Three old streams bring one sparkling new attraction to Salt Lake City’s west side
Authored by Brian Maffly
Source: Salt Lake Tribune
An article detailing the Three Creeks Confluence—an effort to uncover Red Butte, Emigration, and Parleys Creeks where they flow into the Jordan River in Salt Lake City, UT—and the larger stream daylighting initiative in the Salt Lake Valley and beyond.
Three Creeks Confluence Park showcases Red Butte, Emigration and Parleys waterways near the Jordan River Parkway Trail.
Snaking through Salt Lake City are several creeks, funneling alpine snowmelt from the Wasatch Mountains to the Jordan River. But they are creeks mostly in name only, confined to buried culverts for much of their courses through Utah’s most densely built urban environments.
Now a combined portion of Red Butte, Emigration and Parleys creeks are exposed to daylight where a future park along the Jordan is taking final shape in the Glendale neighborhood. Called Three Creeks Confluence, the future park is to be integrated into the Jordan River Parkway Trail near 900 West just north of 1300 South.
Until six months ago the site was a parking lot and burned residence, but soon it will be a community focal point where residents can enjoy the river flowing through the city, according to Brian Tonetti, executive director of the Seven Canyons Trust.
Tonetti founded the nonprofit a few years ago to develop a vision for restoring the seven Jordan River tributaries running through the Salt Lake Valley. Planned in partnership with Salt Lake City’s parks and public lands division, the new $3 million city-funded project is the trust’s first major effort to “daylight” a stream.
“There’s so much that you can do with a daylighting project,” Tonetti said during a recent visit to Three Creeks construction site, “from improving water quality, providing recreational opportunities, like fishing, boating, especially along the Jordan River and the connection there, [to] increased economic development around these projects, creating more livable cities.”
