City Creek Canyon hiking trails to remain partially open on weekdays during water treatment plant overhaul

A few days before City Creek Canyon was set to close to pedestrians, cyclists and runners for a three-year overhaul of the water treatment plant, Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall announced the canyon’s popular trails will now remain partially open.

“Salt Lakers, we’ve listened as you’ve told us how important access to City Creek Canyon is to you,” the mayor posted to X on Friday. “You’re right: we can do better than closing it during weekdays for the entirety of the water treatment plant’s reconstruction.”

Instead of being closed entirely until 2027, the mayor said the much-loved trails will be open up to picnic site 16 on weekdays.

“We’re still looking for any and all windows during construction where we could open City Creek Canyon Road to bikers, runners, and walkers up to site 16 (in addition to the openings on weekends and holidays we’ve already announced),” she continued. “I will keep you posted when we iron that out, and you can also follow @slcpu for updates.”

Salt Lake Public Utilities is slated to begin a $90 million rebuild of the water treatment plant, nearly 3½ miles up from the canyon’s trailhead on City Creek Canyon Road. The project is scheduled to be completed in January 2027.

City Creek is an important source of drinking water for Salt Lake City’s downtown and surrounding neighborhoods.

Salt Lake City Public Utilities provides water to roughly 365,000 people inside the city, but also in townships along the valley’s east bench. City Creek provides roughly 10-15% of the water used by that population.

City Creek was first diverted in 1847, and served as Salt Lake City’s first water source. But after decades of grazing and recreation, the watershed degraded, causing typhoid outbreaks, according to Laura Briefer, director of Salt Lake City Public Utilities.

Besides being decades old, Briefer said, the water treatment plant was built before “seismic precautions and requirements,” Briefer said. The plant saw some damage in the earthquake that hit the Salt Lake Valley on March 18, 2020.

Replacing the City Creek water treatment plant would be an important step in ensuring the well-being of future generations of Salt Lakers, Briefer said. “Projects like this are important to the resiliency of our community.”