Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
- Salt Lake City is working on a $2 million project to replace an aging culvert.
- The 2023 flooding exacerbated erosion issues, prompting expedited repairs and infrastructure improvements.
- The project, expected to finish by April 2025, aims to enhance stormwater management and restore the land.
SALT LAKE CITY — Salt Lake City public utility engineers were in the middle of planning a project to replace an aging Emigration Creek culvert near Wasatch Hollow Preserve in April 2023 when they learned that flooding had started to occur in the area.
A blockage in a county-managed piece of water infrastructure upstream sent the fast-flowing creek — aided by a strong runoff from the state's record snowpack that season — over its banks and into the park and onto 1700 South, causing flood concerns in the quiet neighborhood.
About 40 homes were temporarily placed under voluntary evacuation as city crews raced to redirect the water back into Emigration Creek on the south side of the road. While the work saved homes from severe flooding, it also worsened an existing erosion issue by the aging 1700 South culvert.
"It was just in an ironic and inconvenient location for a flood to occur," said Sara Buckley, engineer and project manager for the Salt Lake City Department of Public Utilities, reflecting on it.
About a year and a half later, work to replace the culvert and rehabilitate the land is now underway.
Crews begin the initial work this month to carry out the $2 million project, digging into 1700 South that travels over the Emigration Creek. The project is expected to carry into early 2025, but it's expected to improve the city area hit hardest by the 2023 runoff and improve the stormwater system in the area.
"The plan is to restore the streambank and the stream to (be) better than it had been before," said Laura Briefer, director of Salt Lake City Public Utilities.
Replacing the culvert was already on the department's radar because of its age and the conditions around it, Buckley explained on Thursday, as an excavator ripped out a pile of dirt behind her.
The 60-inch diameter metal pipe was likely installed sometime in the early-to-mid 1900s and started to corrode as it exceeded its service life. This created erosion to the embankments around it, which became "incredibly unstable," she said.
It became a growing concern for the homes flanking both sides of its banks. Then came the 2023 flood, which didn't help.
"The spring 2023 flood exacerbated (the problem) and caused more significant erosion to the embankments," she said, adding that it created "very dangerous" conditions.
Department officials expedited the culvert project after the floodwaters subsided, making some revisions after the event. Project engineers added a new control structure to the plan, which aims to manage high creek flows to minimize future erosion impacts from high flows.
Crews are working now because it's the creek's "dry season." Fall is often when more frequent storms return to the Wasatch Front, but creek levels aren't as impacted by snowpack runoff or monsoons as the spring and summer months, Briefer said.
A section of 1700 South remained closed by the creek for construction on Thursday, but that closure is expected to only last a week altogether. Crews will spend the next few months finishing its installation and rehabilitating the land around it. Some trees will be removed, but native trees and vegetation will be replanted to help reduce future erosion.
The whole project is expected to be completed by April 2025 with a new culvert expected to last the next century. It was funded by stormwater and other fees that Salt Lake City Public Utilities customers pay with their water bill.
"At the end of the day, what this reflects is a lot of proactive planning," Briefer said. "We have engineers ... who spend a lot of time looking at our infrastructure and prioritizing what infrastructure we need to repair or rehabilitate to make sure the life of the infrastructure is extended and it serves the public."
