ECHO, Summit County — Summit County elk, and motorists at the I-80/I-84 interchange, now have some added protection, and more are on the way.
The Utah Department of Transportation is nearly done with installation of 3 miles of wildlife fencing at the crossing to prevent animal-car crashes, Matt Howard, UDOT’s natural resources manager, said Friday.
Moreover, he said that officials are seeking grant funding to install 27 more miles of fencing in the area to keep elk and deer off the two interstates where they meet in northwestern Summit County near Echo Reservoir. The estimated price tag is around $30 million.
“The reservoir is a huge draw,” Howard said, referencing the lure to the area for animals, particularly elk and mule deer.
“If you’re driving past, especially during the wintertime, there’s just so many elk that just love that area right below the dam. It’s just sort of an open space. There’s lots of food. There’s water going through. It’s a really attractive area.”
As Utah goes, he said, the area — along a wildlife migratory path — “sticks out as a hot spot” for animal-vehicle collisions. In one three-day span in February 2022, during the record-breaking winter of 2021-22, he said 30 elk and nine deer were hit and killed by motorists in the area. They had been pushed from higher elevations where the snow was deeper in search of food.
Over the last year, in just the area where the new three miles of fencing is nearly complete, there were 20 car-elk collisions and 32 car-deer crashes, according to UDOT numbers.
The first three miles of fencing — north of Echo Reservoir near the junction of the two interstates — funnel animals to an underpass that allows them to go to and from the body of water while bypassing at least a portion of the interstate system. The additional proposed fencing will extend along the two interstates in the area, funneling critters to existing underpasses that allow them to safely cross roadway sections and two planned overpasses to be built specifically to accommodate migrating animals.
The first phase of work, to be done by November, has a price tag of $2.3 million, with nearly $350,000 of that coming from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and other organizations. Overall, the seven phases of the project will cost an estimated $30 million, and Howard hopes to tap into some $350 million in federal funding available specifically for wildlife crossings per the 2021 federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
If enough grant funding can be secured to cover the entire cost of the work, he suspects the project could be done in three to five years. Otherwise, if it’s a matter of cobbling together funds from varied sources, it will more likely take five to 10 years.
While both elk and deer cross the interstate near Echo Junctions, elk, as larger animals, “can be more dangerous,” Howard said. Human injuries caused in encounters with deer, he said, typically occur when a motorist swerves to avoid one of the animals and crashes.
The issue of wildlife crossing roadways turned heads across the state last year when a large migrating elk herd prompted the temporary closure of parts of I-80 and I-215 as the animals crossed the roadways headed to Parleys Canyon in Salt Lake County.
‘Just wouldn’t make sense’
Elsewhere, Howard said UDOT has received some $5 million in grant funding to install seven miles of wildlife fencing and two or three wildlife crossings along U.S. 89 near Kanab in southern Utah. He didn’t identify a specific timeline but said the project is “moving pretty quick.”
Members of Save People Save Wildlife, meantime, continue to press for fencing and a wildlife crossing along state Route 224 into Park City, which they say has one of the highest rates of vehicle-animal collisions in Utah. The roadway is already busy, and traffic will increase even more with the Winter Olympics in 2034, said Erin Ferguson, president of the group, which would exacerbate the problem.
“We put these roadways in, we disrupt the connectivity, and we can fix it with fences,” Ferguson said.
However, last spring UDOT officials said they wouldn’t be pursuing installation of fencing at the spot in part because the area isn’t a migratory path and other particularities of the zone. UDOT officials have studied the matter, but a crossing “just wouldn’t make sense in that location,” said UDOT spokesman John Gleason.
