Gunnison City presses ahead with Tar Canyon test well as nearby farmers demand safeguards

Gunnison City officials on Wednesday outlined results of test drilling at Tar Canyon and described permitting and funding steps for a proposed municipal production well that city leaders say is needed to provide redundancy for the community's water supply. City presenters told the meeting the city is short on source capacity at peak demand and that the Tar Canyon test well outperformed the alternative near the treatment plant, whose results showed poor water quality and elevated arsenic and chloride levels.

Why it matters: Farmers and other West Side residents told the council they fear new pumping will lower private well levels, foul pumps with sand and harm livelihoods that depend on irrigation. The session focused less on formal agency action than on whether the city's technical work and the state's approval sufficiently protect neighboring users.

City staff summarized the technical findings and approvals. A 2023 master plan cited at the meeting reports a shortfall in source capacity for peak-day demand; presenters said Bartholomew Well currently produces roughly 950 gallons per minute and Sorensen about 150 gpm, leaving the system vulnerable if a primary source fails. Test drilling conducted Oct. 2022'Feb. 2023 produced stronger flows at the Tar Canyon site; the treatment-plant test well yielded less water and had water-quality problems "right on the limit of the MCL," the presenter said. The Tar Canyon test reached about 1,000 feet with screened intervals starting near 750 feet; because the borehole used an 8-inch test casing, pumping during tests was limited.

Regulatory status and funding: The city filed a change application in March 2024 to add Tar Canyon as a point of diversion; speakers said the state engineer approved that change in November 2024. An environmental assessment is complete pending concurrence from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. City officials said roughly half the funds for the project are in place and remaining funds and easement work must be completed before construction; they cautioned that construction is unlikely to begin this summer and will likely wait for next fiscal-year funding.

Legal context and competing claims: Residents repeatedly asked what happens if private wells decline after the city starts pumping. The state engineer (Speaker 12) told the meeting that Utah's change-application framework keeps a water right's priority date when it moves, but if a change "causes localized impairment" that can affect how the change is evaluated. He said impairment is often difficult to prove for groundwater and that "the state of Utah does not protect groundwater levels," explaining that affected users typically must deepen wells or pursue court relief to establish impairment.

Residents described local impacts they associate with previous tests and drought: one farmer recounted replacing pumps and finding sand-filled equipment and blackened household plumbing after a flow test; another said a neighbor's well dropped several inches during a short test period. "Within 24 hour, it dropped my well almost 7 inches," a West Side resident (Speaker 15) said, describing pump failures and out-of-pocket costs. Farmers urged concrete, enforceable protections rather than monitoring alone.

City response and proposed steps: City officials emphasized that the new Tar Canyon source is intended primarily as redundancy to reduce the risk of Gunnison running out of water if the primary well fails, and that the city does not plan to immediately divert the full volume at peak rates for long-term expansion. To address community concerns, the city proposed establishing an independent, third-party monitoring program to sound and report well levels on a regular basis (presenters suggested a minimum of two soundings per year) and to share data among participants. Officials also said the planned pipeline alignment would allow property owners along the route to opt for a connection to city water as an emergency backup, though they said they could not commit to providing free water or specific guaranteed volumes.

Push for concrete protections: Several residents asked whether monitoring could trigger prearranged mitigation steps, such as cutbacks or assistance if monitoring showed decline tied to city pumping. City representatives said a workable solution would require cooperation among users, an agreed monitoring threshold, and potentially contractual arrangements, but they cautioned that many remedies would take time to implement and some questions would ultimately be determined by state law or, if necessary, by courts.

What happens next: No formal council vote occurred at the meeting. Participants agreed to continue discussions, to explore independent monitoring contracts and to share monitoring proposals and vendor information with the community. City staff said they will continue easement work and funding efforts and return with more specifics on monitoring design and partnership terms.

Quotes that capture the debate: "The state of Utah does not protect groundwater levels," the state engineer said, describing the statutory framework and legal remedies. A farmer who reported damage to pumps after a flow test said: "Within 24 hour, it dropped my well almost 7 inches." City presenters stressed the need for redundancy: "Not doing this project is not an option for Gunnison City," a council representative said, noting the danger of having most supply dependent on one source.

The meeting ended with an agreement to stay in contact and to pursue an independent monitoring approach that both sides hope will build trust while the city continues permitting, easement and funding work.