It just makes sense to build your town near a river. Agriculture, transportation, sanitation, and industry all depend on reliable access to water.
In dry regions where water is scarce, river stewardship is especially important.
According to Søren Simonsen, director of the Jordan River Commission, this means not depleting too much water and keeping it clean, but it also means making sure the areas of riverbank around the water don’t get too crowded.
"One of the things that we're really promoting," Simonsen said, "is giving space to rivers do what they need to do.”
The commission works with towns along the Jordan River to keep the water clean, and to keep the area immediately around the river free of development.
“Murray has probably been the most proactive city," Simonsen said, "doing work around the restoration and development of parks and natural lands, and habitat restoration around the Jordan River.”
According to the commission, the town of Murray hasn’t codified protections for land around the river. They diligently acquire land around the river to protect, or enter into development agreements with specific landowners on the riverfront.
Other cities along the Jordan River have written development restrictions into law.
“We recommend, ideally, a 300-foot minimum setback," Simonsen said. "200 feet is less than ideal, but acceptable.”
Lehi is one such city that now mandates a 300-foot buffer between development and the riverside. Some parts of Salt Lake City require a 300-foot buffer as well, as do parts of Weber County near the Great Salt Lake.
These places are the gold standard for riparian protection. These riparian areas are not only important for wildlife and pollinators, but they keep the river clean.
“There is a lot of cleansing that happens naturally through wetlands," Simonsen said. "That's why preserving these areas around the Great Salt Lake — which are fed by the Jordan River and the canals that come from the Jordan River — are critical, because they help clean the water and as it makes its way into the real production areas, it is an improvement.”
The marshy areas around the wetlands filter out particulates and pollutants from the water. The plants that grow there also act as a buffer against flooding and prevent erosion, which happens when high water levels wash away unprotected banks.
Though there are many compelling reasons to protect riparian buffer areas, many towns in Utah allow development closer to the river than the gold standard 300 feet recommended by the Jordan River Commission.
In Salt Lake County, it’s normally 100 feet. In Park City, it’s only 50.
In Logan, there is a city council vote on Tuesday, Oct. 21 to shrink the wetland protection buffer to a mere 25 feet, 12 times smaller than the best practice advocated by the Jordan River Commission.
Simonsen said that besides destroying habitat for native species and removing the water purification services provided by riparian zones, building so close to the river carries a tremendous risk for flooding.
“There's not a lot you can do when you've lost your flood plain and you've lost that riparian buffer," Simonsen said, "keeping a river that has some meander to it, banks that have vegetation on them, all of those things that slow down the energy and the movement of the river help reduce flood, and then preserving and protecting your flood plains."
The Jordan River Commission has already seen a powerful example of how a healthy riparian system can protect a town during seasons of unusual weather.
“One of the remarkable things that Lehi has done, is that they're really protecting those flood plains," Simonsen said. "So, when they have wet years — like they did last year when they were evacuating all this water — those flood plains were full coming out of Utah Lake, and the river was doing exactly what it needed to do to protect other areas from being flooded downstream.”