The Kamas Valley is, quite literally, one of a kind.
Ranchers, cattle and hikers may not necessarily look down and think about the history of the dirt beneath their feet when enjoying the valley’s open spaces, but beneath the scrub and vegetation is a mixture of soil known as the Kovich Toddspan Loam Series, a nutrient-rich mixture of sand, silt and clay.
As Summit Land Conservancy CEO Cheryl Fox says, if you know anything about soil, you know loam is the best kind.
The Kovich Toddspan Loam Series is especially unique, though, because it’s only found in the Kamas Valley. Fox likens the soil to an endangered species, saying the existence of the loam and the valley’s rare ecosystem is under threat by the looming prospect of development.
The soil isn’t the only distinct aspect of the Kamas Valley, however. The area also boasts two aquifers, which work in tandem to collect and store groundwater. One is a consolidated aquifer, a porous layer of bedrock consisting of sedimentary rocks and sandstone, while the other is unconsolidated — sediment still too young to be considered a rock.
Fox warned new residents will need to drill wells and tap into the aquifers for water if the Kamas Valley continues to be developed. The well water will then travel into the sewers and end up in storm drains or a water treatment plant, not back into the aquifers, draining the natural groundwater storage system faster than it can replenish itself.
Farmers, meanwhile, use “surface water,” or water from nearby streams, to hydrate the land, which in turn recharges the aquifers and helps preserve the grasslands.
For that reason, as well as the general preservation of open spaces along the Wasatch Back, the Summit Land Conservancy is dedicated to safeguarding the Kamas Valley for future generations — and the nonprofit organization established in 2002 has already preserved 300 acres in the Kamas Valley in pursuit of its mission with an additional 1,160 acres of conservation projects funded and underway.
Steven’s Grove
The Summit Land Conservancy doesn’t often purchase pieces of property directly.
Instead, the organization opts to partner with landowners, typically families who have lived and worked the land for generations, to create conservation easements. These legally binding agreements allow individuals to retain ownership of the property and use it for agricultural purposes while ensuring the land will remain an undeveloped, open space in perpetuity.
But with Steven’s Grove, a quarter-mile trail in Oakley along the Weber River, the Summit Land Conservancy took a different approach.
“This is a situation where the land was up for sale, and it would have been developed, but we stepped in and we bought it,” Fox said. “There was a group of residents out here in Oakley who had a vision for a five-mile trail along the Weber River because it runs through town, and they were noticing that down toward Peoa and up toward Weber Canyon, people were buying lots and putting homes on the river. That’s what we’re working to avoid.”
Approximately 20 landowners held properties along the river in 2016, when the Summit Land Conservancy started exploring the option of buying land in the area. The piece that ultimately led to Steven’s Grove, a five-mile public access trail now within the Oakley city limits, was key to making conservation a reality.
“If this piece had been developed, it would have killed the whole vision,” Fox said.
The first time the property went on the market, the nonprofit made an offer, but the realtor never called back. It went under contract with a developer, which then fell through.
The second time the property went on the market, the Summit Land Conservancy tried again.
“This time, the realtor called us back, and they were like, ‘You’re not serious. You’re a nonprofit,’” Fox said. “And it went under contract again to another developer, which fell through. Finally, the third time, we offered a little bit more money, and we got it.”
The nonprofit sold a house on the property, which held pay for a significant portion of the project. Individual donors and the George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Foundation helped fund the rest.
“If it weren’t for us, this property would not have been saved,” Fox said. “And now it’s a little park that runs for a quarter-mile along the Weber River.”
The Summit Land Conservancy then handed the property over to the City of Oakley, but with a conservation easement on the land, the city is required to maintain it as a natural park instead of installing recreational facilities.
The organization is also still investigating how to potentially purchase or create conservation easements along the rest of the Weber River in the area to fulfill the original vision for a five-mile trail.
“This is a pretty special spot,” Fox said. “We don’t want things to get overpopulated or anything, but rivers are supposed to meander. They’re supposed to test their boundaries, like toddlers and teenagers. … The river needs to flood this way, and we want it to. That’s good for the aquifer. This ecosystem evolved with that type of flooding, and the soil here is so amazing because the river meanders back and forth. But this is a special place because we did it.”
Marchant Meadows
When Fox would take state legislators on tours of the Kamas Valley years ago to advocate for funding and legal protections for open spaces in Summit County, she would take them to a spot on the side of the road heading toward Marchant Meadows, a 105-acre property that’s almost adjacent to Steven’s Grove.
There, she would let the legislators swoon over the beautiful views of the valley — the tall grasslands framed by the famous Utah mountains and often patrolled by herds of cattle paint a picture that is so deeply Americana, the panorama could be mistaken for a scene from a classic Western showcasing the beauty of the United States and the cowboy way of life.
Then, she’d tell them to kiss it goodbye.
“If you look at a plat map, it’s a jigsaw puzzle of ownership,” Fox said. “That makes it very difficult to save it because somebody owns 40 acres here, 40 acres there and then another 20 acres down there. Someone else might own 200 acres, but it’s similarly fragmented.”
Now, though, Fox doesn’t think it’s impossible to save, mostly because the Summit Land Conservancy was able to convince the Natural Resources Conservation Service to declare the Kamas Valley an area of special concern, which opens the door for further funding opportunities.
“We got a federal grant, which is a regional conservation partnership grant, just for the Kamas Valley. We got $21 million,” Fox said. “We’ve signed that agreement, so that money has passed the test with the current administration. We have two projects that we’re putting applications in for right now for that funding. One is on the East Side here next to Democrat Alley, and the other is for part of the Ure Ranch.”
The Ure Ranch is a large project the Summit Land Conservancy is working on with the County Courthouse.
Overall, the property has about 834 acres of open space, with approximately 180 of those acres on the side of S.R. 248 closest to the Kamas Valley. Fox said the nonprofit already has funding for the 180 acres, and she’s hoping the federal funding application will be accepted and help pay for the remainder of the property.
“I don’t say anymore that it’s impossible to save this because we have the special designation. We have $21 million, and we have landowners lining up out the door,” Fox said. “We have projects where somebody’s just donating the development rights. That is, in many cases, because they have income and they can offset their income in a significant way by donating development rights. All of our projects involving landowners usually involve some donation, some more than others.”
For example, if the development rights are worth $800,000, then the Summit Land Conservancy might pay $500,000. The $300,000 difference is considered a donation by the landowner, who still makes a $500,000 profit in what Fox joked is a bargain sale.
“We also pay for appraisals, title insurance, surveys, all kinds of things, as well as long-term stewardship,” she added. “We put a little money away, so it’s like a trust fund for the land that allows us to make sure that we have staff or somebody who can go out every year and monitor the property.”
The nonprofit also aims to collaborate with community members who live and work on the agricultural lands throughout the Kamas Valley. Fox said there have been multiple times that the Summit Land Conservancy has “swapped” acreage with farmers to make the organization’s conserved open spaces more contiguous.
In those situations, the farmer then receives an agreed-upon amount of land from the Summit Land Conservancy’s property without development rights, meaning the area can still be used for cattle grazing and ranching without the fear of future construction projects.
As for Marchant Meadows in particular, Fox said she’s especially proud of protecting the property because it includes the Weber River, which flows into the Great Salt Lake.
“When we originally started as an organization, ‘Summit Land Conservancy’ referred to the county,” added Colleen Logan, president of the nonprofit’s board of directors. “Because we’ve saved land now in Morgan and Wasatch and Weber counties, we’ve elevated our meaning to mean the summit of the state where these three major rivers flow: the Weber, the Provo and the Bear.”
Maxo Meadow
The Summit Land Conservancy’s most recent project is Maxo Meadow, a parcel of approximately 61 acres of land near Democrat Alley. The nonprofit drained its own reserves to pay for it.
“We had federal funding for this through another regional conservation partnership program. We’d worked with the family, and it was all good and ready to go, and then we put in the final packet, and they were like, ‘Oh, something’s stuck,’” Fox said. “We tried to sort it out, and we were waiting and waiting and waiting. This landowner is 94 years old. All winter we waited. … Finally, we realized that even if we got it unstuck, then the federal government has to do its due diligence, and it’s going to take us five more months.”
So, instead of risking the deal falling through, Fox went to Logan and the rest of the board and made a special request: Would the board consider taking $510,000 of the organization’s own reserves to close the deal?
The answer was a resounding “yes” in what Fox called a “courageous” decision to drain half of the nonprofit’s savings.
“We were able to go out to just a couple of donors, and I said, ‘Look, we’re doing this, and if you want to help, I need $510,000 by Thursday,’” Fox said. “A couple of them said, ‘I can’t get it to you by Thursday, but I can get it to you by Monday,’ so our reserves are good thanks to a couple of them, but this is why when I say individuals save land, individuals really do save lands. Big donors, little donors, donors of all sizes.”
Fox stressed that donating land to the Summit Land Conservancy is a voluntary process. While the organization occasionally finds a good piece of property it’d like to protect, staff mostly rely on landowners approaching them with proposals. It’s been a successful strategy so far, though, and Fox said the nonprofit has signed letters of intent to protect approximately 25,000 acres across the Wasatch Back.
“The best thing to do is to keep pavement off this ground, and that’s what we did,” she said. “And we did it in a way that works for the family, works for the community and works for us. We’re only successful when we can find a win-win-win situation. If somebody’s losing, we’re not doing it right.”
The partnerships also benefit the local community because purchasing development rights lowers land costs for farmers, Fox explained. For example, if the Summit Land Conservancy purchases development rights for a piece of property, then it’ll be cheaper for a farmer or rancher to buy and use it solely as a pasture because development rights often make up a bulk of the cost.
“By holding the development rights, you truly are protecting the land,” Fox said. “Whoever buys it as pasture land doesn’t get to develop it. They can’t build a house on it. The title is encumbered. … It’s forever and runs with the property, so it applies to the owner and all future landowners. And the best use of this ground is for pasturing because that’s what keeps the aquifer healthy.”
The Summit Land Conservancy remains dedicated to preserving the beauty of the Kamas Valley, but there have been a few hiccups this year because of changes to federal funding made by the Trump administration. Screenings by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, have slowed down some administrative work, for example, but Fox said issues have been fairly minor so far.
In total, the nonprofit has secured funding to preserve approximately 1,160 acres in the Kamas Valley, and Fox and her team aren’t planning on stopping anytime soon.
For more information about the Summit Land Conservancy, including current projects and how to donate, visit wesaveland.org.