Patrick Nelson works as the Watershed Program Manager for the Salt Lake City Department of Public Utilities. SLCDPU protects the drinking water supply used by over 360,000 people daily in the communities of Cottonwood Heights, Millcreek City, parts of Holladay and Salt Lake City. City Creek Canyon, Parleys Canyon, Big Cottonwood and Little Cottonwood Canyon comprise nearly 60% of this water supply and are the main areas of programmatic focus. Little Cottonwood Canyon also provides Sandy City with a percentage of their water supply. Since the creation of the Salt Lake Forest Reserve (now part of the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest near the turn of the 19th century SLCDPU has worked with partners to protect this drinking water source. The Watershed team at SLCDPU is eleven strong, not including the members of our valued seasonal team. Programmatic focus broadly ranges from incident response (car accidents, tanker spills, etc.) to recreation management.