SOUTH JORDAN — Another young couple has built a home along the banks of the Jordan River in this fast-growing suburban city. But this couple is special: It's a nesting pair of common yellowthroats, one of the many species of birds coming back to call the river bottoms home now that its habitat is being restored.
In fact, 98 species of birds — from hummingbirds to woodpeckers to wrens to orioles — rely on Utah's low-lying riparian (river bottoms) habitats, some of them on a permanent basis, others as a stopping point on their yearly migrations and still others for building nests and producing offspring.
But the river bottoms have long been a draw for other species, too, including humans. Early settlers flocked to areas like the Jordan River bottoms, their oasis in the desert valley, to build farms and pastures for their animals. And they brought with them grasses for their livestock and tamarisks and Russian olive trees, hardy shade-providers that can be grown easily despite the valley's dry climate.
What they didn't know is that these non-native plants would quickly overtake the natural ecosystem, choking out the golden currants and wood roses and oak-leaf sumacs and river hawthorns that had long been growing along the Jordan's banks.
"You cannot argue that the tamarisk is not a beautiful plant," TreeUtah ecological-restoration coordinator Vaughn Lovejoy said. "It's just invasive."
And when these plants take over, they wipe out the countless bugs and insects that thrive on the native plants. Without those insects, the birds head elsewhere.
So for the past 10 years, TreeUtah and its partners, including the Great Salt Lake Audubon Society and the Utah Reclamation Mitigation and Conservation Committee, have been chopping down the tamarisks and Russian olives, taking machetes to the thistles, and slowly, deliberately planting new seedlings. They started with golden currants, which can take hold fairly easily, providing berries and insects for the returning birds and creating shelter for the less-hardy native plants to take hold below.
"In 20 years, if this works the way we believe it will, the golden currants will have filled in, with underlayers and overlayers of plants and trees, all supporting different kinds of birds," Lovejoy said.
The project is taking place on an approximately 120-acre piece of land north and south of 10600 South.
"This project is so exciting because of its size: 120 acres, considering it's in the middle of a metropolitan valley, is very valuable," Lovejoy said.
Volunteers from church groups to AmeriCorps workers to teenagers in the youth corrections system have been taking part in the slow-going process of digging, planting and watering since the planting began seven years ago. Students from the University of Utah, Salt Lake Community College and Westminster College have all helped with the project as part of classes that carry a community service requirement.
The golden currants are taking hold, especially in the southern portion of the project where organizers are able to make use of the river's floodplain and its tributaries.
"It takes an amazing amount of work to bring a habitat back like this," Lovejoy said.
The volunteers suffered a setback earlier this year when South Jordan city contractors in April bulldozed a 25-foot section of thriving currants to install a culinary water line. TreeUtah and its partners said they had left the city an unplanted section for the water project, but the city insists it was abiding by its agreements. The city has apologized and has vowed to help with "remediation."
As of mid-June, volunteers had planted about 8,000 new seedlings in the project area this spring alone, and more than 30,000 have been planted since the project started, Lovejoy said.
The volunteers received a grant from the Utah Department of Energy for a solar-powered pump north of 10600 South that brings water from ponds and wetlands along the river banks to the higher and drier young seedlings. Volunteers also spend a lot of time hauling jugs of water to dump at the base of young trees, which need the help to establish themselves until they can reach the water table below the ground.
All of this is necessary because it's not just the species around the river that have been changed by humans — it's the nature of the river itself.
"The river tells its own story in a way," Lovejoy said.
Standing along the banks of the Jordan, it's clear that it used to run a lot deeper. Even during this year's wet spring, the river runs well below its former banks.
The river has been channelized and diverted into canals for irrigation, causing its levels to drop. The Jordan once meandered along a winding course, the natural result of erosion. Now it runs down a fairly straight channel, and its waters rarely, if ever, spill over and create the floodplain that used to nurture the plants in the riparian habitat.
"In a way, a floodplain isn't a thing — it's a living symphony of everything working together," Lovejoy said. "Everything's timed together as a living process."
Rising waters in spring once coincided with the flowers' timetable, readying them for pollination, which helped insects thrive just in time to provide food for the newly hatched chicks along the river. Even the sparrows, which are typically seed-eaters, rely on insects during nesting to provide protein for their young — and it's all timed with the yearly rise and fall of the river.
Lovejoy said cities and community groups throughout the Salt Lake area have, in recent years, been rediscovering the unique role the Jordan River plays in the valley. He said cities like Murray have been especially proactive in encouraging residents to visit the river and learn from its ecosystem, in "making the river an asset rather than a liability."
For more information on the TreeUtah project, including details on how to volunteer or to see a complete listing and pictures of native plants and songbirds of the Jordan River, visit www.treeutah.org/eco_restoration.htm
E-mail: dsmeath@desnews.com