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Wayne McArthur, water & power director.
In 1985, another era in St. George's water and power history ended with
the retirement of Rudger McArthur as director. It was only by coincidence
that another man with the surname McArthur, distantly related to Rudger,
is a St. George native, having graduated from and served as student-body
president of both Dixie High School and Dixie College. He earned a civil
and environmental engineering degree at Utah State University and earned
his MBA at BYU. At the time of his appointment as St. George utilities director,
Wayne had already spent 10 years as an engineer and manager for Exxon Company
USA in Memphis, Tennessee, Little Rock, Arkansas, Baton Rouge, Louisiana,
and Houston, Texas.
Wayne McArthur took the helm as water and power director in March of 1985,
at the height of the city's growth boom. In 1985 alone, permits for 1,718
building units were issued by the city. This significant rise came mostly
as a result of an increase in power and water impact fees which city leaders
felt was long overdue. Developers who were planning projects hurried to
beat the deadline before the fee hike took effect. By the time the decade
was finished, the city had literally doubled in size-from just over 13,000
in 1980, to 28,500 in 1990.
Due to drought and incredible growth, the city was inching dangerously close
to water shortages, and was also in the middle of a heated, expensive battle
with the state Public Utilities Commission on where a new power line would
run, and who would build it. Power use was nipping on the edge of supply.
Among considerable other projects, Wayne McArthur began immediately to get
involved in two major undertakings, one in water, and one in power, which
would greatly help stabilize the city utilities situation. On the power
side, it was a new diesel plant on the Red Hill north of the city, and doubling
the size of the Parkinson Substation. On the water side, it was the planning
and negotiating of St. George's involvement in the Quail Creek Reservoir
project.
During the 1980's, St. George's population doubled
from 13,146 in 1980, to 28,502 in 1990.
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Articles taken from Making the Desert Bloom
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2012 City of St. George |
