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Show Sewer Solution ? Editors Note: The following is - a proposal for possible funding for the Snyderville Basin Sewer Improvement District submitted to the Planning Commission by Commissioner Wayne Iverson. The possibility of full public funding for the Snyderville Basin Sewer Improvement District through the 1076 Public Works Bill and ttie EPA, and points raised in "The Growth Shapers", a booklet concerning secondary effects of sewer projects, have, once again, raised my concern about the alternative chosen, by the Sewer District. The Sewer project will drastically drasti-cally influence land use in the Snyderville Area by changingboth the supply of developable land and the demand for development. It will influence the land supply-primarily supply-primarily by greatly lowering the cost of development (the developer devel-oper will not have to install septic tanks or package systems at his own expense). It will change the demand for development by changing the attractiveness of the farmland in the Snyderville Area for low density, deapfrog residential resi-dential development. Sewers have a powerful effect on the location, pattern, and timing tim-ing of single family residential development. New development is attracted to areas served by sewers for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that such development may be , deliberately encouraged in new sewer' service areas in order to pay off construction and maintenance main-tenance costs, bonds, etc. through user charges and connection fees. High federal subsidies encourage encour-age systems with large excess .capacity for growth. They also tend to favor large projects that open up large areas for development develop-ment all at once. This tends to . promote low density, single family fam-ily subdivisions. The proposed sewer will service extensive amounts of vacant land in the Snyderville Area where the individual in-dividual parcels are large. Not only will the induced development develop-ment likely be of low density, but significant amounts of leap frogging will also occur as developers de-velopers search for the lowest priced available parcels. Basically, Basic-ally, the current proposal will mean urban type sprawl in the Snyderville Area. Sprawl is costly. It greatly increases economic, environmental, environ-mental, and social costs. (See The Cost of Sprawl" by the Council on Environmental Quality Qual-ity for specific cost figures.) Sprawl development is significantly signifi-cantly more expensive to service than compact .planned development. develop-ment. There are more roads and utilities to maintain to mention only a couple of increased costs. Costs per capita will rise. Existing Exist-ing residents wind uppayingmore money for the same level of service they received before because be-cause they are paying for facil- ( Please turn to page sixteen ) . , more sewer ( Continued from page four ) sewer being constructed) Phase 2 could be undertaken. I believe this alternative is in the best interests of the whole community commun-ity economically, environmentally environment-ally and socially. It would preserve pre-serve the regional concept for sewer systems, that the Environmental Environ-mental ProtectionAgency favors, as well. I hope this will receive your full consideration. A generation after he invented in-vented the telephone, Alexander Alex-ander Graham Bell looked back on the good old days for a graduating high school class in 1917. "I, myself, am not so very old yet," he reminisced, 'but I can remember the days when there were no telephones." ities (not just sewer) built to service future populations. The only positive thing of significance signifi-cance that sprawl as opposed to compact development brings is decreased fire hazard. This trade off, though important, does not seem to be enough. Ironically, by tending to attract at-tract extensive development, sewers may create several environmental en-vironmental problems in solving one. Low density, leapfrog developments develop-ments have increased air pollution pollu-tion since they have higher pollution pol-lution emmission rates (mainly from increased transportation and heating) and less open space for absorbing pollution than more dense, compact, planned development. develop-ment. Higher density development develop-ment tends to decrease water pollution since it results in less impermeable surface and, consequently, con-sequently, less run-off per dwelling dwel-ling unit. The unplanned sprawl pattern characteristically induced in-duced in newer sewer areas has a particularly low energy efficiency effi-ciency under current technology. Most of this energy waste comes from increased use of transportation transpor-tation and heating fuel. . The social impact in the Sny-derville Sny-derville Area would result in a trend away from farming and toward purely residential uses. This would lead to a realignment of the communities' political and economic system. The original social structure would be exchanged ex-changed for a new one. In addition, addi-tion, a valuable resource, productive pro-ductive farmland, as well as open space, would be taken out of production in a time of growing grow-ing population and diminishing resources. There is, currently, no zoning in the Snyderville Area. But zoning zon-ing by itself is unlikely to keep an area out of development if sewer service is available anyway. any-way. Courts tend to feel that access to a sewer, which, after all, is a public health facility, should not be denied to anyone who wants it. The decision to build the sewer as planned would effectively negate any attempt to keep the land from beingdevelop-ed beingdevelop-ed by zoning. The answer to these problems can be solved to a great degree de-gree by proper phasing of the sewer system. In the Environmental Environ-mental Impact Statement of the proposed sewer plan, three alternatives al-ternatives are explored. Alternative Alter-native IB was chosen mainly because be-cause it represented the lowest primary economic cost. However, How-ever, none of the secondary costs mentioned above were considered. consider-ed. If these equally important costs are considered, I feel alternative al-ternative 2B, if phased differently, differ-ently, would come out to be the best choice. The recommended phasing would be as follows: - Phase 1 - increase the Park City treatment plant and solve the infiltration problem. Phase 2 - Construct the east canyon plant, a collection system for Summit Park, and build the outfall lines linking Snyderville and Summit Park to the east canyon facility. Phase 3 - Phases 2 & 3 as proposed in the original EE combined. com-bined. This phasing scheme would contain growth within Park City, where services can most economically eco-nomically be provided, until it was substantially developed. Then, when the consequent real demand existed (not the artificial demand caused because of the |
