The Seven Canyons Trust and Salt Lake City have raised $1.2 million to restore a 6-acre open space in the Glendale neighborhood where Red Butte Creek, Emigration Creek and Parley’s Creek flow into the Jordan River. Currently, the confluence is paved over, littered with garbage and overgrown with invasive species. The idea to “reactivate” the creeks was developed in 2014 by students in a University of Utah Urban Ecology Workshop taught by Stephen Goldsmith. The students (including Biran Tonetti who is currently Executive Director of Seven Canyons Trust) wrote a report, “100 Years of Daylighting” which used Three Creeks as a case study for how to rehabilitate the area into an ecologically healthy habitat. The student report won an award from the Utah chapter of the American Planning Association and inspired Salt Lake City and the Jordan River Commission to support a real-life project. Construction is scheduled to begin in Fall 2017.
Three Creeks Confluence Project: slcgov.com/open-space/ three-creeks-confluence-project; 100 Years of Daylighting: SevenCanyonsTrust.org/100-years-of-daylighting