Spanish Fork City preps riverbanks to handle high water

SPANISH FORK, Utah — In Spanish Fork, city crews are prepping riverbanks to handle high water because they expect a huge surge in the coming weeks.

As a golfer teed up at The Oaks at Spanish Fork Tuesday, not far from him, the sound of a bulldozer rattled through the air. The driver pushed dirt, tree branches, and debris not far from the tee box, along Spanish Fork River.

“We’ve been clearing the banks to create a levee, to contain the water near the golf course,” explained Travis Warren, Spanish Fork City’s flood plain manager.

The golf course is one of many problem areas the city is working to protect, in jeopardy of flooding over the next month. Warren said they’re anticipating the water levels to rise from the current 700 cubic feet per second to 2,000 or 3,000 cubic feet per second.

It all depends on the temperatures and forecast.

“All of our water comes from Spanish Fork Canyon, from the basins up above here. There’s nothing to hold back the water, so when it comes, it comes,” he said. “And we’re just going to try to work the best we can to keep it in the river.”

While the city is doing a lot of work around the golf course to prevent water from spilling onto the fairways, more importantly, Warren talked about how they’re working to protect homes and the city’s infrastructure along the river through the entire city.

They’re working on projects that include building levees, digging out sandbars to widen banks, armoring riverbanks with riprap, and clearing out trees and branches that could tumble into the water.

“As the river channel grows, it pulls that deadfall into the channel, and then at our bridges, a lot of different catchpoints that can cause a dam, create a backflow of water,” Warren said. He said that creates a flood hazard for everyone upstream.

He said they’ll continue removing hazards and strengthening the riverbanks until the water is too high and they have to stop. Warren expects to see the most concerning river flows in May.