This fall I spent some time with a camera on the Hodges and Swan Creek irrigation canal job above Garden City. It’s the kind of project most people drive past without a second look, but it matters a lot for Bear Lake.
Crews are replacing open, earth-lined sections of canal above the Marina and Harbor Village areas with 48-inch fused HDPE pipe. The Marina segment covers about 750 feet of open-trench pipe with two concrete transition structures. The Harbor Village segment runs about 1,600 feet with one more transition structure, plus valves, fittings, demolition of the old canal structures, and filling and grading of the old channel.
What you see on site is a long black line of fused pipe snaking through the aspens, fresh-cut trench, pink survey flags, old corrugated culvert waiting to come out, and an excavator working the hillside right above the homes. That last part is the whole reason the job exists. Breaches in the Harbor Village area in 2017 and 2023 showed what happens when an open canal runs above developed ground.
The numbers back it up. A 2021 water-loss study documented high seepage on this system. The broader effort, supported by a Bureau of Reclamation WaterSMART grant, pipes about 3,600 feet of canal, adds measuring structures and a solar array, and is expected to save about 555 acre-feet of water a year. It should also cut the amount of sediment reaching Bear Lake.
Filming a job like this is about more than the iron. You’re working around active equipment, open trench and uneven ground, so I keep my distance from the swing radius, stay where operators can see me, and never step into a trench. Decades of safety work have taught me that the best shot is never worth an incident.
There are quiet moments too. A mule deer stepped out of the aspens and watched me for a while, completely unbothered by the pipe and machinery a few yards away. Moments like that are a good reminder of why protecting water and land around Bear Lake matters.
The project is owned by Hodges Irrigation Company and Swan Creek Canal Company, with J-U-B Engineers as the design engineer. Work is scheduled outside irrigation season, with pipe installation continuing into 2026 and closeout planned later that year. It’s part of a wider push across Utah to pipe open canals, cut water losses and protect the property below them.
If you need construction or infrastructure work captured on video for training, social media or your brand, let’s talk.
Sources: QuestCDN project posting #10051859; Bureau of Reclamation WaterSMART FY 2024 grant application (WEEG-155, Town of Garden City); 2021 water-loss study cited in that application; local reporting on the Harbor Village canal breaches.
