Ashley Creek, the water that runs eastern Naples

Yes, but not through the middle. The creek enters near the city's north edge, runs southeast across the eastern side, and leaves at the southeast corner, roughly two miles inside the city limits, and it is the only named watercourse in Naples. Nearly all of that length is private ground, irrigation works and ditch bank, with no riverside path and no public access point, so it is not a place to fish, swim or walk from town.

The Ashley Valley Water and Sewer Improvement District, not Naples City. The district supplies drinking water and sewer to all of Uintah County except Vernal City, which runs its own municipal system. The 2021 general plan counts more than 5,000 district service connections and over 160 miles of drinking water line, plus more than 80 miles of sewer line, over 1,200 manholes, five lift stations and two siphons. Some parcels on the edges of the city run on a private well and septic instead.

Drought. The district held a public rate hearing on 29 April 2026 covering drought, allotments, restrictions and summer rates, and its board adopted a conservation rate structure: 20.50 dollars for the first 6,000 gallons, 2.50 per thousand for the next ten thousand, and 22.00 per thousand above 32,000 gallons in a month. The base was lowered and heavy outdoor use was deliberately priced up. The card was temporary, with a step back down scheduled for 31 October 2026 if the supply allowed. Get the current schedule from the district before you budget on the 2026 numbers.

Under the 2026 conservation rates the district manager, Ryan Goodrich, put a quarter acre at about 3,000 gallons a month and was plain about the result: it will not be green, it will not be pretty, but it will survive. That is a drought target from a specific year rather than a landscaping recommendation. Ask the district for current guidance and the current rate card at ashleywatersewerut.gov or on 435-789-9400 before you plan a garden around it.

Parts of it are exposed, and the city says so itself. The 2021 general plan reports that land use is constrained mainly in the south and east of the city by expansive soils and the potential for flooding, and that roughly eight percent of its dwelling units sit in hazard risk areas, holding 137 residents, 149 jobs and 429 acres. The plan also noted that FEMA was redrawing its floodplain mapping, and a new map can change a property's status, so pull the current FEMA panel for a specific parcel through the county before you buy.

A flood and irrigation project sponsored by Uintah County with funding from the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service under Public Law 83-566, with a Finding of No Significant Impact issued on 25 May 2023. It builds two debris and detention basins in the Coal Mine and Yellow Hills sub basins in the Little Mountain foothills about 4.3 miles west of Vernal, pipes 9.6 miles of the Ashley Central Canal with 6.3 of that pressurized, and adds three miles of recreation trail. The installation cost was put at 19,601,669 dollars, and Naples City is a named beneficiary, though the basins sit on the far side of the valley.

More than almost anything else in this valley. At the gage on the lower creek near Stewart Lake, discharge has ranged from 0.03 cubic feet per second in late summer to 4,300 during spring runoff, with an annual mean of 67.5 across 1992 to 2001. That is the normal behavior of a snowmelt stream off a high range. Steinaker Dam, three and a half miles north of Vernal, holds 38,000 acre feet and can temporarily store nonproject Ashley Creek flows to trim a flood peak when there is room.

The documented record sits on the lower creek and the wetlands near Jensen, downstream of Naples, not on the stretch that runs through this city. Federal studies found selenium at 25 to 75 micrograms per litre in the lower reach and traced roughly 85 percent of the load to leakage from the Vernal sewage lagoons, built in 1981 on Mancos Shale east of the creek. Utah's health department issued a fish and waterfowl consumption advisory for the area on 26 September 1988, and a federal remediation program ran from the late 1990s into 2001. Treat the published account as history and take a current question to the state.

Four things, and all of them have published answers. Which FEMA flood zone the parcel sits in today and whether that map is being redrawn. Whether irrigation or ditch shares attach to the land and whether they convey with the sale, because in this valley they often do not. Whether a ditch, lateral or drain crosses the parcel, and who holds the right of way and the maintenance duty. And whether the address is on the district's water and sewer or on a private well and septic, which changes at the parcel rather than at the street.