North Salt Lake City officials say they’re getting closer to finalizing a plan for dealing with the landslide that destroyed one home in August.
For the past few months engineers and geologists have been doing detailed surveys of the area in and around the landslide. They’re trying to create a computer model of the area that will allow them to see what impact different remediation plans will have on the hill.
Barry Edwards is North Salt Lake’s city manager. He says while the city is funding the engineers working on the remediation plan, city officials haven’t committed to paying for putting that plan in action.
“Based on what the geotech is telling us, it’s pretty stable as it stands," Edwards says. "I think if no funding comes forward then it will probably stay in its current position until something surfaces.”
Tim Thompson is the senior geologist on the project. He says, yes, the hill is stable, “But doing absolutely nothing over time probably would not be the best option because there are parts of the slide and the hillside above the slide and the scarp that are just too steep that weathering will have an effect on them over time that none of us would want to see just kind of happen randomly.”
He also says its likely the remediation plan will develop in stages as stakeholders discuss how their interests will be best served.
“By the time we’re done hopefully we have a plan that everybody can look at and say it can be done, it can be afforded, and everybody can agree to move forward and work on it.”
Thompson says he expects they’ll have a final plan ready in a few weeks. It will then be left up to city officials and the developer, Sky Properties, to come to an agreement on if and how much each will pay.
