LAYTON, Utah — The Great Salt Lake Shorelands Preserve expands into Layton with 40 acres of new wetlands to clean stormwater and preserve life on the Great Salt Lake.
The Shorelands, created by The Nature Conservancy, consist of 4,400 acres of wetlands and uplands along the eastern edge of The Great Salt Lake. The latest expansion is an open marsh aimed at cleaning the stormwater draining from Clearfield's Freeport Center, a particular point of possible contamination according to TNC Director of Stewardship Chris Brown.
"So we have a structure that we built on the, on the Freeport Center drain itself where we actually have a trash broom, we're collecting the trash that's going to come down the river," said Brown. "We'll be able to remove that out of the, out of the drain and then the wetland itself."
Beyond the trash broom, Brown says the newly created wetlands will serve as a second stop for the drain water as the environment is naturally great at pulling contaminants from the water.
"When it goes into the Great Salt Lake, it will be a lot cleaner when it actually ends at its final spot," he said.
The plan was to finish construction much sooner, with many expansions only taking 8 to 9 months. Due to the historic levels of precipitation, this development took well over a year.
"We started several years ago and just finished up this year," he said. "But now we're finally putting the water in the wetland here."
Much of the land prior to development was for agriculture. Much of the ground had to be dug out to create 12 to 18 inches deep areas to create the open marshlands ideal for the migratory birds making a stop at the lake.
"What we did here is we just had an area where we could create a wetland habitat," said Brown. "We took an area and we thought here's a good spot to create a new wetland, let's create the infrastructure to create a wetland and try and offset some of those losses on the lake itself."
