Decision on Spanish Fork-Mapleton boundary shifts to February

SPANISH FORK (Deseret News) — New city councils will decide the fate of a controversial boundary shift between Spanish Fork and Mapleton.

The Spanish Fork City Council opened a public hearing on the issue Tuesday and then continued it to Feb. 16. New council members and mayors in both cities take office in January.

Some 600 acres of Ensign-Bickford land at the mouth of Spanish Fork Canyon are slated to transfer into Mapleton. The land has been the site of explosives manufacturing for more than six decades. However, Ensign-Bickford has been cleaning the site up and now wants to develop it for industrial, commercial and residential uses.

Earlier, the Spanish Fork City Council unanimously approved moving forward on investigating the boundary shift, while the Mapleton council voted 4-1 in favor of exploring the change. The lone dissenting vote was cast by Councilman Brian Wall, who in November was elected as Mapleton's next mayor.

A contingent of Mapleton residents have opposed the transfer. Some argue they don't want the land in the city, saying the manufacturing plant leaked contaminants into the groundwater and that the poisons showed up in both private and city wells. Some residents became ill, and a handful died, including a former mayor.

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