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(Provo-AP) -- State officials agreed to a deal that would give a significant portion of the public waters in Utah Lake to private landowners.
The agreement was reached by state lawyers and private landowners in federal court this week. It could block public access to 19 miles of shoreline and transfer 20 thousand acres of lake bed to private hands.
The stipulation deals with the shoreline boundary of 96 thousand-acre Utah Lake, which has been in dispute. This agreement sets the boundary at four-thousand, 481 feet in elevation. Everything below that mark is public water. Everything above that line belongs to the landowners.
All of the waters in Provo Bay lie above the mark and would therefore become private property.
Conservation and hunting groups are fighting the deal and want to be added to the lawsuit as plaintiffs.
(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
