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Public commenter urges Utah County to test backyards after ChemTek results for Tibble Fork
Summary
At a county commission meeting, a public commenter presented ChemTek lab results he said show elevated heavy metals from Tibble Fork and urged Utah County health and engineering staff to analyze risks and test household soils; commissioners asked clarifying questions but no formal county action was taken at the meeting.
A member of the public delivered an extended public comment at the Utah County Commission meeting, saying laboratory results show elevated heavy-metal contamination in sediment linked to Tibble Fork and nearby mine sites and urging county involvement.
“Lead was rated at 5,300,” the commenter stated, citing ChemTek laboratory data and asserting that sediment transported downstream could have affected tens of thousands of households. He said his analysis suggests the event may have transported “at least 26,000,000 pounds, potentially up to 76,000,000 pounds” of material downstream and asked the county to add local sampling to the Division of Water Quality’s work and to analyze the hazard to public health.
The commenter said he had shared data with state officials and urged that county health departments not be “hands off,” adding that the county should consider putting an engineer on the dataset to compare the Tibble Fork event with prior mine incidents such as the Gold King Mine release. “I don't believe that we can count on division of water quality to protect public health,” he said in the meeting.
Commissioners took clarifying steps rather than immediate action. One commissioner asked which laboratory the commenter used; the commenter identified ChemTek (reported in the meeting as "ChemTek" or "ChemTek 4"). A commissioner also asked about monitoring or technologies to measure pressure or backup inside mine chambers; the commenter said he would follow up with relevant documentation and examples from past incidents.
The meeting record shows no immediate county directive or vote on additional testing or remediation during this session. The assertions reported at the meeting are the commenter’s claims based on his stated lab analyses; the county did not present independent, validated sampling results during the hearing and the Division of Water Quality or other state agencies did not respond in the public session.
