Acknowledged by some political leaders as the longtime toilet of Salt Lake County, the Jordan River holds promise of shedding its Rodney Dangerfield image if a committee of dedicated fans can turn enough people on to their vision.
That vision, the subject of a variety of workshops at last week's Salt Lake Countywide Watershed Symposium, is eye-catching big, fueled in part by the success stories of the Charles River in Massachusetts and the Willamette River in Oregon.
If people can galvanize to save the 80-mile-long Charles River – which winds through 22 municipalities, including Boston — why not a river like the Jordan, half its size, with only 15 cities and three counties to contend with?
"It is easy to get people excited about the Jordan River who live near it or use the parkway," said Midvale Mayor JoAnn Seghini. "But the Jordan River is part of all of us, regardless of where we live. It is a matter of educating people."
That will be the first step for the implementation committee the Blueprint Jordan River project facilitated by Envision Utah in cooperation with Salt Lake County and multiple government leaders.
Its vision calls for a 7,300-acre linear nature preserve and a 50-mile green trail along the river, linking users from Utah Lake in the south, where the river begins, to the Great Salt Lake in the north, at its end.
The vision is a tall order, concedes project manager Gabe Epperson. Of those 7,300 acres contemplated as permanent open space, half of those have been set aside for that purpose, while 3,800 acres are currently zoned for development.
"To try to buy all that land would be a challenge," he said. "But open space has to be protected. If urbanization continues, there will be nothing left to protect."
Cities would have to get on board, private property owners would have to be willing to deal and the public would have to be willing to foot some of the cost.
But it's been done elsewhere, Epperson pointed out.
In Portland in the mid-1990s, voters approved $135 million in bonds to acquire natural areas along the Willamette. As of July 2003, close to 8,000 acres of open space had been acquired in 251 separate property transactions.
The Jordan plan also calls for the development of regional "river centers" that would incorporate recreation-centered retail to complement the river and to make better use of existing attractions, such as the Utah State Fairpark and Thanksgiving Point, as "regional centers."
Aside from those "new" features that are envisioned for the Jordan River is the daunting task of correcting more than a century of abuse that has led to the river's imperiled condition.
In 2004, the Jordan River was named one of the country's top 10 threatened waterways.
"The challenge is to reverse that," Epperson said. "It is not just one segment of the river that is threatened, but every segment. The water quality of the entire river has to improve."
Some cities have already taken enormous strides to coddle the river: Murray has its parkway portion and fishing pond, and West Jordan just plunked down some money for a fishery and education area. Salt Lake City is in the process of picking up the Legacy Parkway trail where it ends at I-215 and extending it through its boundaries.
"The region is beyond Salt Lake County," said Salt Lake Mayor Ralph Becker. "We could have an incredible corridor that wouldn't be matched anywhere in the country, at least for an urban area."
But as West Jordan's Mayor Dave Newton pointed out, each city has or has not been doing its own thing with regard to river,
"Right now we are just doing it one city at a time. We need to get unified for greater things to happen."
That's where Epperson's project comes in, and its implementation committee, which has been studying various organizational structures that could be created to take on the revival of the Jordan River in a unified fashion.
"Some entity needs to be in place working at this full-time and to pursue a variety of funding sources," Epperson said.
The committee has looked at river success stories across the country and the type of organizing entity that was at the forefront of kickstarting and following through with the efforts.
There have been nonprofits that began at the "bottom" through a grassroots movement, top-down organizations with broad discretionary authority and collaborative commission-style groups that tap leadership in relevant municipalities and county government.
The committee also researched the notion of creating a special service district that could levy a "Jordan River tax" to fund improvements and acquire open space.
Sandy City Councilman Chris McCandless sits on that implementation committee that has been weighing the options and deciding "what's next."
The vision has everyone excited, he said, but "everyone understands how important it is that we do this right and do it with the majority in mind."
The proposal that seems to be getting the most attention is the creation of a commission much like the Utah Lake Commission, which grew out of a study committee by the Utah County Council of Governments and was formally organized in 2007, bringing in state partners with the authorization of the Utah Legislature.
McCandless stressed that nothing has been solidified but said the implementation committee recognizes the critical need for more continuity in protecting the integrity of the Jordan River.
"Knowledge, education and awareness will give us a better system from lake to lake."
For that to happen, leaders have to get people excited about the vision of what the Jordan River could be, Becker said.
"I think we all see the Jordan River as a gem in this valley that is under-utilized and under-appreciated."
For further information
For more information on the Blueprint Jordan River Project, go to www.blueprint .slco.org
e-mail: amyjoi@desnews.com