New fire station, sewer lagoons highlight Watts goals for future in Logan

In a State of the City address that was dominated by highlighting past accomplishments and giving due thanks to city employees and residents, Logan Mayor Randy Watts delivered a handful of ambitious goals for Logan Tuesday night.Watts, entering his second term as mayor of Logan, addresses the Municipal Council each January, and a few years ago used this speech as a forum to announce the city’s plans to build a new police station, move City Hall and relocate the Logan Justice Court. While there were no definitive announcements along those lines Tuesday night in the overflowing council chambers, Watts did identify something for the city to set its sights on for the next few years.The biggest two of his goals likely were doing something with the sewage lagoons on the west side of town to decrease the total maximum daily load and phosphorous issues that are causing problems at the facility and the desire to build a third fire station in the city limits.As for the lagoons, which reportedly have excessive levels of phosphorous that could require the construction of a treatment plant in the future, Watts said his goal is to do something with the lagoons that will be as effective as possible while requiring the least amount of dollars. He mentioned harvesting the algae from the lagoons for energy as a potential solution that could save Logan and the other communities that use the lagoons (Smithfield, Nibley and Providence) a great amount of money.As for a new fire station, Watts acknowledge the idea was “new to the council” but said response time is critical for fire and medical crews.”With response time, our concerns are that we can get to your emergencies in a timely manner and that would be looking at another station west of town,” Watts said. He said a location near the Logan River Golf Course would be the likely location for a potential “Station 72.”In addition to those two facilities goals, Watts laid out other plans such as increasing pay for performance funds for city employees to allow good employees to receive raises. He also would like the city to achieve self-funded liability and interoperability between the city’s police department, dispatch center and other valley law enforcement agencies.Another facilities-related goal that will likely intrigue residents and outdoor enthusiasts involves “Hydro 3,” better known as Second Dam.Watts said the city will look forward to working with the Forest Service, UDOT and Stokes Nature Park to see if the city can withdraw from the Second Dam area all of its activities except the power plant and turn it over to the residents of the community to use for recreation. There are three homes there, for example, that previously were used for workers manning the power plant that are now just rentals. Watts indicated those could be used for people studying nature and the rest of the Second Dam area could be used as a launching point for a trails system where hikers could choose to go either up or down the canyon.

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