WILLARD CANYON, Utah — A fence has created a continuing issue in one city in Box Elder County. Residents feel strongly on both sides of the issue, about whether their access to the canyon should be restricted or not.
“I keep hearing people refer to this as public access or public property. And the fact of the matter is it’s not public property," said Willard resident Gordon Sleeman. "It’s private property that the public has been allowed to access across and now that it’s restricted, everybody is up in arms."
Part of the hiking trail is private land owned by the Wells family, who has since raised 'Do Not Enter' signs since mining by Granite Construction began.
“It’s 100 percent life safety,” said BJ Wells. “If you look on this canyon, you can see the fresh dirt that’s carved right off the top of that razor-back ridgeline. There are active dozers up there every day. The trail is right at the bottom of that, and you got rocks can roll at any time of the day."
At Thursday night’s Willard city council meeting, residents voiced concerns.
Some want the project to continue, advocating for private property rights and that Granite Construction would bring millions of dollars to the area.
One resident to participated, Lynn Murphy, wants to find a way to let residents continue to hike there.
“There are safe ways to get into the canyon," said Murphy. "The mining is very localized to certain areas and there’s really no issue about being able to go into the canyon because there’s more than one trail up there."
Brad Sweet with Granite Construction spoke at the meeting. He said they are looking to the city for support.
“If everybody will be patient enough to let the mining company and the landowner manage the liability that we carry, then we will be able to work this out in a matter of time,” said Sweet.
BJ Wells said the family hopes to be able to open some access for residents in a couple of years when it’s safe to do so.
“Once we’re done mining, we're going to probably give some limited walking access," said Wells.
But Murphy is worried about the vagueness of that.
“It really distresses me because there's really no timeline on how long the canyon is going to be closed for," said Murphy.
The City Council hopes to continue working on this deal with Granite Construction that would be fair and help the community. Members are looking to have more discussion on the contracts at the next meeting.
