SNAPPED: Heber Valley Tractorcade rolls through North Fields to protest UDOT bypass plan

Families with children joined the Tractorcade, carrying signs reading "Save Our Water" and "Save It For Us." Photo: Hilary Reiter Azzaretti Photo: Hilary Reiter Azzaretti

HEBER CITY, Utah — Heber Valley residents turned out in force Saturday, rolling through the North Fields in a convoy of tractors, trucks, horses, side-by-sides, bicycles, and farm equipment — signs taped to tailgates and windows, handmade placards raised high — to demand UDOT scrap its preferred route for the US-40 bypass.

The Tractorcade departed Veterans Memorial Park at 11 a.m., wound through the North Fields near 1200 North, and looped back via 1750 West and Midway Lane to the train station.

Even Heber City Mayor Heidi Franco joined the convoy, ringing a cowbell out her car window with a “Protect Farms Not Diesels” sign on the door — a notable show of solidarity from the city’s top elected official, who has also been urging residents to submit public comments to UDOT before the March 9 deadline.

Families, farmers, and longtime residents of all ages joined the convoy, carrying signs reading “Save the North Fields,” “Cows Over Diesel,” “Protect Farms Not Diesels,” and “Save Our Water” — a message aimed squarely at UDOT’s Alternative B, which organizers are calling the “Billion Dollar Bypass.”

Critics argue that the plan destroys 53.9 acres of wetlands — 140% more than the alternative — while putting the valley’s drinking-water aquifer at risk.

The North Field Irrigation Company, which has operated gravity-fed irrigation in Heber Valley since 1860, filed a formal comment cataloging 99 deficiencies in UDOT’s environmental review, 36 of which it says are individually sufficient to invalidate the process or violate federal law.

The public comment period for UDOT’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement closes March 9.