Rising water threatens new improvements at Utah Lake
Even as they accepted perhaps the largest gift ever made to Utah Lake State Park, officials were fighting to save the harbor.
So high is the lake that when the wind blows, water is overtopping the new south jetty and has already eroded it 1-1/2 feet in some places, said Ty Hunter, park director.
"We basically went into an emergency situation to save the investment we've placed out there," Hunter said.
Hoping to improve boating on Utah Lake, crews have spent more than $1 million working to reconfigure the harbor, which had been made up of two parallel earth-and-concrete berms.
Because the parallel design allowed the harbor to collect wind-blown silt, making it more shallow each year, last year the Army Corps of Engineers removed 800 feet of the existing 2,000-foot-long south jetty. A new arm of the south jetty was then added, extending toward the north jetty at a 90-degree angle.
The two jetties now come together to form a mouth about 100 feet wide, but the south jetty "takes the full brunt of the lake," Hunter said.
Crews have built a four-foot rock berm on the west side of the jetty "to stop the wave action and prevent the worst case, a breach of the jetty," he said. "We are just hoping that will minimize the damage. We know there is going to be some damage."
Without the berm, the new jetty would have disappeared, he said.
"We would have gone back to square one," Hunter said.
The park has applied for money to raise the entire jetty another three to four feet, he said. How soon that money could be approved or denied is unknown.
Everyone agrees the lake will continue to rise, Hunter said. Predictions of how much it will rise vary from one to two feet. Either amount would submerge the jetty.
The latest projections, made two months ago, showed the lake could rise another foot, but weather since then has been wetter than predicted, said Daryl Devey of the Central Utah Water Conservancy District. How much more than a foot the lake could rise is unclear.
"We are hoping it will be OK," Hunter said. "We've had an engineer look at it and with the money and time that we had, this is the best we could do."
Fearing more high water, crews will sandbag a restroom south of the harbor next week to protect it, he said. The restroom is now about 80 feet from the shore but is expected to be flooded.
Such floods "are just something the state park has always been plagued with," Hunter said.
Despite jetty troubles, the park is moving forward with a series of improvements, he said.
On Tuesday, the EnergySolutions Environmental Foundation, the charity arm of the controversial nuclear storage company, donated $103,000 toward the cleanup of a 5-acre area that has never been reclaimed after being damaged in the floods of 1983. The gift is the largest in memory that has been given to the park, Hunter said.
The money will allow the park to remove cement, appliances and other large debris that have been illegally dumped on the site, he said.
An outdoor classroom, nature trail, amphitheater and covered picnic areas will then be added, said Pearl Wright, director of the EnergySolutions Environmental Foundation.
The foundation funds projects that enhance and preserve Utah's natural resources "and Utah Lake is a big natural resource," Wright said. The donation came after the foundation called the park to ask how the foundation could help the park, she said.
Signs along the new trail will educate people on the ecology of the lake, and the park hopes to host local school field trips at the amphitheater, Hunter said.
The project will take a year and a half to complete, he said.
In addition, funds from park entrance fees are being used to add 150 shade trees, turf and a sprinkler system to the campground here, Hunter said. Part of the campground is open now and all 53 spots will be open next week. One or two sites at a time may be closed intermittently throughout the summer as improvements are made.
"We are asking for the visiting public's support and patience as we complete the improvements," he said. "We are working hard, trying to maximize the public's money and what we can do with it."
Plans to dredge the harbor, at a cost of $1.5 million are still on hold, as they have been for several years, pending funding from the state, Hunter said.
By Caleb Warnock, DAILY HERALD
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