Last night I attended a seminar on the need to protect and conserve open space within the Wasatch Front. The presenter said that his vision is a renewable deal for America. “To build a platform for individual and collaborative action, to restore our planets life support systems, ecosystem integrity and biodiversity at every geographic scale.” The presenter started out by telling us about the 1983 Salt Lake Flood. The flood was caused by a heavy snow pack in the mountains and a quick melt that resulted into many streets in our city to become streams and rivers. The Jordan River played a big part in this flood. Most of the area within the Jordan River corridor from Utah County to Davis County expanded to hold the water from the flooding. This is part of the ongoing relationship between the river, lake and city.
At this time there was not much development near the Jordan River, so the amount of damage to homes and buildings was minimal. With the extra water flooding into the Jordan River corridor as well as the marshy area where the Jordan empties into the Great Salt Lake, this area became a haven for many different species of birds. In fact this whole wet land area has always been a crucial environmental part of the many bird species that migrate hear from Mexico.
A year or so after the flood all the water dried up and damaged property was repaired. After time the city mainly forgot about the flood and started selling land near the Jordan River to developers. Many new homes started being built in the Glendale and Rose Park areas. Then Salt Lake County had to decide what to do with the remaining land near the river corridor. After many surveys the county found that a majority of about 66% of the citizens wanted to keep the Jordan River corridor green open space a so called “nature area” with in the valley. So the county then decided to keep it green open space, but also decided to but 17 “neighborhood centers” which are actually corporate centers, transit centers and housing areas.
If you go to South Jordan at 9000 south you will see the Jordan Park Center. This is an enormous corporate park with many 6 story office buildings and surrounded by never ending parking lots. This is one of those so called “neighborhood centers.” In making centers like the one in South Jordan one has to chop down trees to make way for office buildings while destroying crucial bird habitats during the process.
Now Salt Lake City has a 40 million dollar sports complex that is being planned to be built at 2200 North Redwood Rd. This area was pretty much a lake during the 1983 flood and is an area thriving with many different species of birds as well as other animals. If this planned sports complex is built, it most definitely will be flooded again and will have to be repaired at the tax payer’s expense. The main point of the seminar was that we need to conserve our open space especially near the Jordan River and the Great Salt Lake. These areas are very important environments for birds and other animals. It is also a very important for the people that live in Salt Lake County, because as the valley’s population grows we need an area in the middle of the valley where we can escape the urban jungle.
Here is a new environmental paradigm. Not just preservation, but restoration, “landscape scale” restoration, “continental” conservation, island biogeography, bigger natural areas intrinsically more valuable for maximum genetic diversity and connectivity “landscape permeability.” Presenter’s web-site www.earthrestoration.com