- County commissioners ask DWR to suspend decision to close Burraston Ponds to overnight camping
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By Myrna Trauntvein
Times-News Correspondent
It may not be popular, but Burraston Ponds may be not be open to overnight camping this coming season.
Jay Topham, said the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, is thinking of making the site a day use only site.
The 30-acre pond has a two fish total for fishermen and is home to Rainbow Trout, brown trout and common carp.
"We are looking at managing Burraston Ponds as a day-use site," said Topham.
The three large spring fed ponds will continue to be used for fishing, swimming, boating (kayaks, canoes, rafts), and fun on the rope swings that line the ponds. Visitors would still be able to swim and hunt water fowl in the fall but there would not be overnight camping, he said.
It will also remain a popular birding site.
Topham said that Burraston Ponds, under DWR, is a community fishery, and many such fisheries, throughout the state, do not allow overnight camping.
The free and maintained campsites with fire pits and some with tables at Burraston Ponds can no longer be kept up. Tables for picnics will remain but the campsites will no longer be open for camping.
DWR will stock the pond with fish, as it has done, but it would be like Salem Pond, and other of Utah's Community (Urban) Fisheries. It would open in the morning and would close at night.
Salem Pond is open only from 10 a.m. until 10 p.m. but it would be more like Spring Lake and would be open at sunrise.
Spring Lake is another community fishery, he said, as is Spanish Oaks Pond and both open at sunrise and close at sunset.
"The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources has created a community fishing program," said Topham.
Several new community fisheries opened to the public in 2007, including Cove Pond, Oquirrh Lake (Daybreak Lake) and Riverton Pond in Salt Lake County, as well as Holmes Creek Reservoir and Jensen Park Pond (Syracuse Pond) in Davis County.
"This will be hugely unpopular," said Rick Carlton, commissioner.
He said he was against the DWR deciding to close Burraston to overnight camping. It was a popular Boy Scout camping area and had been for many generations.
"I am strongly opposed to your closing Burraston to overnight camping," said Byron Woodland, commissioner.
It was also the destination for a lot of Scouts and others who were not from Juab County.
"We are not in the camping business," said Topham.
He said that it was difficult to manage and that the DWR did not have the manpower to patrol the area. They provided dumpsters and sucked the pit toilet containers. The county maintained the road for the ponds but there was not enough money to provide manpower for overnight camping patrol and protection.
Topham said the sportsman funds received paid for the basic maintenance.
"Do you want it to be a county park?" he asked.
There have been family reunions held at Burraston for years, said Woodland. People had camped there for years and he thought the site should continue to have that allowed use.
"Are you willing to be partners?" asked Topham.
Carlton said that the county would consider being partners with DWR at the site and did not want DWR to close the site until some discussion could be had and some ideas negotiated.
"We will need to discuss this amongst ourselves and see what resources we might have available," said Chad Winn, commission chairman.
The campground needed some infrastructure improvements and needed to be brought into the 21st century.
Topham asked if the county was willing to provide a campground host. DWR would continue to pick up garbage.
Campsites have always gone quickly on weekends with college students, scouts, and families using the popular site.
It was agreed that DWR will not announce plans to close the site to camping until the commission can have time to discuss the problem and they also requested that Topham make some proposal in writing that they could review.
The county could then see what the talking points of working out a partnership would be.
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