SALT LAKE CITY — Utah's capital city officially received a financial boost as it seeks to preserve 200 acres of wetlands by the shores of its namesake.
Salt Lake City added a nearly $2.23 million grant from the Great Salt Lake Watershed Enhancement Trust to its budget as one of the many items in a $21.9 million budget amendment that members of the Salt Lake City Council approved Tuesday night. The trust awarded the grant to the Salt Lake City Department of Public Utilities in 2023, and Tuesday's measure was more of an accounting item to include it in the budget, said Laura Briefer, the department's director.
It was awarded to Salt Lake City, along with seven other projects that received a total of $8.5 million. All eight projects aim to "protect and enhance" more than 13,000 acres of the Great Salt Lake's wetlands.
Salt Lake City is seeking to acquire 200 acres of private commercial land near the Rudy Drain, a section of the lake's wetlands near Salt Lake City International Airport, as well as duck hunting club land and Farmington Bay in Davis County. The land is owned by Scannell, one of the many entities that have built warehouses across the city's growing Northwest Quadrant.
"It's part of a broader goal to protect the wetlands along the Great Salt Lake shoreline within Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County," Briefer told KSL.com.
The grant is expected to cover about one-third of the project cost. The remaining cost — projected by the trust to be about $4.47 million — is yet to be figured out, but Briefer said the city could receive about another $2.5 million from the Utah Inland Port Authority. Both external financial sources are contingent on a land agreement being reached, which — in the grant's case — must be reached by the end of 2026.
The ultimate goal is that a future conservation easement is placed on the land to protect it from development as more buildings creep into the wetlands. If successful, the project would include new trails linking to regional trail systems, such as the Jordan River Parkway Trail.
"Large land preservation projects can be really complex," Briefer said. "This is a very large and ambitious land preservation effort, so it does take time to sort out the nature of any kind of transaction and the future of the landscape."
Salt Lake City reached an agreement with the Great Salt Lake Watershed Enhancement Trust late last year toward the goal. In a statement to KSL.com, Marcelle Shoop, executive director of the Great Salt Lake Watershed Enhancement Trust and director of Audubon Society's Saline Lakes Program, said the group is looking forward to the project coming to fruition.
"We are excited for this project that will conserve and restore wetlands and their important connections to sustaining Great Salt Lake's water flows and the essential habitat that birds and other wildlife depend on," she said.
Other items added to the budget
Salt Lake City also received $406,102 from the Utah Department of Transportation for new Capitol Hill bicycle lanes, as well as a $63,675 donation from the Utah Bar Foundation for a "mobile courtroom" to reach people at resource centers and other areas of need.
While the city added some money to its budget, city leaders also voted to approve new expenditures. Those funds include new staff hires, as well as $150,000 for items like treatments for the city's struggling sycamore trees. Other notable spending items include:
- $3.9 million toward public infrastructure at the city's Fleet Block property. The money comes from an anticipated sale of a parcel as redevelopment on the project begins.
- $239,050 for an update to the city's Community Wildfire Protection Plan.
- $50,000 to double the size of the city's July 4 and Pioneer Day drone shows.
