SALEM — Something had to be done about the small patch of wetlands next to Salem Ponds. It would regularly fill with cattails, bulrushes, grass clippings and trash until city crews cleaned it out.

"People would dump stuff, and we couldn't catch them," said Todd Gordon, who works for the city in its public works department.

"We used to burn it back in the '80s," said Mayor Randy Brailsford. "But it would just come back greener."

After Gordon started working for the city about 10 years ago, he and Brailsford would go on rides around town looking for work that needed to be done.

When they rode past the wetlands, Brailsford would often mutter, "We have to do something about that."

Now, after four years, something is being done. Volunteers and the city crew are gradually turning the wetlands into an outdoor classroom.

The former acre swamp is taking shape as Salem Wetland Park. It will become a place where schoolchildren can come to learn about the habitat for plants, insects and other parts of the pond's ecosystem.

School kids already make the trek from all over Utah County to the historic pond that watered Salem's roots. At a planned dedication in August, it will be renamed the Salem Outdoor Wetland Classroom.

A trail starting near Salem Elementary School, which has taken the project under its wing and will act as the host school, crosses the picturesque Salem Pond bridge and winds through a city park that rises up out of the pond to the pond.

There, it will cross a boardwalk across a small dam, with observation points and plaques that will describe the flora and fauna living and growing around the pond.

Still to come: A white rail fence that will surround the area and a new parking lot.

Volunteers have largely driven the project.

Dale Barney, a heavy-equipment operator as well as Spanish Fork's mayor, excavated the wetlands, which kept the project alive, Johnson said.

Then the Central Utah Water Conservancy District dove in with expertise and funding to fill in the gaps of the $178,000 price tag. So far, some of it donated.

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Over the last two years four elementary school teachers have taken classes in Colorado to learn how to teach hands-on instruction. Funding for the instruction came from private business.

A curriculum teachers will use on field trips to the park has already been written. "It meets the Utah course standards for Earth sciences," said Roxanna Johnson, who a district worker who has has been deeply involved in the project.

"It's been a long time (coming)," said Johnson, who seeks grants for such projects in Nebo schools, "but I think it will serve the district and the community well."


E-mail: rodger@desnews.com

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