A state working group will release its ideas on reducing the dangers of landslides in urban areas at a meeting Wednesday in Salt Lake City.

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. convened the group of experts and interested parties after landslides damaged buildings across the state in 2005 and 2006. It was charged with brainstorming ideas to improve land-use regulation processes.

"The primary concern was developments going in in landslide areas around the state," said Nick Jones, Provo's city engineer and a member of the Geologic Hazards Working Group. "They keep building higher and higher on the mountains."

The Utah Geological Survey's Web site lists 19 damaging landslides across the state between 2001 and 2006, and several of those occurred in Utah County.

In 2002 and 2004, debris flowed down on Spring Lake and Santaquin from Dry Mountain following storms. A landslide in Cedar Hills in 2005 damaged a fourplex of townhomes, which were later demolished. That same year -- also following a storm -- a 13-ton rock tumbled 2,600 feet down Y Mountain and destroyed a guest house on North 1550 East in Provo.

"As development encroaches into those foothills, that's where you see them," Jones said. "They keep building higher and higher on the mountains. Unfortunately, those areas are fairly geologically active."

The group will meet for the fifth time Wednesday and present draft recommendations as well as set up a process to receive comments on them.

The recommendations won't be ready for release until Wednesday, said Gary Christenson, geologic manager with the UGS.

Jones said one of the key approaches is mapping potential development areas; indentifying landslide, fault line and other risks; and looking at ways to "review the different areas that are of primary concern."

In some cases development could be restricted and in others there might be ways to offset the risks of building in a landslide area, he said.

Information on recent landslides, debris flows and rock falls is available at geology.utah.gov/utahgeo/hazards/landslide/index.htm.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page D1.