Salt Lake City’s troubled Jordan River inching toward brighter days, advocates say

During a walk alongside the oft-troubled Jordan River on Tuesday night, Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall encountered an encouraging sight.

She darted off of the paved Jordan River Trail to see a large common carp Hasan Alshameri had caught just minutes before from the bank near the Utah State Fairpark.

Alshameri’s fishing spot had been fenced off last fall after pervasive issues with drug dealing forced city officials to close off the trail there, indicative of the challenges of recreating along the river in Utah’s capital.

Mendenhall and a group of other community leaders were on a walk from Fisher Mansion north to Cottonwood Park. The walk was arranged by the Westside Coalition, an advocacy group for this side of town, and included presentations about the river’s history, partner organizations working to improve it and future plans. The stop to view Alshameri’s catch was simply happenstance.

On some days and in some places, like Tuesday, the waterway and its green necklace of parks are idyllic — a hive of wholesome activity for both humans and wildlife. On other days and in different spots, trash, overgrown invasive plants and the fallout of homelessness and addiction make it a less appealing visit.

“As hard as things can get, I beg you please stay realistic but positive, and know that there is a vision in place,” Tyler Fonarow, Salt Lake City’s trails and natural lands director, told attendees at the walk’s last stop. “And it’s going to not just be the city’s job, but it’s really going to be [up to] us as a community to bring the Jordan River back to life.”

The walk came as the city focuses on addressing crime, including illegal camping and drug use, along the river corridor. The event brought together many who work along the river or live nearby, including environmentalists, homelessness officials and business leaders. Many of the presenters on the stroll previewed planned changes to the trail or made cases for interventions that could help the river become more active.

It has been a tumultuous past year for the river and its trail in Salt Lake City. The corridor has endured at least two temporary closures to address pervasive crime that often blocked the trail and shooed other path users away. More police focus on the river and its surrounding areas has come, too, under Mendenhall’s new public safety plan unveiled this year. In the background, discussions around how to improve safety, maintenance and appeal have touched on adding security guards to parks and building more welcoming amenities.

On Tuesday, leaders and neighbors took stock of that ongoing work and learned more about the river’s health and history.

“We often hear a lot more about its problems than about its strengths. So, I hope this event helped people shift their framework,” Westside Coalition President Dan Strong said. “Yes, it has problems. Yes, we want to solve those problems. More than that, we want it to be an asset.”

At stops along the stroll, presenters offered different views of the river. Neighborhood historian Heidi Steed took attendees back to post-war Utah to share how students and a principal at the former Jordan Junior High School led the charge to clean up their namesake waterway. Jordan River Commission Executive Director Soren Simonsen laid out environmental work happening up and down the watercourse’s route from Utah Lake to the Great Salt Lake. Fonarow and parks planner Makaylah Maponga shared an overview of the city’s vision to build a more active — and wild — corridor: the Emerald Ribbon Action Plan.

“We have so much space along the corridor that’s exactly like this,” Maponga said, standing in a misused section of Cottonwood Park along the trail. “How can we improve it, uplift it, add amenities, or just complete maintenance to help it better meet where the residents are and what they want to see and have them feel drawn to the river?”

She expects the first phase of projects outlined in the plan to come in 2028.

Mendenhall also reminded attendees of the $400,000 she recommended the City Council allocate to getting Fisher Mansion ready for possible tenants.

“My dream is that we have a ground-level restaurant [or] bar kind of activation, that we could be out here on this patio,” she said, “and maybe space for nonprofit offices in the upstairs floors.”

Others made cases for bringing additional improvements to the corridor. Ronnie Pessetto of Seven Canyons Trust advocated for daylighting tributary City Creek along the Folsom Trail. Dan Potts, a Poplar Grove resident and board member of the Salt Lake Fish and Game Foundation, pushed for the development and recognition of fishing spots along the corridor.

“It gives you a perspective of what has changed,” Westpointe resident Dorothy Owen said of the walk and presentations. “But it also gives you a perspective of what it could be and what could be lost.”