This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
North Salt Lake • Hundreds of upscale homes nestle on the hills of this south Davis County city, but now the mountainside also bears hefty scars from pipeline construction that will continue through the summer.
"It got a little ravaged," North Salt Lake Mayor Len Arave said of the Wild Rose Trailhead Park, situated in the path of current construction. "The trail meandered up through the trees — now it meanders up through a big gash in the mountainside. We weren't very happy about that, but it is what it is."
For safety reasons, recreational use of that section of the Wild Rose Trail has been suspended, said Chris Bias, director of expansion projects for Salt Lake City-based Kern River Gas Transmission Co.
City-owned land earmarked for a future park now serves as the staging area for the massive project — storing pipe, helicopters and other heavy machinery.
Arave said he has received some emails and phone calls about the construction.
"It's having some impact with additional truck traffic and the helicopters," he said. "People aren't real happy, but I think they're making progress."
Stephanie Russell, who lives near the staging area on Skyline Drive, said construction is "pretty noisy," adding that Kern River will "have to plant a lot more trees to get it back to where it was."
Work began last October on both ends of Kern River's $374 million "Wasatch Loop" — part of the company's Apex Transmission Project to add pipe from Morgan County's East Canyon Reservoir through the mountains above Bountiful and North Salt Lake to Salt Lake City International Airport.
In early May, grading and trenching began in south Davis County. Along with cranes and other equipment, a heavy-lift helicopter is used to lug steel pipe from the North Salt Lake staging lot to areas along the foothills. The 36-inch pipes weigh 200 pounds per foot, Bias said, and some joints are 80 feet long.
When finished, the 28-mile Wasatch Loop will fill the gap in the redundant pipeline that Kern River installed in 2003 to double transmission capacity between Kemmerer, Wyo., and Daggett, Calif. The second conduit runs parallel to much of its existing 1,680-mile pipeline, laid in the early 1990s.
The Wasatch Loop will boost capacity by 12 percent, Bias said. The Apex project also adds a new compression station near Milford in Beaver County and modifies existing stations elsewhere. Kern River intends to have the pipeline up and running by Nov. 1.
Depending on the slope, crews clear a swath 100 to 150 feet wide near the existing pipeline to install the second channel of pipe, Bias said. Kern River pledges to restore vegetation on the 11 hillside miles visible along the Wasatch Front.
The company's reclamation effort goes beyond what the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission requires, said Doug Gibbons, Kern River's manager of land and environment. However, the company included it in its federal permit.
"As part of our outreach during the permitting phase, there was consensus that many didn't like how distinct the [existing] right of way looked," Gibbons said. "Ultimately, there will be a two-phase restoration" — the first to stabilize the soil with grass seed, the second to plant up to 150,000 small trees and shrubs.
Hillside contours will also be restored, Gibbons said, along with the Wild Rose Trail. And the staging lot will be graded to the city's specifications.
"It's an effort to respond to what we heard from the public," Gibbons said.
As the work finishes in North Salt Lake, Bountiful City Manager Tom Hardy expects to see crews moving into the high east bench above his city.
"I'm sure as they scrape the trench, we'll start to hear about it," Hardy said. "People are already concerned about possible slippage," due to increased erosion during this season's threat of potentially high runoff as mountain snows melt.
"Way back in the 1990s, we thought there were better routes," but the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management disagreed, Hardy said.
"As a result we have a scar on the hillside," Hardy said. "We felt it was unnecessary back then, and we don't feel that warm and fuzzy about it now."
Twitter: @catmck —
Wasatch Loop
In October 2010, the Kern River Gas Transmission Co. launched construction of the Apex Expansion Project. It includes the 28-mile Wasatch Loop, which completes the company's second interstate line between Kemmerer, Wyo., and Daggett, Calif.
For more information on the project, go to http://www.kernrivergas.com, click on Expansion Projects and choose Apex Expansion.
To contact the company with questions or concerns, call 888-222-1897.