The lake South Jordan
A lake that was dug, sealed and pumped full on purpose
Oquirrh Lake, and the liner that keeps it there.
Sixty seven acres of water in the middle of a suburb, none of it natural. Excavation started in 2005 on old mine ground, about 35 million cubic feet of earth came out, the bed had to be sealed with a liner because the gravel underneath would have drained it, and the water came up a canal from Utah Lake at roughly 800 gallons a minute. Here is how it was built, what lives in it, who may float on it and who may not, and what the 3.4 mile ring is like in each season.
Southern Utah is my home turf. South Jordan is not, so these pages are researched rather than lived: checked against city, county and venue sources, and dated so you can see how fresh they are. For the on-the-ground work here I lean on a Salt Lake County partner agent.
Start here
Sixty seven acres of water that had to be sealed to stay put.
Oquirrh Lake is published today at 67 acres, with the shoreline parks, beaches and wetlands taking the whole thing to about 137 acres and a perimeter of 3.4 miles. None of it is natural. Excavation began in 2005 on ground that had belonged to the copper operation, roughly 35 million cubic feet of earth were moved, and about 25,000 tons of rock were brought down from the Oquirrh Mountains to build the edges.
The problem the engineers actually had to solve was that the water would not stay. The material under this part of the valley floor is gravel laid down by ancient Lake Bonneville, which drains like a sieve, so the bed was sealed with a polyethylene liner sandwiched between soil, silt and clay. Without that the whole thing would have emptied into the ground. It is the single most interesting fact about this lake and almost nothing written about it mentions it.
Then it had to be filled. The water came up a canal from Utah Lake more than five miles away, under water rights long held for the mining operation, at something like 800 gallons a minute, and the first phase was full by the spring of 2006. The design volume was around 250 million gallons at about eight feet average depth, deepening to roughly 16 feet in places so that trout could hold through a summer.
Oquirrh Lake by the numbers
67 acres
of water, published today
3.4 miles
around the perimeter path
2005
the year excavation began
250M gallons
the design volume, pumped from a canal
The build
Dug, lined, and filled at 800 gallons a minute.
Almost every source describes this as a lake. It is more accurate and far more interesting to describe it as a very large engineered vessel that happens to have fish in it. Here is the sequence, from the 2005 construction reporting.
| The step | What it involved |
|---|---|
| Excavation | About 35 million cubic feet of earth dug out and hauled away from former mine ground |
| The edges | Roughly 25,000 tons of rock brought down from the Oquirrh Mountains to build shoreline and structure |
| The seal | A polyethylene liner laid between soil, silt and clay, because the ground beneath is gravel from the ancient Lake Bonneville bed and would have drained it |
| The fill | Canal water pumped north from Utah Lake more than five miles away, under water rights long held for the mining operation, at roughly 800 gallons a minute |
| The depth | Designed at about eight feet on average and around 16 feet at the deepest, specifically so that trout could hold |
| The phases | The first phase was full by the spring of 2006, with further sections filling across the following years |
Construction figures from the 2005 Deseret News and KSL reporting on the build, and current size and perimeter from the community's own published material, checked 8 August 2026. Published acreage has been stated variously over the years as the design changed; 67 acres of water and a 3.4 mile perimeter are the figures in current use.
The liner detail deserves a second look because it explains the whole character of the place. This is not a dammed creek or a flooded gravel pit that filled on its own. It is a sealed basin holding water that was brought here deliberately, kept clear with filtration and aeration, and maintained. Everything about how the lake behaves, including why the rules on it are as specific as they are, follows from the fact that it is a managed system rather than a natural one.
The wetlands are the other piece of deliberate engineering and they are easy to walk past. The planting and the shoreline around parts of the lake were designed to filter water and, specifically, to discourage waterfowl from settling permanently, because a large flat body of water in the middle of a suburb is otherwise an open invitation and geese are not compatible with beaches and lawns. That is why the shoreline changes character every few hundred yards instead of running as one uniform edge.
It is also why the lake looks different from every other body of water in this valley. There is no inlet stream to speak of, no natural bank erosion, no fluctuating reservoir line and no mudflat season. The level stays where it is put. For a state where almost every other lake is currently a story about falling water, that is a genuinely unusual thing to stand next to.
The ground under it is Lake Bonneville gravel. Without a liner the whole thing would have drained away.
The rules
The ring is open to anyone. The water is a different question.
This is the single most common misunderstanding about Oquirrh Lake and it produces a wasted trip several times a week in summer. The path and the parks are one thing; the surface of the water is another, and they run on different terms.
| The ring and the shoreline | The water itself | |
|---|---|---|
| Who may use it | Anybody on foot or a bicycle | Residents and their accompanied guests |
| What it costs | Nothing | A permit is required for personal craft, on the community's published terms |
| What is allowed | Walking, running, cycling, sitting, photographs | Non motorised craft only, up to 17 feet, with inflatables inspected before a permit is issued |
| What is not | Nothing beyond ordinary park courtesy | Gas motors, in any form, for personal use |
| Swimming | Not applicable | No swimming and no wading past knee depth outside authorised events |
| Fishing | From designated shore areas, with a Utah licence from age twelve | Not from craft, bridges or structures unless a sign specifically allows it |
Rules as published by the community and checked on 8 August 2026. Season dates, permit terms and posted hours change year to year, and weather closes the water without notice, so take the current position from the community's own published lake rules before you load anything onto a roof rack.
The honest way to describe the arrangement is that this is private water with a public edge, and the edge is genuinely generous. Three and a half miles of lakeside path, beaches, lawns and shoreline parks, all open to anybody who turns up, is more than most private water anywhere offers. What it is not is a launch. If your plan involves a kayak and you do not live here or know somebody who does, the plan needs to change before you set off rather than in the car park.
The life jacket and age rules for whoever is in charge of a craft are posted at the water, and inflatables need to be looked at before they are permitted, which is a sensible precaution on a lake with a design depth of 16 feet and no lifeguard cover in the ordinary sense. None of this is unusual for managed water. It is only surprising if you arrived expecting a public reservoir.
The compensation, and it is a real one, is that the ring itself is one of the better flat walks in this half of the valley: paved, level, 3.4 miles, with a mountain range on the western skyline and no road crossings to speak of. The ranked list puts it second in the city for a reason.
The fishing
Four species, and a shoreline you must stay on.
The lake is stocked and it holds rainbow trout, bluegill, channel catfish and largemouth bass. That mixture is a direct consequence of the design: the deeper holes at around 16 feet were put there so trout could survive a valley summer, and the shallower engineered margins and wetlands do the work for the warm water species. It is a constructed fishery in the most literal sense.
The rules are tighter than at a public pond and they are worth reading properly rather than assuming. Fishing is from designated shore areas only. Not from a boat, not from a bridge, not from any structure on the water, unless signage at that specific spot says otherwise. A valid Utah fishing licence is required from age twelve, exactly as it is anywhere else in the state, and Utah's general regulations apply on top of whatever is posted locally.
For anybody who wants to fish in this city without any of that, the answer is on the other side of town. Riverfront Park at about 11200 South holds three stocked ponds sitting directly on the Jordan River Parkway trail, they are open to anybody, and they run on Utah community fishery rules with a two fish daily limit. The river page covers them and the reach they sit on.
The shore rule is not a formality, and the reason is the shape of the lake. This is a sealed basin with engineered banks, a liner under it and bridges crossing it, rather than a natural lake with a shelving beach all the way round. The designated shore areas are designated because they are the parts where standing, casting and losing your footing are all survivable. Fishing from a bridge over water that is 16 feet deep at the middle, on a lake where swimming is not permitted at all, is a bad idea before it is a rules problem.
The middle
An island with houses on it, and bridges built for sailboats.
There is an island in the lake and people live on it. It was planned from the beginning for roughly 160 homes, with sales expected from around 2010, and it is bordered by lake on every side, which is why the village on it is simply called The Island. Walking the ring gives you a view of it from every angle across the course of an hour, which is a slightly strange experience and one of the better reasons to do the full loop rather than half of it.
Four bridges cross the water: two for pedestrians and two carrying roads. The two road bridges were built with roughly 26 feet of clearance underneath, and that number is not an accident. It was specified so that a sailboat with its mast up could pass beneath them, which tells you exactly what the designers imagined happening on this water. A sailing lake in the middle of a suburb is an unusual ambition and it is built into the concrete.
The other structures worth noticing are the aerators. A sealed basin with no natural inflow needs help to keep water moving and clear, and circulation was part of the design from the start rather than an afterthought bolted on later. On a still morning you can see where they are working. It is a small thing, and it is another reminder that everything about this lake is deliberate.
Twenty six feet of clearance under the road bridges, specified so a mast could pass.
The year
Four seasons on engineered water.
Spring is the best of it. The water is high and clear, the planting on the western shore is coming back, the light off the Oquirrhs in the late afternoon is worth the trip on its own, and the ring is busy without being crowded. Late April into early June is the window if you only walk it once, and it is the same window in which the shoreline parks are at their most usable.
Summer is the honest weak point and it has nothing to do with the water. This is engineered ground on the western valley floor, the planting is young in most places, and between about eleven and five in July the ring is 3.4 miles with essentially nowhere to hide from the sun, plus reflected light off the surface. Go at seven in the morning or after seven in the evening and it is excellent. Go at two in the afternoon and you will not do it twice.
Autumn is the second window and arguably the better one for photographs, with lower light and the mountains going gold on the far side. Winter is the quiet version: cold, often still, with margins that ice over and a level that does not move because there is nothing natural feeding it. There is no drawdown season here and no mudflat, which is a genuinely unusual thing to be able to say about a Utah lake in 2026.
Keep reading
More of South Jordan on The Local.
Things to do
The top 9, ranked
A ballpark opened in 2025, a lake that had to be lined, and 160 acres on a gravel pit.
Read the guideThe community
Daybreak, village by village
Villages, three Red Line stops, and what is delivered against what is still a plat.
Read the guideThe District
The District at 11400 South
One hundred and twenty acres of open air retail, twenty screens, and the Bangerter turn.
Read the guideThe river
The Jordan River through South Jordan
The city's own reach, three stocked ponds, an underpass and a footbridge at the end.
Read the guideMoving here
Buying in a planned community
What to walk, what to time, and what a build out schedule does to a purchase.
Read the guideThe companion
South Jordan, the whole picture
Daybreak, the lake, The District, the river reach and the practicalities, in one place.
Read the pageQuick answers
The lake, answered.
Entirely. Excavation began in 2005 on ground that had belonged to the copper operation in the Oquirrh Mountains, roughly 35 million cubic feet of earth were dug out and hauled away, and about 25,000 tons of rock were brought down from the mountains to build the edges. The bed was then sealed and the basin filled with water pumped in from outside. There was no lake, no pond and no natural water feature on this ground before the community was planned.
Because the ground beneath it is gravel from the ancient Lake Bonneville bed, which drains freely, and an unlined basin would simply have emptied into it. The solution was a polyethylene liner laid between layers of soil, silt and clay, which seals the bottom while still presenting a natural looking lake bed. It is the single most consequential engineering decision on the whole project and almost nothing published about the lake mentions it.
From Utah Lake, more than five miles away, pumped north through canals under water rights long held for the mining operation. Fill rates during construction ran at roughly 800 gallons a minute, the first phase was full by the spring of 2006, and the design volume was around 250 million gallons. Because there is no natural inflow, circulation and clarity are maintained with filtration and aeration rather than by a stream.
It was designed at about eight feet average depth, with deeper holes running to roughly 16 feet. Those deeper sections were specified deliberately so that trout could survive a Salt Lake Valley summer, which is why the fishery holds rainbow trout alongside warm water species. The depth is also why the rules around swimming and fishing from structures are as firm as they are: this is not a shelving natural beach all the way round.
The ring and the shoreline yes, the water no. The 3.4 mile perimeter path, the beaches and the shoreline parks are open to anybody who walks or cycles there, at no cost. Putting a craft on the surface is limited to residents and their accompanied guests, under the community's own published rules, with permits involved and non motorised craft only. Treat the edge as public and the surface as private, and you will not waste a trip.
No. Swimming and wading beyond knee depth are not permitted during the regular season, other than at specifically authorised events. That applies everywhere on the lake, including at the sand shoreline sections, which is the part that surprises people who have driven over on a hot day expecting a beach. The beaches here are for sitting on rather than for entering the water from.
It is stocked with rainbow trout, bluegill, channel catfish and largemouth bass, a mixture made possible by the design: deeper holes at around 16 feet hold trout through the summer while the engineered shallows and wetlands suit the warm water species. Fishing is from designated shore areas only, never from craft, bridges or structures unless a sign at that spot says otherwise, and a valid Utah fishing licence is required from age twelve.
Personal non motorised craft up to 17 feet, including kayaks, canoes, rowboats and paddleboards, used by residents and their accompanied guests under permit. Gas motors are not part of the personal arrangement. Inflatables have to be inspected before a permit is issued, life jackets are required and age rules for whoever is in charge of a craft are posted at the water. The two road bridges were built with about 26 feet of clearance so that a sailboat could pass beneath them.
Late April into early June, or September and October. The ring is 3.4 miles of flat paved path with essentially no shade, so the middle of a July day is genuinely unpleasant and the same walk at seven in the morning is excellent. Winter is the quiet version, with iced margins and a level that does not move because nothing natural feeds it. There is no drawdown and no mudflat season here, which is unusual for a Utah lake.
A lake that exists because somebody decided it should.
Sixty seven acres of engineered water with a 3.4 mile path around it changes what a week looks like for the streets nearest to it, and how close a property sits to the ring is not something a portal listing records. Tell me which part of this ground you are weighing and I will put you with a Salt Lake County partner agent who knows the villages around the water, while I take the homework and the financing side.
Referral disclosure. Outside Southern Utah, I connect home sellers and buyers with partner agents I trust in their area. If you choose to work with an agent I refer, that agent's brokerage pays my brokerage (Real Broker, LLC) a referral fee. The fee comes out of the agent's compensation; it is not an added cost to you. You are always free to choose any agent you wish, and using a referred agent is never required.