MURRAY, Utah — “Our goal is; rain or shine we want to be out here playing. The only thing we can’t do is play through the snow. But other than that, we want to be out here,” stated Ryan Taylor, the program manager with Salt Lake County Parks and Rec. The county recently finished the brand new sports field complex in Murray.
Those fields they claim will benefit local athletes while also helping the Great Salt Lake.
A synthetic field of dreams, where thousands of kids and young adults will be able to play soccer and rugby almost year-round. And since it will not need to be watered, it is also going to save hundreds of thousands of gallons of water each year that now will be diverted to Great Salt Lake.
Due to funding from the American Rescue Plan Act, Salt Lake County officials were able to transform 3 grass fields into a pair of multi-use fields and a rugby field using performance synthetic turf.
Officials say the new turf will save nearly 50,000 gallons of water per day, meaning nearly 7,000,000 gallons of water being saved each year.
Ryan Taylor calls it a "win-win" for all involved. "There will be very little water that we will have to put onto this turf, it’ll just be for cleaning up if we have to. But yeah, very water efficient in terms that we won’t be using much of it.” Taylor would go on to state, "It’s very unique, nothing that Salt Lake County has ever really done before, so we‘re learning a lot along the way. But you know, beautiful and very easy to maintain and the kids love it!”
Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson and other county officials will be at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the fields on Thursday. That will be followed by a soccer match between the Murray and Wasatch soccer clubs and a youth rugby game.
