EPHRAIM—A current agricultural well may be converted for residential water use as early as this summer, doubling the city’s well water supply, if drillers and supplies can be found, Ephraim City Development Director Bryan Kimball told the council at last week’s city council meeting.
Kimball said, “We have had a hard time finding drillers who could do this project and will review the two bids that have been submitted next week, one from a company in Hurricane, the other from Enterprise.”
The city has funding from grants for the water expansion project, allowing them to drill out the existing 30-foot-deep area around the existing well down to 100 feet, without damaging the existing casing. “It takes specialized equipment and experience to do this project, but if we can find the right company, we could really use the water this summer,” Kimball explained. The city would like to start the project in March.
Water and growth seem to come up every meeting in the Ephraim City Council, a theme which continued this meeting as the city granted a conditional use permit for Soap Creek, a company at 67 E. 400 South, to put new storage facilities on their property.
Ephraim City Planner Devan Fowles explained that the company, which has 41 employees, has had to store their inventory all over the county and state. They want to be able to keep their products in Ephraim, and they want to accomplish that by constructing two new buildings on their property.
The planning and zoning board recommended the council grant the request, with conditions involving sewer line extensions. A current sewer line goes from an adjacent apartment complex under where one of the buildings will be built, so the sewer lines will be modified and extended to join in with an existing line near the Original Garage property.
The council also considered employee parking, fencing, and other conditions of the permit, and eventually approved the request.
Following up on a previous council meeting, the council adopted an amendment of the city’s land use ordinance, specifying where commercial storage units could be built. It was affirmed that storage units are limited to commercial and industrial zoned areas.
The council also approved a request from Sanpete County for a parking area near the mouth of Ephraim Canyon that would handle snowmobile access to the canyon. The area is near two ropes courses and will allow snowmobiles to go into the mountains along an alternate route other than the main Canyon Road.
An update to the master transportation plan for the city was postponed to a later council meeting.
