If an irrigation canal company wants state money for improvements and repairs, the canal's owners will have to document its potential dangers, according to a bill unveiled Monday.

At the same time, the bill would not require all canal hazards to be disclosed. But the public may not have access to canal reports. The proposed law aims to improve safety after a canal collapsed in July, killing a mother and her two children in Logan.

The bill's sponsor, Rep. Fred Hunsaker, R-Logan, unveiled it Monday at a meeting of the Executive Water Task Force. A report from the task force said it was trying to entice canal companies -- often a cooperative of ranchers, farmers and any homeowner or municipality sitting along the waterway's banks -- to voluntarily improve safety and accountability.

"We feel this draft bill is a step, admittedly a step, toward that reality," said Sterling Brown, of the Utah Farm Bureau.

Sean Bartschi, whose home was among those destroyed in the July collapse of the Logan Northern Canal, said the bill does not provide enough transparency of the canals' conditions.

"It doesn't sound to me like there's enough oversight," Bartschi said in a telephone interview late Monday. "It sounds to me like if you're going to endanger the public, you should tell the public what you're doing."

The bill requires any canal company seeking loans from state-run funds to file management plans with the state that must identify hazards along the canals and provide plans for improvements.

The plans must be filed by May 2013 and be updated at least once a decade. The Utah Board of Water Resources will make a report to the state Legislature on whether canal owners are complying.

Canal owners who don't want state funds do not have to submit plans. But Hunsaker said it's in the canals cooperatives' interests to make repairs and the state loans are the only way they can pay for them.

"I am confident they will submit plans," Hunsaker said.

The state will not approve those plans, just note whether they have been submitted.

It's unclear whether the public can read the plans. The bill forbids the state from disclosing the plans under Utah's records law, but the bill language doesn't specify whether local governments who own shares of the canals also must keep the plans secret.

"As private entities they have a right to have their records protected just like any other private entity," Hunsaker said.

The meeting Monday drew representatives from cities and water districts from across Utah. There was concern the legislation might deter canal owners from accepting city water runoff and could inadvertently make municipal water lines subject to the bill, but there was no vocal opposition to the overall bill.

Paul Ashton, an attorney for the White City Water Improvement District, said it's a good bill. The strategy of incentives rather than mandates is similar to how Utah has ensured compliance from water districts on environmental and safety issues, he said.

"This is one of these types of acts to make the canal companies kind of do what they should be doing," Ashton said.

ncarlisle@sltrib.com