Duchesne County delays decision on transportation-service fees after industry, staff ask for clarifications

The Duchesne County Commission recessed its public hearing on Ordinance 25-460, the county’s proposed transportation service fee and land-use fee updates, and directed staff to return with clarified language at a Feb. 10 meeting.

The ordinance would add a new administrative conditional-use permit fee and a transportation mitigation (service) fee for development—particularly oil-and-gas—and update several land-use application fees. County planning staff said the draft also ties fees to a “reasonable cost analysis” required by state fee rules and creates a minimum/maximum mileage assumption (1–3 miles) for county roads used as haul routes.

Why it matters: commissioners and industry representatives said the proposal could streamline cost recovery for road damage from large energy projects, but the draft contains ambiguities that could produce disputes over how many miles and which road segments are charged and whether operators may substitute a road‑maintenance agreement for payment.

Planning staff summarized the key fee changes: raising the minor-subdivision fee to $300 (from $100), a new administrative conditional-use permit fee of $700, an appeal-of-staff-decision fee of $200, increased variance and zone-change fees (proposed $500 and $650), and a new $75 fee tied to updated floodplain data for linear utilities/pipelines. The draft also exempts compressor stations, water‑handling facilities and vertical wells from the transportation fee pending additional study. Staff said the fee formulas assume a minimum haul‑route length of one mile and cap the counted mileage at three miles for fee calculation.

Industry commenters asked for clarifications on several points. Zane Lay, representative of 4 Point Resources, said the ordinance should explicitly state that fees collected would be applied to roads “impacted by oil-and-gas traffic,” and asked how mixed gravel-and-paved haul routes would be calculated. Jeff Crozer, operations representative for Crescent Energy, asked whether the county had a template for a road‑maintenance agreement and how the county would treat routes that appear on some maps but not others.

Commissioners and staff agreed the mixed-route calculation and the county‑road map reference (1976 map versus later state maps) required further work. Commissioners asked staff to draft clearer language that (a) explains how mixed-route miles are counted and capped, (b) defines when a maintenance agreement can substitute for the fee, and (c) specifies the fund or account into which transportation fees will be placed so the money is used for road maintenance related to energy production.

The commission recessed the public hearing and voted to continue it at 1 p.m. Feb. 10 to allow staff to update the draft and share the revisions with stakeholders.

Provenance: The ordinance and fee details were discussed extensively during the public hearing portion of the Jan. 27 meeting; the commission recessed the hearing with a recorded motion to reconvene Feb. 10.