On the west, three glass office buildings sprout from a parking lot, providing workers a way to ply their trades and support their families.

Two scenes. Two worlds. And one brown river runs through it.

The Jordan River bottomland in southern Salt Lake County is caught in the middle of two powerful forces: development (and the vital dollars it delivers) versus preservation (and the priceless satisfaction it promises).

But who decides what gets built and what gets protected?

Truth is, no one - at least when it comes to watching over the river's entire 44-mile corridor from Utah Lake to the Great Salt Lake.

Nine state and several federal agencies have pieces of oversight of the Jordan River and its adjacent lands. The bulk of the decision-making power rests with the cities - each one vying for sales-tax generators - and the river snakes through 12 of them in Salt Lake County.

"In truth, the Jordan River would be much better if there was one agency overlooking it," said Bruce Talbot, South Salt Lake's economic-development director and head of the Jordan River Natural Areas Forum, an association of agencies. "That's not the way the world works. Everybody has a little nibble."

Without a single steward, some observers warn the Jordan River and its once-adjacent riparian ecosystem are dying.

"The river isn't functioning well," said Jeff Salt, an environmentalist who has spent four years mapping the waterway. "And it never will now."

Rapid development: For decades, the river bottom from Murray to Bluffdale was anything but a developer's dream. Utility stations were more common in lowlands than, say, upscale homes or offices.

Today, the bottomland is prime real estate.

"You go out there and development is going on all over there," said Keith Johnson, a member of Great Salt Lake Audubon.

In Bluffdale, asking prices for homes in the brand-new Spring View Farms range from $325,000 to $600,000.

In South Jordan, the three glass office buildings that make up the Riverpark Corporate Center near 10600 South are just the start of a 17-building complex. The development - taking root on the site of a planned park - is paving the way for stores, restaurants, a credit union, even a four-lane road.

"Land along the Wasatch Front is in short supply," said Michael Hutchings, an attorney for Anderson Development, the original developer of the office park. "As far as I know, God is not making any more here."

The river's course through the center of the valley makes it particularly attractive because of its handy access to Interstate 15. But all the development brings big challenges, especially from residents and advocates who want the areas left alone.

Right now, residents are in an emotional battle with the South Valley Sewer District over plans to plop a treatment plant on part of the 103 acres the agency bought north of Bangerter Highway near 13200 South.

District General Manager Craig White sees the plant as a vital cog to keep pace with mushrooming south valley growth over the next 30 years. Besides, he adds, the $70 million plant would be more environmentally - and financially - friendly than ripping up an 8-mile stretch of bottomland for a pipeline to funnel waste to the area's only other treatment plant in West Jordan.

"We're not even in the same ballpark in terms of damage," White said.

Nonsense, counter residents who have homes overlooking the plant site. They fear the facility would hurt the bottomlands and their bottom lines by lowering their property values.

"One day, we'll probably all kick ourselves because we don't have open space and we let this industrial plant go in," Scott Cottis said. "You already have open space, you should protect it."

City leaders note that development deals can be structured to boost not only coffers but also open space.

In South Jordan, for instance, the Riverpark developer paid for a segment of the nearby Jordan River Parkway Trail, a shared parking lot for the trail system and park space that now includes two state-stocked fishing ponds.

And Bluffdale is allowing Spring View Farms to cluster more homes in exchange for the developer, leaving nearly half the development (including the shoreline) as open space.

"It takes money to acquire land. It takes money to put in trees. It takes money to restore land," Talbot said. "That's just one more demand on a [city's] short budget."

Open question: Mention open space and South Jordan City Manager Ricky Horst points to Mulligan's Golf Course, which the city bought for $10 million to prevent developers from building over the grass.

"We just didn't want that," he said.

But when Vaughn Lovejoy talks about open space, he means setting aside land for wildlife.

"There is a host of species that - if we can get the right habitat - we can bring in," said Lovejoy, a restoration coordinator for the grass-roots conservation group Tree Utah.

The following three tracts have been established as nature preserves along the river:

l West Jordan Habitat - 90 acres of wetlands and upland turf between 8000 South and 9000 South.

l Audubon/Tree Utah Migratory Bird Habitat - 73 acres between 9800 South and 10600 South.

l The South Jordan Riverway Wildlife Enhancement Project - 111 acres between 10600 South and 11300 South across the Jordan from Riverpark.

The federal government - through the Central Utah Project - purchased portions of those acres and cities, including South Jordan, bought other parcels. All the land was clumped into conservation easements protected by the Utah Reclamation Mitigation and Conservation Commission.

Mike Weland, the executive director of the federal agency, says if the commission had failed to obtain the land when it did, the three preserves probably wouldn't exist. And while communities frequently talk about the importance of open space, few actually come through with money.

"You'd think that wildlife preservation is a high priority along the Jordan River," Weland said. "People said it was, but no one is doing anything."

Within those three preserves, the commission - along with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Tree Utah and Great Salt Lake Audubon - forbids all development, including trails.

Volunteers with Tree Utah and Great Salt Lake Audubon have logged nearly 25,000 hours over seven years at the South Jordan site ridding the land of invasive and alien species and replacing them with native greenery.

The two nonprofit groups have tapped federal funding obtained as part of a settlement over damage done to the river bottom by two industrial operations in Midvale.

Those two sites - one is covered by slag north of 7800 South and the other is a capped pile of 10 million tons of lead- and arsenic-laced tailings south of 7800 South - soon will give way to a mixed-use community of homes, condos, stores and offices. But as the twin developments dawn, they won't include nature preserves because the money flowed upstream to South Jordan.

"We're going to make the best we can of it," said Christine Richman, Midvale's economic-development director.

Power of one: Environmentalists such as Jeff Salt insist that if the river and its surroundings are to survive, a single entity is needed to guide development and guard preservation from bluff to bluff.

The closest agency to fulfilling that mission is Utah State Parks and Recreation. It's the only one with veto power over development in the bottomland from Utah Lake to the Great Salt Lake. But its oversight is limited and extends only to areas flooded when the Jordan overflowed in 1952 - about 150 feet on each side of the river.

"It's quite narrow," said Steve Roberts, the agency's deputy director. "We're not there to replace the authority of the local municipality."

Other federal and state agencies say they don't have authority to stop cities and developers.

"We don't have any preventative thing," said Chris Kline of U.S. Fish and Wildlife. "We can't say, 'These have birds, you can't do that.' "

The Jordan River Natural Areas Forum does keep its eye on the competing interests, but it's a volunteer alliance.

"We're not trying to be an environmental group," said Talbot, the forum's chairman. "On the other hand, we are trying to preserve some of it."

Without a single agency, the preserves are vulnerable.

In late April, South Jordan sent heavy machinery into the thickest patch of the replanted area of the preserve at about 11000 South. Crews cut a 25-foot-wide swath as workers installed a water line for a soon-to-be-built development just east of the preserve.

The city has vowed to replace what was destroyed. But the damage also forced members of the forum to re-evaluate their efforts.

"This latest fiasco with South Jordan caught everyone off guard," Talbot said. "This is sort of one of the driving reasons we put this together."

But Salt argues the forum doesn't solve the problem of multiheaded management, and he laments what that means for the river:

"It's a disaster."

jsantini@sltrib.com