Legacy of Watershed Protection

Jeffery Niermeyer, Director Salt Lake City Department of Public Utilities

Willow Heights Lake located in Big Cottonwood Canyon.

As the director of the Salt Lake City Department of Public Utilities, for decades I have recognized the extraordinary importance of the Wasatch Mountains and their streams to our public water supplies and our community’s well-being. The good health of these mountain watersheds—the land, vegetation, snow, riparian areas, habitats, and ecosystems—facilitates the water cycle and ultimately connects these mountains to faucets across the Salt Lake Valley. We are fortunate that past City leaders recognized this connection, too, and I hope that those leaders who come after me will continue this legacy. Salt Lake City, a growing and prosperous community, depends on the Wasatch Mountain watersheds for a clean, pure water supply, and our predecessors’ foresight and our continued watershed stewardship mean this critical resource will continue to be available.

The high-elevation mountains of the Central Wasatch capture storm systems tracking through northern Utah in the winter, resulting in bountiful snows. The water released during the spring and summer snowmelt nourishes life in the terrestrial, riparian, and aquatic environments of the mountains and the downstream valley. This water also constitutes the majority of the drinking-water supply for residents of the Salt Lake Valley and is therefore critical to the health and economic prosperity of our communities. There is an inextricable connection between our well-being and maintaining the sustainability of the watersheds and ecosystems of the Wasatch Mountains. From City Creek Canyon to Little Cottonwood Canyon, the Wasatch watersheds we depend upon for water also feed our collective desires for recreation, beauty, fresh air, and spiritual sustenance.

The terms “stewardship” and “watershed protection” are often-repeated mantras in our community. As with many often-repeated terms, there is a risk that they will become disconnected over time from the heart and soul of their original intention, especially if we collectively lose sight of their historical context. Remembering the history of our relationship to these mountain watersheds can help deepen our understanding of the meaning of watershed stewardship, as well as the water legacy we will leave.

The tradition of watershed stewardship in the Wasatch began with Utah’s Mormon pioneers. Within weeks of their arrival in the Salt Lake Valley in July 1847, Mormon pioneers constructed a series of ditches to capture and distribute water from City Creek to their settlement. In August 1847, Brigham Young, the established Mormon leader, proclaimed: “We have selected a site for a city which, for beauty and convenience, we have never seen equal. It is on a gentle declivity where every garden, house, lot or room may be abundantly supplied with cold water from the mountains at pleasure…”

More than 20 years later, on June 24, 1873, the Salt Lake City mayor and council reported that they had been informed of plans to conduct extensive mining and to build a new city at the headwaters of City Creek. The decision that these city officials made on that day was one of the first in what would become a long history of refusals to allow unsustainable development in the watersheds. One councilman stated that “if the town should be built, its natural tendency would be to foul the waters leading into the City, on which inhabitants of this City are dependent for domestic purposes.” The mayor then declared that “an order should be passed by this Council prohibiting the filthing of those waters. The rules and regulations for quarantine purposes should protect the citizens against the waters being made impure.”

As the settlement grew and families dispersed throughout the Salt Lake Valley, other Wasatch Mountain streams, such as Parleys Creek and Big and Little Cottonwood creeks were diverted to facilitate the valley’s growth. The larger Wasatch Mountain landscape became increasingly important for a clean and reliable water supply to sustain the health and economy of a growing Salt Lake Valley.

In 1906, after the federal government reserved expanses of land throughout the country, including the Wasatch Mountains, the Wasatch-Cache National Forest was established under the newly created U.S. Forest Service (the Wasatch watersheds are currently comprised of about 60% National Forest System lands). Gifford Pinchot, President Theodore Roosevelt’s first chief of the U.S. Forest Service, was reported to have traveled to Salt Lake City on at least two occasions in the first decade of the 20th century to speak to Salt Lake City leaders about the importance of protecting the city’s watersheds and to begin watershed restoration activities in areas of the Cottonwood Canyon watersheds that had been impacted by mining and logging. Later, in 1914 and in 1934, federal legislation was created by Congress to direct the Forest Service to further protect the Wasatch watersheds in partnership with Salt Lake City.

The Salt Lake Valley has since thrived at the base of the majestic Wasatch Mountains, due in very large part to the proximity of clean water from the mountain snowpack and streams. About 1 million people along the Wasatch Front now depend upon the Wasatch Mountains for their water supply. The population of the Salt Lake County is projected to grow by an additional 700,000 by 2050, further increasing the demand for water flowing from the Wasatch Mountains.

As residents of the Wasatch Front, we are fortunate to have access to these watersheds. We enjoy skiing in four developed ski areas, backcountry trekking in designated wilderness areas, camping, picnicking, rock climbing, hunting, fishing, mountain biking, visiting recreation cabins, escaping the valley heat, and viewing wildlife and scenic vistas. In fact, the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest is ranked in the top five of the most heavily visited national forests in the country. This access fuels a thriving recreation industry in Utah and attracts businesses and residents to the area.

Environmental protections are in place in our watersheds because through the decades we have learned that what we do in the watersheds matters. For instance, activities in City Creek Canyon during the first half of the 20th century, particularly recreation overuse by the public, resulted in such degraded water quality that the canyon had to be closed to the public during the 1950s and 1960s to restore environmental and watershed functions.

As we think about the water legacy we are leaving for future generations and the evolving challenges that threaten the health of the Wasatch Mountains, we may need to be flexible and creative to protect our watersheds. This may require focusing on priorities that are not always comfortable for everyone or considering new ways of stewardship that extend the existing paradigm. We will need to communicate well, listen carefully, and seek to understand other points of view, all tasks that are sometimes easier said than done. To guide us through these difficult times ahead, we should always remember our community’s historical relationship with water and the Wasatch Mountains and take care to not undo the good planning and foresight of our predecessors.