Greenbelt growth

The Green River Greenbelt Taskforce has made significant progress throughout the year. John Freeman, Chairman of the Greenbelt Taskforce, presented an annual report during the December 3 Green River City Council meeting.

During the presentation, Freeman highlighted several projects that had been started and even more that had been completed. Some of the notable projects included removing invasive trees near the river corridor, working with the Sweetwater County Library System and the city of Green River to install the Story Walk along the Barbara Carroll Memorial pathway, replacing aging power poles with solar light poles along many of the trail systems, celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Trona Bridge near Expedition Island, working with different organizations to make additions to the dog park, and creating a "footprint" for the ADA accessible Skyline Trail, one of their biggest projects to date. Most of these projects have been funded almost entirely through local, state, and national grants.

Regarding the Skyline Trail, Freeman said he and the Taskforce members are pleased with the progress made so far.

"The Skyline Trail has a good outline with the trail almost completely being built," he explained. "We have recently added signage restricting access to motorized vehicles and are looking forward to seeing the results after the trail is completed with an ADA accessible solid surface."

Freeman noted the improvements and projects that are expected to be completed in 2025 as part of the Greenbelt Task Force's Master Plan.

"We currently have three ADA access points along the Greenbelt pathway, and we have some additional grant money to add a fourth near the horse corrals," he said. "We also are working on a plan to retrofit park benches to make them accessible and more user-friendly for people of all abilities."

Freeman also said a main area of concentration for 2025 will be FMC Park improvements. The taskforce will be installing a Buck-n-Rail fence to restore multi use trails while also allowing native areas to regenerate. The taskforce has created a Management Plan for the Scott's Bottom portion of the park. The plan includes trimming shoots to encourage vertical growth of trees and shrubbery, flooding old oxbows to stimulate growth of native plants, spraying and eliminating invasive plant and tree species, and finishing soft surface trails.

Freeman explained that they have a great head start as a group of 60 plus volunteers from the LDS Church had spent over two hours working on improvements at FMC park, including repainting the large gazebo.

Freeman concluded his report by recognizing the amount of volunteer hours that the Green River Greenbelt Taskforce and many others had spent working on projects, emphasizing that it was the main reason so many things have been accomplished in 2024.

"We started keeping track of our volunteer hours the last six months and between the board, the Taskforce, and members of the LDS Church, we have logged 998 volunteer hours," Freeman said. "It's the equivalent of a $19,960 donation, if they were being paid $20 an hour."