When Brian Tonetti, executive director of Sevens Canyons Trust, was a senior at the University of Utah in 2014, he and other students had an idea. They wanted to uncover the meeting point of the Red Butte, Emigration and Parley’s Creeks at the Jordan River on the west side of Salt Lake City.
It was part of the student’s century-long vision to daylight buried streams — literally bringing the creeks, which were paved over and ran through pipes, to light.
So, they pitched it to the city, but Tonetti never thought it would actually happen.
“Taking a parking lot and literally turning it into a creek. It sounds crazy, right?” he said Wednesday at the opening of the Three Creeks Confluence Park. “I think when we first proposed that, it was more so a shot in the dark.”
But he said they found a champion for the project in Kyle LaMalfa, who was a city councilmember at the time.
Now, the creeks are visible as they flow into the Jordan River. There’s a bridge with public art displayed on it, and native plants line the waterways.
LaMalfa said the new park benefits the community from an equity perspective.
“It’s not just environmental justice in the notion of protection from environmental hazards, but it’s creating opportunities for the west side using natural assets,” LaMalfa said.
Tonetti said the Three Creeks Confluence project uncovered 200 feet of streams, but there are still about 21 miles of buried creeks to bring into the light in Salt Lake City.
“We’ve got a long time, a long way ahead of us,” he said. “But that's why we have a 100-year vision, because that's how long we think it will take to uncover those 21 miles.”