For the residents of Canyon Road in Logan, it means never having to fear the deadly Logan & Northern Canal again. For Logan & Northern shareholders, it means a steady supply of irrigation water for their homes and farms. And for the shareholders of the Logan, Hyde Park and Smithfield Canal Co., it means vital upgrades to an aging canal that loses more than 20 percent of its water to leaks.

There's a lot to like about the joint venture proposed by the canal companies, which would form the Cache Highland Water Association in an attempt to carry out a $25 million canal improvement project. But topping the list is bypassing the dangerous section of the Logan & Northern that contributed to a mudslide that killed Jacqueline Leavey and her two children in their Canyon Road home last July.

By sharing a section of canal, the companies would enable Logan & Northern water to be routed around the hillside where the fatal rupture and other breaks have occurred. The water would then be channeled along 3100 North in North Logan, rejoining the Logan & Northern canal bed downstream from the collapsed section.

To assure that the Logan, Hyde Park and Smithfield canal, which dates to the late 1880s, could handle the increased flow, much-needed improvements are planned. Sections of the earthen canal would be lined with concrete, while water would be piped through the canal in other areas.

If only this sort of project had been undertaken years ago, when the occasional mudslides from the porous Logan & Northern were considered a mere nuisance, perhaps Leavey and her children would still be alive.

Even now, it will take an act of Congress to make this worthwhile project happen.

The association, when formed, will seek $20 million -- 80 percent of the project cost -- from the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service's Emergency Watershed Protection Fund. But, because Congress controls the fund directly, the grant would have to be approved as part of a supplemental appropriations amendment.

Canal company shareholders would also have some skin in the game, borrowing the other $5 million for the work from the state's low-interest loan fund for canal improvements.

This is exactly the sort of cooperative venture that Congress and state officials should support as Western states address problems relating to our aging, and potentially deadly, irrigation canal systems. Taking a section of killer canal out of the Logan & Northern is the perfect place to start.