July 12, 1999

Utah is becoming a more risky place to live, according to the man who has led the state's Geological survey for the last decade.

He says we can expect to see more and more damage from landslides in the future. News Specialist Shelley Osterloh tells us why.

In spring, water soaked hillsides of City Creek Canyon slipped. An area just below homes broke away, tipping telephone poles.

Last year, a landslide sent rock and debris down on the road through Fairview Canyon.

Another slide in South Weber County threatened a subdivision and reservoir.

Geologists say increasing urbanization is pushing more development into geologically unstable or hazardous areas.

Dr. M. Lee Allsion, the former director of the Utah Geological Survey says, "In the past two years we have had some of the worst landslide seasons we had in 20 years... Earthquakes, landslides, debris flows are big hazards. And we create risk by putting people in the way of those hazards."

Lee Allison has headed up the Utah Geological Survey for ten years, until last Friday.

He quit over philosophical differences with the State Administration.

He was honored today by his peers. But his parting thoughts about Utah's future are troubling.

"Almost every landslide that we've identified out there had been previously mapped, and made available to local planners and local government. But they forgot about it, or the developers convinced them they could deal with it, and they have built in hazardous areas," Dr. Allison says.

Too often, he says, property owners may not know they live in dangerous areas, and expect the government entity which issued the building permit to pay for their mistake.

His solution: make sure everyone knows about the risk.

He suggests, "Attatch something to the title of the property saying this is your property but it's on an active landslide, and if you want to build on that, and the insurance company is willing to insure you and the bank is willing to pay for it, you take on that risk."

But Allison predicts it will take a major disaster and loss of life before lawmakers will deal with the problems of geological hazards.

Allison has accepted a new job. He is now the director of the KANSAS Geological Survey.