Farmington Bay » Mike Stott has known about the Farmington Bay Waterfowl Management Area for 20 years and enjoys visiting the area as often as possible.
"I come out about 15 times a year for thinking and reading and writing in my journal," the Davis County resident said Sunday, as he watched hawks with his wife Pam. "This is a place where it doesn't feel commercialized."
Waterfowl hunters have known about Farmington Bay since its establishment in 1935. But since the Wasatch Front became more urbanized, other recreation users discovered the area, too. On Sunday, for example, bicyclists, a dog walker, hunters, boaters, birders and folks out for a drive shared the area with hundreds of different kinds of birds.
On Saturday, nearly 30 volunteers started constructing a 1.3-mile walking trail near the Great Salt Lake Nature Center, which takes up 300 of the refuge's 12,000 acres.
The trail is a long-time dream of nature lovers and Division of Wildlife Resources leaders who have wanted for years to turn the refuge into a nature center. Last year, more than 10,000 visitors came to the center, which consists of two classroom buildings and restrooms. Of those, 4,000 were fourth-grade school children studying wetlands -- a key element in the state's environmental science core curriculum.
Organizers led by the nonprofit Utah Wildlife in Need hope the trail will be complete by the end of the year. It will feature observation blinds and benches from which visitors can view shorebirds, ducks and other wildlife.
To date, UWIN has raised more than $200,000 in donations and gifts to complete the $320,000 project. The group's mission is to promote the appreciation and conservation of the Great Salt Lake ecosystem and ensure the future of Utah's native wildlife by supporting wildlife research, conservation and education projects. UWIN funds annual operations of the nature center at Farmington Bay.
UWIN board chairman Steve Swindle said volunteers continued building sections of the trail's boardwalk Saturday, placing them on concrete piers placed in the marsh.
On Monday, Jim Dalton, the owner of Intermountain Helical Piers and head of a group of volunteers known as "The Chocolate Rock Gang," is scheduled to join company employees in donating time and equipment to place a separate 300-foot-long section of boardwalk that will go over open water.
"Some materials were sold to us at a reduced rate, some labor was contributed, there were donated funds and matching funds from the DWR," Swindle said. "It was actually a lot of fun. It was fun to see how the piers went on as they put the boardwalk on. The way they engineered and constructed the boardwalk was interesting."
As a former private school teacher who used Farmington Bay as a classroom, Pam Stott said the area is an ideal place for kids to learn.
"The boardwalk would be great, especially for kids," she said. "This is a little treasure just tucked away."
The new trail also enjoyed a boost from George Chipman, the Farmington trails committee chairman, and a coordinator for the Eagle Scout work on the project. Ten Eagle Scouts are helping install the boardwalks on the piers, Chipman said, and more than 1,500 volunteer hours will be donated by the time the project is complete.
The Nature Center is an important hub for trails in the area, Chipman said, with five trails planned to branch out from the site in the next few years. These include Farmington Creek, Davis Creek, Buffalo Ranch, the Great Salt Lake Shoreline Trail and a future rails-to-trails facility along the old Denver and Rio Grande Railroad line.
"The trail system at the Great Salt Lake Nature Center enables you to get close enough to nature to see, smell and touch it," said Bill Fenimore, a UWIN board member, a volunteer at the nature center and proprietor of the Layton Wild Bird Center. "Families will enjoy the easy access to this wonderful resource."
