For a few months each summer, Winifred Durrant's west-Provo property is turned from verdant pasture to knee-deep swamp.

"It's dangerous," she said. "Somebody is going to drown in that ditch."

But Alice, who moved in with her mother six years ago to help care for her and the land, said concern is not the only feeling she has. There's also a sense of frustration and intense annoyance, because in her mind, the city and the local irrigation company have never followed through on their parts of a 45-year-old agreement to take care of the problem. Only now have the parties regrouped to discuss how to handle it.

A multi-part agreement

In the early '60s, Provo City was looking to widen the road along 2470 West. Winifred's husband, Sterling, struck a deal with the city to provide some land along the front of the family property in exchange for help laying pipe in the ditch and clearing the trees away. According to Provo City Commission minutes dated Feb. 14, 1963, the final deal stipulated that the city would provide the labor if the cost of materials were furnished by the irrigation company, Fort Field Water Users Association.

But that never happened.

According to Greg Beckstrom, Provo's deputy Public Works director, the city is still waiting for Fort Field to pay for the pipe. It's not a cheap proposition -- he estimates it would cost about $12,000 -- and the price would likely have to be split among those who purchase water rights from Fort Field. But Beckstrom stands by his reading of the original agreement, which is that the irrigation company must hold up its end of the deal first.

"The only reason that work hasn't been completed is that the irrigation company and the property owners have not provided the cost for the materials," he said.

Nobody present at the making of the original deal is alive today, and nobody from Fort Field was available to comment on why the pipe wasn't purchased back then. A woman who answered the phone at the home of the company's president, John Hinckley, said he wasn't available and then hung up.

"You know what? Alice told you the story. You go with Alice. Goodbye," she said.

Fort Field's attorney, Robert Fillerup, said he wasn't in a position to explain why the pipe wasn't purchased in the '60s. But, he said, County Commission minutes don't necessarily constitute a formal deal.

"I'm not sure that its an agreement. There were some minutes or some correspondence way back when," he said. "I don't have any idea why something wasn't followed up on back then."

Alice Durrant argued that it was a deal and that Fort Field provided the pipe for every other property owner along the proposed road-widening. She said she suspects the company ran out of money when it got to her family's property, but has never gotten a straight answer.

"We are known as the end of the road," she said.

A new deal

To the Durrants, the flooding has also had financial implications. Several people interested in buying some of the land have come on days when large portions were covered in several inches of water, effectively ending their bids. The water destroyed a large portion of a rock wall in the front yard of their house.

But a new deal is in the works. Beckstrom met Thursday with Fillerup and Dayle Jeffs, the Durrants' attorney, to work out a solution. Beckstrom suggested that they use a new storm drain on the road, installed in 2000, to divert the extra water. The Durrants would still be able to use their share, and the city would also remove the trees in the right-of-way to prevent future flooding.

"The alternative that everyone had been kind of assuming in the last couple years of discussion has been to go ahead and pipe that ditch," he said. "We proposed an alternative solution. The advantage of the alternative is that the estimated material cost of simply tying the irrigation system into the storm drain is estimated to be about $1,800."

It was unclear where Fort Field will find the money and whether it will split the cost among its water users, also known as shareholders. Beckstrom said once the money is there, though, the city can have its work done in four to six weeks.

So far, the deal seems to be amenable to everyone. Talks surrounding the new proposal are still in their early stages, but for the first time in more than 40 years, there is hope of a final solution.

"I think at this point, we're all on the same page and we're going to work it all out," Jeffs said.

• Ace Stryker can be reached at 344-2556 or at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it