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The Utah Geological Survey will become a lot more picky about when it will help cities and counties assess possible geologic hazards under a new directive from its board.
Earlier this month, the board decided the UGS should not routinely review geologic and geotechnical reports given to cities and counties by developers' or builders' consultants.
"Their opinion was UGS was doing work that the public sector could do," said Rick Allis, the UGS director. The board decided the state's experts should be involved only in special circumstances.
The UGS has offered geologic expertise to local governments for years and usually does 30 to 40 reviews a year, Allis said Thursday. Geoffrey Bedell, chairman of the UGS board and a Kennecott engineer, said competition with the private sector was one factor. But so was the fact that the UGS needs to concentrate on big-picture studies for the entire state.
"If they are doing all these site reviews for subdivisions," Bedell said, "they are not going to have time to do these statewide studies."
The news did not go over well with Nick Jones, Provo's engineer and a member of the Governor's Geologic Hazards Working Group. It's tough for a city to get a consultant to do a peer review, he said.
"Everybody is just shying away from liability, and you're going to have chaos," Jones said. "This seems like an utterly stupid step to take without any interim process." - Kristen Moulton