How Wasatch County used 'every measure' to fight a proposed mine expansion

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Wasatch County Council has been trying for a year to oppose a 426-acre mine expansion by Maverick Rock.
• After the county denied to hold a public hearing, Maverick Rock sued the county. A 4th District Judge ruled in their favor.
• The county has appealed the decision, but was able to secure a mitigation agreement with the mine.

HEBER CITY — For the past year, the Wasatch County Council has been doing everything it can to prevent a proposed 426-acre mine expansion. But according to current state law and a 4th District Judge's interpretation of that law, the county can't do anything to stop it.

"As a council, we are pretty unanimous in our disagreement with this mine. We don't want it. We know the public has expressed their opinion pretty vocally — they don't want it. We have tried using every measure we can to fight this," Wasatch County Councilman Erik Rowland said. "We're in a position now where we recognize that this is more than just a mine or a blight on a hillside, but significant costs to the taxpayers and the county as a whole."

Maverick Rock, LLC, notified Wasatch County in February 2025 that it wished to expand its mining operations from an existing mine near Goshen, Utah County, to Daniels Canyon, off of U.S. 40 in Wasatch County. After five attempts of requesting a required public hearing from the county and being denied, Maverick Rock filed a petition in 4th District Court.

Maverick's petition claims the county "failed to perform an act required by law" and has refused Maverick "the use or enjoyment of a right to which it is entitled" by not holding the public hearing. The petition asked a judge for a court order to compel the county to perform a mandatory duty.

The county's "unlawful refusal" to hold a public meeting "cannot be squared with the county's non-discretionary statutory duty," Maverick Rock's lawsuit said.

The suit cited Utah state code, which says a mine operator is "presumed to have a right to expand the vested mining use" to any new land that "contains minerals that are part of the same mineral trend as the minerals that the mine operator already owns or controls or is a geologic offshoot to surface or subsurface land ... that the mine operator already owns or controls."

According to the code, the legislative body must hold a public hearing after receiving notice of the intent to expand. The Wasatch County Council, however, delayed holding the meeting for months, and even after requesting geologic reports from Maverick Rock — who complied — sent a final decision letter on June 18, 2025, denying the hearing request.

Maverick Rock's reports by two geology experts said the rock formations at the Daniels Canyon site "are nearly identical in lithology with their counterparts" at the East Ekins Mine, and there is a prevalence of Great Blue Limestone and Manning Canyon Shale at both locations.

But the county disagreed, saying the geology expert who did their report found "there is not the same mineral trend, as the code intends, at both sites."

"The county has concluded that the statue referenced, that would allow your client to circumvent the county's conditional use process, does not apply to this project," the county said in its letter. "While terms like 'mineral trend' are not defined in the code, it is clear to the county that the statute is not intended to allow for a mining right to be transferred 60 miles away to another site just because there may be the same type of Great Blue Limestone or Manning Canyon Shale at each site."

Maverick Rock called the county's letter "arbitrary, capricious and contrary to established law."

"The council's decision to flout the Utah Code is simply inexplicable," Maverick said in its petition. The code does not specify a maximum distance between expanded sites "nor would such a qualifier make any sense given that mineral trends can span hundreds, if not thousands, of miles," the petition said.

Maverick Rock claims the council's actions have had "devastating effects" and caused "immense harm," costing at least $20 million in damages and preventing the company from bidding on major projects.

In December, the mining company filed a complaint to go with the petition, seeking damages for the county violating state code, refusing Maverick due process and interfering in its vested mining rights.

On April 3, 4th District Judge Jennifer Mabey ruled in favor of the mine's petition, saying the county "improperly refused to comply with Maverick's statutory right to a hearing."

Mabey noted that the specific limestone and shale are present at both locations, and although there is a significant distance between the two sites, "that distance does not establish that the same mineral trend does not exist between the Ekins and Daniels Canyon sites."

"Wasatch County respectfully disagrees with that ruling," the county council said. The county has appealed the decision, claiming state code should not be applicable to this particular mine.

"The county believes the statute should not be applied in the way it's being used in this instance, and that it undermines local authority and severely limits the ability of the county to protect the health, safety and welfare of its residents," the county said.

A mitigation agreement

"Under this statute, a county may only request mitigation if it finds clear and convincing evidence of imminent endangerment to health, safety or welfare. Mine expansion is otherwise presumed permitted, bypassing the county's conditional use permit process," the Wasatch County Council said in a statement on July 2.

While the county cannot stop the Daniels Canyon mine expansion from moving forward, the county said it is working "to secure as much transparency, oversight and protection for residents as state law allows."

During the public hearing on April 22, the county identified concerns of bank destabilization, erosion, creek damage, water-system impacts, permanent topographic change and potential property value decreases as "clear and convincing evidence" of "imminent harm" from the mining operations.

Maverick Rock said it disputes the legitimacy of the county's endangerment findings, but the company agreed to work out a settlement for mitigation measures, which was approved by the county on July 1.

The agreement implements "the strongest protections available," the county said, including limiting the financial risk to the county by protecting the community from the estimated $50 million Maverick Rock is seeking in damages claims.

While "the settlement does not concede the appeal," it does give the county "contractually enforceable" mitigation measures in seven categories: permits, water protection, creek infrastructure, air quality, noise, highway safety and site documentation.

The agreement gives the county active monitoring rights so it can discover early warnings of compliance failures, protects the Daniels Creek culvert systems and puts in other safeguards such as excluding excavation within a 100-foot horizontal radius of the nearby wells and consenting to periodic water quality sampling.

If the county didn't approve the agreement that day, it was likely Maverick Rock would turn back to the courts and mitigation would be left up to a judge, County Deputy Attorney Alex Stoedter explained. The county is "trying to fight this the best we can" but also has to be fiscally responsible and not push increasing legal fees onto the taxpayers.

"This agreement allows us to protect residents today while continuing to fight for longterm local authority," Stoedter said. "We secured the limited mitigation measures permitted under the statute, and we remain fully committed to challenging the use of the statute in court."

The council voted 4 to 2 on approving the agreement. The council said it is connecting with state legislators to get the law changed or clarified.

The Utah Court of Appeals has not made a decision yet on the county's appeal. Maverick Rock's complaint is still pending in court.

The company has filed a motion seeking attorney fees, and the county has filed a motion seeking to strike the complaint, alleging it is "procedurally improper" because the granted petition was an exclusive court remedy, typically used as a last resort, that cannot be combined with claims for damages. A hearing on both motions is scheduled for Oct. 29.

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The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.

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Cassidy Wixom

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Cassidy Wixom is an award-winning reporter for KSL. She covers Utah, Wasatch and Summit County communities, arts and entertainment, Utah courts and breaking news. Cassidy graduated from BYU before joining KSL in 2022.