The Kamas Meadows area is home to the headwaters of the Weber River, which runs through the rest of eastern Summit County all the way to the Great Salt Lake.
Now, the Summit Land Conservancy has $22 million in federal dollars to conserve portions of the area through the U.S Department of Agriculture’s Regional Conservation Partnership Program.
That program got extra money from the recent Inflation Reduction Act and Farm Bill. Summit Land Conservancy's award is one of 81 nationwide.
“So, this round of federal funding, one of its priorities was actually to protect wet meadows, and landscapes like the Kamas meadow, because it sequesters a lot of carbon for one—so it keeps the planet a little bit cooler—but this is also a critical source for the Weber River and the Great Salt Lake,” Summit Land Conservancy Executive Director Cheryl Fox explained.
The conservancy says it’s important agriculturally too, especially for grazing.
Fox credits former Summit County Councilmember Doug Clyde, who was able to study the aquifer underneath the meadow to demonstrate why it’s important to protect it from overdevelopment.
She says the conservancy persuaded Utah’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, a division of the USDA, to designate the Kamas Valley as an “area of special concern” because of Clyde’s work.
“I used to take people out and we would look at that big Kamas meadow and I thought, there's no way to save it. There's just—the development pressures are too intense,” Fox said. “But this is a game changer.”
The $22 million will be used to compensate landowners who choose to forego development potential on their land. Agricultural activity frequently continues on land held by conservation easements.
Owners who put a conservation easement on their land get a tax credit, too.
Easements are held in perpetuity by a government entity or land trust like Summit Land Conservancy.
Summit County itself has pursued conservation in the Kamas Valley. In March, the county entered into an option agreement to purchase the Ure family ranch along state Route 248 for $25 million.
Fox said its possible her organization’s new $22 million could help fund the Ure ranch’s final purchase price. It depends on what sorts of grants the county and land conservancy receive—Summit Land Conservancy has to bring in other funding to unlock the RCPP money, which matches that amount.
Summit Land Conservancy is speaking with other Kamas area landowners, and the federal funding will be crucial to getting those deals across the finish line.
Fox said the organization doesn't know how much land it can conserve in the Kamas Valley yet. However, easements usually cost about $32,000 per acre—although prices change—which translates to at least 600 acres of conservation.
The organization has closed on 11 NRCS funded conservation easements since 2011, including the Osguthorpe Farm in the Snyderville Basin. There are two other projects close to completion from a 2020 RCPP award of $9.4 million.
