The Park City Council hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony and ice cream social to commemorate the completion of the Creekside Water Treatment Plant. Melissa Allison has more:
About 80 people showed up to celebrate the completion of the Creekside Water Treatment Plant off of Holiday Ranch Road on Tuesday.
Though the project started before the Park City Council announced their net-zero goals in 2016 – Mayor Andy Beerman said the upgrades to the treatment plant are in line with those goals.
“This is one of our very first buildings that we focused on our green initiatives,” Beerman said. “It was before our net-zero commitment but once we have renewable energy coming in it will be net-zero. It has solar panels, it has sustainable building materials, all LED lights, Powerwall inside for backup power. So, years ago it was planned and its nice to see it out of the ground and functioning we ll.”
The project, which cost more the $4.5 million, was approved in part because the infrastructure was getting old. But Public Utilities Director Clint McAffee said, it was also because it would improve the two wells that provide about 20 percent of Park City’s water.”
“The bigger driver really, was water quality driven. So, we found the surface water was actually making contact with the Aquaphor the Park Meadows well pumps from,” McAffee said. “So, subject to pathogens and viruses and all the things we typically treat at a treatment plant which the existing facilities were lacking. So, we replaced the existing facilities with this new filtration plant, added a two-stage filtration process and replaced the existing ultraviolet light disinfection process. And as a third barrier, we add chlorine for disinfection which is actually generated onsite at this facility rather than trucked in from Salt Lake.”
The bike park and playground have been around for about 10 years. The bike park was originally meant to be a temporary structure but was made permanent a few years later.
The money for the upgrades to the playground and bike park were not part of the water treatment plants budget.
Assistant Recreation Services Manager Tate Shaw says it just made sense to combine the efforts.
“The reason that we are collaborating with these guys is because of construction and allocation of space, and where tractors and things were coming in and how things were working with this new building,” Tate said. “So, it was just a good collaboration to make sure that that happened. But the bike park is there, we run water in the park. We have to for safety and rideability.”
Those upgrades include shade cover for the playground and a water feature for the bike park.
Some of Park City’s younger community showed up for the event as well. Nate and Porter are 11 years old and Cal is 10. They were waiting in line for ice cream when KPCW asked them why they showed up for the event.
“To see the water exhibit and the tours,” Porter said.
“We also came for the ice cream,” Nate said.
“I came with my camp to see the water exhibit and stuff,” Cal said.
“Do you guys come to this park regularly?” KPCW asked.
“Yeah, I do,” Porter said. “I live really close to it. We do the bike park sometimes, but we mainly do the sandpit and the swings and everything.”
“Yeah, its pretty nice,” Nate said. “I come here a lot too.”
Twenty-four-year resident Jodey Fey brought her three children, her sister and her son, as well as the Parisi family who were visiting her from New York. She said she loves what the city has done.
“This is our local park,” Fey said. “We love our local park; my kids bike here all the time and we wanted to come and support everyone and the work that was done. I love the shade that they put in for the kids, it’s my personal favorite. But, I just love they kept it authentic Park City.
I’m Melissa Allison, KPCW News.