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SANDY — On one of the first warm days of spring, a proud homeowner is guiding a visitor around his backyard, pointing out the thousands of dollars of improvements he has made to create his own private paradise.
"All I am asking is to just let us live here, enjoy our backyard," said Zdenek Sorf, a native Czeckslovakian who bought his home off 9600 South in Sandy more than two decades ago.
All I am asking is to just let us live here, enjoy our backyard.
–Zdenek Sorf, Sandy homeowner
#sorf_quote
At the time, no one told him his backyard included a 120-foot wide easement for the Salt Lake aqueduct. For years, his expansive property was mostly rolling terraces of weeds and overgrowth. There was a patio outside his sliding back door and a 60-foot tree that became bug infested.
He tore the tree out, which led to a flurry of improvements that has transformed cheat grass and milk weed into a sprawling two-tier waterfall made of boulders and complemented by flowering plants. A wood deck was put in and to the west sits an elaborately styled gazebo providing shelter for a large, large hot tub.
That gazebo, the waterfall, a shiny storage barn to the east and other improvements in excess of $100,000 may have to be ripped out at Sorf's expense because they fall within the boundaries of the easement to the aqueduct, which is a 43-mile pipeline carrying drinking water from Deer Creek Reservoir to the mouth of Parleys Canyon.
Sorf's property is one of potentially 1,000 parcels of land adjacent to the pipeline's right of way that extends from the Utah County communities of Orem and Lindon to Draper, Sandy, Holladay and Cottonwood Heights.
Seeking to minimize encroachment problems and provide more access, the Metropolitan Water District of Salt Lake and Sandy took Sorf to court, resulting in an order that gave him 20 days to rip out his improvements. Sorf was in court again this week, asking the judge to delay the order while he appeals the actions of the water district. For now, Thursday's ruling in his favor gives the homeowner a reprieve.
"So far, it went well," he said.
History of the pipeline
The pipeline was put in during the mid-1940s by the Bureau of Reclamation and in 2006, the Metropolitan Water District took full title. Soon after, the district came up with rules and regulations regarding what could be placed within easement boundaries.
Before that, subdivisions went in, patios were poured and trees took root.
The district has since started an exhaustive inventory of the right-of-way, anticipating the time will come when repairs will have to be made to the 60-year-old pipe that delivers water to 125,000 households.
"It's in good shape," said the district's general manager, Mike Wilson. "We do foresee the time that we will need to replace it. It may be over 10, 20, 30 years or it could happen tomorrow if we have a leak on it."
Sorf's argument
Sorf is fighting the water district's edict, contending that should the district ever need to fix or replace the pipe on his property, he will happily rip out his improvements then — and he's willing to bring in his own bulldozers and tractors to do it.
"I want to just be able to enjoy my yard now. I would gladly tear it up if that day comes," he said.
Even Sorf's home, which was built in the 1970s, intrudes four feet into the boundaries of the easement. A district map shows others homes with entire driveways and front yards that occupy the pipeline's right-of-way.
#pipeline_pic
Wilson concedes that over the years, homes have changed hands and improvements have been made to properties, and those encroachments have not been policed very well.
Sorf's attorney, Paul Belnap, believes his client is being unfairly singled out by the district, which is setting out to make an example of the homeowner. Even though neighbors have property that includes patios and trees and swimming pools that sit on the easement, they've not landed in the same tussle with the district.
"They have taken a fairly heavy-handed approach at this point," Belnap said, adding that there are thousands of people facing the same predicament.
"I think he is the first of the group to fall, and people don't know the freight train is coming down the track," Belnap said.
How much Sorf knew about the easement's restrictions at the time he was making the improvements — and what the district did or did not do about it — is under contention, depending on who you talk to.
Sorf says he was nearly finished with all his improvements — such as the waterfall and the rocks and the installation of the storage barn — in November 2009 by the time he had his first encounter with a district employee.
By the time spring rolled around, Sorf was making other modifications and said he was assured by a district employee that as long as the improvements were not built over the actual pipeline, they were OK.
His barn, for example, is 44 feet away from the aqueduct, the waterfall is 23 feet away and the gazebo and hot tub are 48 feet — sitting in the same spot as the tree he tore out.
But Wilson contends Sorf never "engaged" the district about the improvements he was making to the property, ignoring their requests to stop even after "stop orders" were posted.
While the district has sought and obtained agreements with other property owners about "existing" improvements that may be within easement boundaries, Belnap said those agreements only last five years and can be terminated at any time by the district with 90 days notice. That's why Sorf wouldn't sign it.
"It is a hollow agreement," Belnap said, and fails to speak to the issue as to why some improvements are allowed to stay and others are not. He also wonders how the district can adopt rules decades after subdivisions went in and yards were landscaped, and then exercise such power when the structures don't occupy ground directly over the pipeline.
Wilson said the district is simply trying to get a handle on protecting access to the aqueduct should repairs need to be made or if it needs to be replaced.
"We are trying our best not to be heavy handed," he said. "It is a difficult thing."
Contributing: Jed Boal
Email:aodonoghue@ksl.com
