Moroni tackles major secondary water issues

MORONI—Five years ago, the biggest challenge facing Moroni was rebuilding its culinary water system, including a new well, water tank and pipes between the well and tank.

The project started out costing $3.5 million, but primarily because of inflation in construction materials, when the project engineer pronounced the effort complete in 2025, the cost had come in at $6.1 million,

In past month, the city has started to face down its second biggest challenge—replacing its secondary irrigation system, parts of which are more than 50 years old.

In 2024, the city council cut off most new hookups to the system. “Sunrise Engineering has done a study of our system, and it’s maxed out,” Paul Bailey, the mayor at the time, said.

Bailey said some of the pipe was made of old-style materials and had become brittle. Frequently, when workers shut off part of the system to replace a leaking pipe, then turned the water on again, the pipe broke again. Bailey put the ballpark figure for replacing the system at $5 to $10 million.

A new mayor, Troy Prestwich, along with the council, elected in November 2025, has brought up the secondary system at several meetings this year.

“It’s a little overwhelming,” Councilman Fred Atkinson said following a meeting in February. But the first step, everyone agreed, was to commission an engineering study to map out what needed to be done and what it would cost.

That study is now happening. Between February and August, the city applied to the Utah Community Impact Board (CIB) for planning money and was awarded $38,000 on condition the city come up with a $38,000 match.

Justin Atkinson, an engineer with Sunrise Engineering of Fillmore, the city’s primary consulting engineering firm, and Councilman Atkinson (the two happen to be brothers) presented the project to the Sanpete Water Conservancy District (SWCD), which receives property tax funds for water projects in the county.

The Conservancy District awarded the study $30,400, which can go toward the required $38,000 match. That left $7,600 to complete the CIB match. Moroni City will pull those funds out of its regular budget.

At a council meeting Aug. 18, Justin Atkinson said the $76,000 study would include determining current and future system needs; identifying water sources required; figuring out where and how to store the water; and determining what pipe and other materials would be needed to rebuild the system. And, of course, estimating the cost.

The study would also include an “impact fee analysis” to determine if the city can impose an impact fee on new hookups to the system, just as cities do on new homes and buildings to cover infrastructure costs.

The council approved a “work release,” essentially authorizing Sunrise Engineering to go ahead with what is being called the “Secondary Irrigation Master Plan and Impact Fee Analysis.”

If and when a new secondary system goes into operation, the city will be assured that each household or business user will pay its fair share for operations and for water.

In 2022 and 2023, the Utah Legislature passed bills requiring all secondary irrigation water to be metered so users can be charged based on use, just as culinary water is metered. The state offered grants to cover some of the costs of purchasing and installing the meters.

Moroni determined it needed to install about 500 meters. By 2024, the city had installed one-third of the meters. By 2025, about two-thirds of the required meters were in.

At a Moroni City Council meeting last Thursday, Sept.17, Mayor Prestwich announced, “We’re real close to getting the metered irrigation done. We’re almost there.”