An additional 200 acres of open space are now protected from future development, with nearly half of that acreage in the Kamas Valley.
Summit Land Conservancy CEO Cheryl Fox said the organization recently acquired a 99-acre conservation easement in Kamas.
“The Kamas Valley is one of our top priorities," Fox said on KPCW's "Local News Hour" Tuesday. "t is an important watershed for the Great Salt Lake, and it produces water, so snow and rainfall and the Uintas to the east and the West Hills to the west, and that water bubbles up in the Kamas Valley and flows through Beaver Creek. If we were to pave the Kamas Valley and put a bunch of homes there, it would really have very disastrous effects on that watershed.”
Another 100 acres has been protected in the Ogden Valley near Huntsville.
Fox said two additional conservation easements in Oakley are also moving forward. The Oakley City Council is expected to consider easements covering 40 acres and another 450 acres of the Ure Family property which could eventually include recreational biking and hiking trails.
That proposal is expected to come before the city council later this month.
The county anticipates that various other Ure properties that are not contiguous will eventually have different farming owners. So, we're looking at separate easements because we eventually think there will be separate owners.”
Another project involves a 10-acre property in Oakley that Fox said has taken far longer than expected.
She said a group of residents approached the conservancy in 2016 about creating a path along the Weber River through town. The project involved three different landowners who each owned 10 separate one-acre lots. Ten years later, the conservancy is still working to put the pieces together.
“So, we had to work with different landowners to purchase it,” she said. “We're building a revolving opportunity fund, so people can donate to the fund. We use the money to get something off the market, and then we pay the fund back when we get the conservation dollars to the table. So, this money saves land over and over again and we were able to use it to purchase four of the acres last year, and then we got it replenished, and then we bought another kind of an in-holding in the middle of the 10 acres that we just closed on last week, and eventually the county will buy the final five acres, and it'll be this wonderful 10-acre conservation area.”
Fox said the conservancy is hosting several upcoming events, including a Park City Ghost Tours moonshine adventure, and a volunteer lunch and learn.
