culinary water, you gotta do what you gotta do,” Councilman Atkinson says. “It’s part of what a city is. You’ve got to take care of it, because it’s a service that can’t go away.