Commissioners conditionally approve vacation of Lower Willow Creek county road pending recorded easement for irrigation district

Granite County commissioners voted to accept a petition to vacate a portion of the North Fork Lower Willow Creek Road, subject to a recorded perpetual easement that guarantees access for the Lower Willow Creek Irrigation District and associated water users.

Petitioner and property owner David Fites and surveyor Mike Schaler presented the petition and survey to the board. Schaler described the survey work and said the petition covers the road segment that traverses Fites’s property. Fites told the board he had discussed access with irrigation users and planned to secure a recorded easement addressing irrigators’ needs: “I have talked to the water users. Like I said, many of them signed up petitions, and we're gonna take care of that with a permanent easement explicitly spelled out for all those purposes.”

Rex (president, Lower Willow Creek Irrigation District) and the district’s counsel participated by phone; counsel confirmed the easement draft contemplates heavy equipment and construction use and requires restoration if the grantee’s work disturbs the surface. Attorney Chris Johnson, representing the petitioner, said the easement language “expressly contemplates the grantee… making heavy use of the road for equipment and construction purposes” and requires the grantee to restore disturbed areas. County Attorney Blaine Bratcha and other commissioners asked the petitioner to secure signatures from affected water users and to have the final easement recorded.

The commissioners agreed to proceed on a conditional basis. A motion to accept the abandonment petition and move toward abandonment proceedings was passed with the condition that a recorded perpetual easement acceptable to the irrigation district be presented to the county before the resolution is placed on a future agenda for the required two readings. The board’s chair called for the vote and commissioners answered in the affirmative.

County staff and counsel said they will draft a final resolution for two readings after the recorded easement is filed and copies are provided to the county clerk; commissioners asked that the district confirm the list of water users who must sign the easement. The petition will return to a future agenda once the easement is recorded and distributed for county records.