Vail Resorts Partners with TU on EpicPromise Day to restore East Canyon Creek

Making an artificial beaver dam during restoration work on East Canyon Creek.

By Paul Burnett

Talking about troubled waters is never fun, but that changes when things happen to reverse the course of struggling fisheries. Such is the case of a recent day of restoration on Utah’s East Canyon Creek.

With oversight from Trout Unlimited  and the Swaner Nature Center and help from the High Country Flyfishers chapter out of Park City, more than 200 volunteers showed up as part of the EpicPromise Day.  Vail Resorts, owners of the Park City Ski Resort, organize EpicPromise Day annually to benefit local community environments.

“Each year, EpicPromise Day is an opportunity for our employees to directly support the communities where they live and where we operate,” said Bill Rock, chief operating officer for Park City. “We are grateful for their commitment to this program and appreciate the opportunity to partner with Swaner EcoCenter and Trout Unlimited to support local environmental projects that improve Park City’s water quality and aquatic habitats.”

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More than 200 volunteers gathered to help on EpicPromise Day and restore East Canyon Creek.

At its worst point in 2003, this creek, which has been flowing for thousands of years as a major headwater tributary to Utah’s Weber River, dried up after several weeks without rain; this resulted in irrigation water withdrawals that exceeded the natural flow. Hundreds of fish died because of this single dewatering event and it created public outcry among many members of the community who had long worried about the future of the creek. 

This was a single event that highlighted a much more serious problem in East Canyon Creek.  This creek, which has played such a large role in the history of northern Utah, has been struggling for a  long time.  Many anglers remember East Canyon Creek supporting a population of kokanee salmon that would ascend the creek in the fall to the delight of anglers and onlookers. 

Many factors have led to the disappearance of the kokanee salmon and most other coldwater fish in East Canyon Creek.  The mountains that form the watershed of East Canyon Creek are the basis for the booming economy of the Park City area.  Some of the best powder in North America falls on these mountains and has made Park City a world-renowned ski area. But as the Park City area has developed, water demand has increased, as has wastewater and stormwater discharge.  This has changed the character of the creek from a pristine coldwater stream to a sediment-laden stream bed with high levels of nutrients and pollutants, and chronic low flow conditions during the summer months.  The riffles have lost their clean gravels, which provided critical habitat for aquatic invertebrates, the basis of the aquatic food web, and have been replaced by mud and aquatic macrophytes (aquatic plants).  Little room or opportunity remains for trout to prosper.  Further downstream, historic overgrazing has degraded stream habitat conditions, which has extended poor habitat conditions all the way to East Canyon Reservoir, which has also been faced with water quality problems. 

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Driving the stakes into the stream bank to plant willow cuttings.

A recent article was published  in the Park Record, Park City’s local newspaper covering East Canyon Creek. The article compared the creek and its watershed to a patient, which was portrayed as “not well.”  Some would argue the patient is dying. 

Many members of the Park City Community and local organizations have been working hard to protect East Canyon Creek for a long time through the East Canyon Creek Watershed Committee.  Organizations like the Swaner Eco Center, the Snyderville Basin Water Reclamation District, Weber Basin Water Conservancy District, the Division of Water Quality and TU have heavily invested in the mission of making this creek better, colder, cleaner; in short, fishable.  This has proven to be challenging because, although many positive efforts have been put in place to restore the stream, the greatest, most complicated challenge is finding a way to secure water in the stream during the hot summer months. The reality is that there is not enough water in the basin to meet the demands.

Despite the enormous challenges facing East Canyon Creek, we were inspired by the interest and commitment that we were recently offered by Vail Resorts.  The parent company that owns the Park City Mountain Resort and the Canyons Ski Resort – now recognized as simply “Park City” - contacted the East Canyon Creek Watershed Committee to develop a large volunteer-driven community service project in East Canyon Creek. 

There was indeed, a need.  There is no shortage of areas to improve along East Canyon Creek.  Mile after mile of eroding bank highlights this.  We were encouraged by the capacity, motivation and engagement that the people from Vail Resorts contributed on EpicPromise Day.  Vail resorts coordinated over 200 volunteers locally to provide capacity for watershed restoration actions within East Canyon Creek.  With their help, TU Staff and our local TU Chapter, the High Country Flyfishers, were able to accomplish significant on-the-ground improvements to East Canyon Creek.  In all, over 1,600 willows were planted, several stream banks stabilized with recycled Christmas Trees, 20 bags of garbage removed and noxious weeds pulled. Three small artificial beaver dams were also constructed on a small spring channel.

EpicPromise Day was a huge bright spot for the East Canyon Creek, the species that rely on it and the people who enjoy visiting it. A positive outgrowth of EpicPromise Day was the dialog and stories that people were able to share with each other.  The restoration professionals, the anglers and the average people were able to teach and learn about each other’s values.  Days of service like EpicPromise Day are great reminders that communities can come together to keep our rivers clean and fishable. 

Paul Burnett is the Utah Project Leader for Trout Unlimited