2013 Issue

73 What does a new 11-acre park in Cottonwood Heights have to do with the Great Salt Lake? At first thought, it might be the water from the Splash Pad or something related to water! C ompleted in spring 2012, Mountview Park replaces the former Mountview Elementary School and provides improved recreational opportunities to nearby residents who enjoyed the open space the school provided. The popular new park hosts a number of artistically applied scientific concepts that put the science of play into practice. From light- colored concrete parking surfaces which reduce heat gain during hot summer days to low-maintenance core-tenweathering steel on the pavilion, Cottonwood Heights’ first large-scale regional park shows much attention to engineering details, and has resulted in a recreation facility that is so popular that most of the 130 parking stalls were continuously occupied throughout the summer of 2012. Since the advent of the amusement park, it has become common knowledge that the art of engineering enables us to work toward perfecting the science of enjoyment. Fromcarefully choreographed splash pad timing sequencing through a high tech program logic controller to artfully designed open spaces with active and passive recreation modes, the engineering design creates a venue that at- tracts a wide cross section of park patrons with one general goal in mind, to have fun. In fact, the new splash pad was so popular with kids that the concrete started growing moss, in spite of the direct sun all summer long. We knew it would be popular, but the actual usage was beyond our wildest expectations. So how does the Great Salt Lake benefit from this park? Few park patrons realize that Mountview hosts one of Utah’s first state-of-the art storm water bio-retention systems, designed to reduce pollu- tion loading through the use of natural vegetation and in-situ soil properties for nutrient removal and adsorption respectively. The park is topographically located at the bottom of a large hy- drologic sub-basin that collects stormwater runoff from the busy Fort Union Boulevard arterial, neighborhood streets, Mountview’s parking lot, residential yards and rooftops, and even Mountview’s Science of Play | continued on page 74