A canal bridge in Midvale needs replacing, and the city’s elected leaders are quickly passing agreements to make it happen.

The city council unanimously passed two contracts on March 24 with Salt Lake City and the Utah Department of Transportation, allowing UDOT to carry out construction of a bridge over the Jordan and Salt Lake City canal.

“Getting three different government agencies, Midvale City, Salt Lake City and UDOT together on all of this was quite the ordeal,” Mayor Dustin Gettel said at the March council meeting.

While Midvale owns the road on which the bridge is located, the Salt Lake City Department of Public Utilities owns the canal that the bridge will cross. The two-part agreement leases a portion of the waterway to Midvale, which will then permit UDOT to install a box culvert bridge on 8000 South and 80 East.

“[It’s] kind of surprising when you learn these things like how much of the canal in Midvale that Salt Lake City owns,” Gettel said. But once “their public utilities director also found out this impasse was happening, she did everything in her power to grease the wheel a bit, and we got things done quickly, but it was an ordeal.”

Salt Lake City needs the canal for irrigation, the lease agreement states. It requires Midvale to maintain the bridge in a way that doesn’t interfere with the water flow. If it does, Salt Lake can demand UDOT to restore the canal to “its nearest original condition.”

The 10-year lease with Salt Lake’s public utilities will cost Midvale $1,000.

“This isn't the best agreement ever, but it is definitely something we can all live with,” the mayor added.

UDOT will pay for the canal bridge construction with money from the federally funded Bridge Formula Program. The project was originally approved for construction in 2024, but has faced delays.

Now that Midvale has secured the lease agreement, the bridge is scheduled to be completed in either the winter of 2027 or 2028, depending on seasonal conditions, according to a city staff report.