Key elements
Recreating a stream’s natural alluvial character, channel/floodplain rehabilitation, a natural hydrograph, re-vegetation.

Overview
The Provo River Restoration Project's mission is to design and implement a full ecosystem restoration along the Middle Provo River. The Middle Provo was significantly impacted by the construction of the two dams that define its boundaries, and by subsequent flood control and irrigation projects. The project aims to accomplish its restoration mission by focusing on the restoration of natural fluvial processes.

Location
The Middle Provo is that segment of the Provo River that lies between the Jordanelle Reservoir and the Deer Creek Reservoir. Below Deer Creek, the river flows to Utah Lake, which is southeast of the Great Salt Lake in Utah.

Historical Context
The first of the two dams (Deer Creek) was built to store water from the Provo as well as water being imported from two adjacent drainage basins. This additional water led to substantial flooding in the Heber Valley just upstream of the dam, however, and the Provo River Project was initiated to channelize and dike the river above the dam from the mid 1950’s to 1965. In addition, this stretch of the river was dry-dammed at many locations to provide water for irrigation. A separate reclamation project (the Central Utah Project - CUP) made plans to construct the Jordanelle Dam about 10 miles above the Deer Creek Dam. The final EIS for Jordanelle Reservoir included a mandate to provide angler access and wetland habitats to mitigate for environmental damage done by CUP projects. The corresponding federal mandate, passed by Congress in 1992, allowed for other required mitigation for the Provo River Project and CUP to be accomplished on the Provo, and funding for a full ecosystem restoration of the Middle Provo was the result.

The PRRP
This project has three major components:
1. Creating a 800-2000 foot corridor for the river to operate in;
2. Rehabilitating the channel and floodplain within the corridor; and
3. Monitoring results

Keys to success 
Two keys to the project's success were the broad mandate to restore fluvial processes rather than produce a specific end product, and their ability to take a design/build approach to the actual implementation.

Future Challenges
The monitoring program is beginning to demonstrate the need for a gravel augmentation project, which presents the PRRP with both technical and socio-political challenges.

To view the project's official website, please go to: http://www.mitigationcommission.gov/prrp/prrp.html