New Ammon park is open with a focus on teaching water conservation
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AMMON — A new park in Ammon is open to the community and has a unique feature compared to other parks.
Groundwater Conservation Park opened at the beginning of May and is located at 4445 Dry Creek Way. It’s designed to promote water conservation and is located at a city well and pump station.
“It is one of the only parks in the area that is built on the site of a city well/pump site. The public is allowed to come up and look through the window and see how the city water operation runs, at least from the observer’s standpoint,” said Micah Austin, Ammon city administrator.
Click here to read a previous story about the well and pump station that holds one million gallons of water.
RELATED | New well and pump station to provide water for residents and will be home to a park
Austin said typically, the city’s well and tank sites are fenced and it’s not something the general public can get near, but this site is different.
“We wanted to open it up to the public and say, ‘Hey, why not come in and take a look and learn something and maybe change your water conservation behavior,'” he explained.
There are signs at the park that say, “Conserving water in the home,” “Outdoor water conservation” and “Groundwater conservation.”
One sign explains why water conservation matters. It partly reads, “Groundwater is not an infinite resource. In 2022, the city of Ammon and its residents used over 1.75 billion gallons of water alone.” It then lists city initiatives like surface water irrigation, metered water for residents, and smart water systems in parks.
The park is landscaped with species that are drought-tolerant or native too. There are turf grasses, including Kentucky Blue Grass and Meadow Grass Sod. There are also native or well-adaptive plants like Purple Ninebark, Syringa Mock Orange, and Potentilla. Native or well-adaptive trees planted were Common Hackberry, Thornless Honey Locust, and Little Leaf Linden, along with others.
“These are species that do well in our area and that we are proud of and that we would encourage people to plant in their own yard. They don’t take a lot of water,” Austin said.
Besides conserving water, one of the other features of the park is that it is recreational.
“We’ve got benches, we’ve got a walkway. People can walk through it and enjoy the landscaping and we also have a pickleball court,” Austin said. “That pickleball court is right on top of the water tank.”
However, the pickleball court still needs to be finished. The nighttime temperatures have not been warm enough for the type of paint that needs to be put down, Austin explained. It will most likely be completed at the end of June.
Groundwater Conservation Park is one of 14 parks in the city of Ammon. It’s one of the smaller ones and is 1.58 acres.
The city of Ammon received a $250,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to help landscape and build the park.
It’s open to anybody who wants to check it out.
“Members of the public are invited to come. Bring your family and picnic there. Enjoy the space,” Austin said.
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