Now, it looks like they are back in business - and on the ballot come November.

The state elections office on Friday approved a court-ordered recount of petition signatures in Utah County, and anticipates doing the same with another batch of recounted petitions from Cache County when they arrive in the mail, probably Monday.

When that happens, elections office director Amy Naccarato says she expects to certify the initiative, putting the open-space measure on the 2004 general election ballot.

"The Utah County signatures are good. Until I see with my own eyes what comes from Cache County, we're not prepared to do anything official, but if everything is in order and adds up, we'll go ahead with it," she said.

The initiative's sponsors, Utahns for Clean Water, Clean Air and Quality Growth, aren't celebrating yet. They, too, are waiting for an official certification. But the organization's president, Amanda Smith, says she is optimistic.

"We're very excited," she said. "We knew all along we should have made the ballot, and we're glad Utahns will now have a chance to protect their quality of life."

Utahns for Clean Water, Clean Air and Quality Growth, collected 133,000 signatures - far above the required 76,000 - and claimed to have met the state's other ballot initiative threshold by gathering signatures from 10 percent of registered voters in 26 of the 29 Senate districts.

But the petitions were rejected by the state when the Utah and Cache county clerks declined to verify signatures that did not match with home addresses in the districts' voter registration records.

The initiative backers appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that relocating within a Senate district should not preclude residents from participating in the petition process. Last week the court agreed, ordering a recount in the two affected counties.

"I always believed in the system," said Smith. "It was a little harrowing waiting for the court to rule. So much depended on how they viewed the letter of the law. But we knew those signatures were valid. We knew we had the numbers."

The recounted petition signatures arrived at the Capitol from Utah County Friday morning. Cache County Clerk Jill Zollinger put that county's signatures in the mail Friday afternoon, announcing that initiative backers had met the Senate district threshold with the recount.

Assuming the verified signatures pass muster with the state, Utahns in November will vote on a $150 million bond to purchase open space and fund projects to protect drinking water, air quality, wildlife habitat, family farms and ranches and historic and cultural landmarks throughout the state.

The bond would be paid off over 10 years at a cost of 0.05 percent - about $14 per year for the average Utah family.

Utahns for Clean Water, Clean Air and Quality Growth spent $380,000 during the petition-gathering process.

Smith anticipates another spending surge to sell the public on the initiative.

"We feel like we'll have to run a fairly sophisticated campaign," she said. "We want to get as much [press] as we can, but we also have a communications plan that includes mailing and some television, and we'll definitely utilize the giant volunteer bank we got from the petition process and run a grassroots campaign as well."

jbaird@sltrib.com