Sustainable service: Vivint employees give back with beautification efforts around Utah Lake while exploring algal bloom prevention
-
- Vivint Gives Back Program Manager Stephanie Williams, left, Public Relations Manager Rachel Reid, center, and NRG Senior Manager of Sustainability Consulting Michael Schwebel paint wooden cattails at new the Josh Holt Memorial Playground inside Utah Lake State Park in Provo on Tuesday, July 29. 2025.
-
- Utah Valley University chemistry professor Kevin Shurtleff steers an algae-harvesting boat at Utah Lake State Park in Provo on Tuesday, July 29. 2025.
-
- Members of the Vivint Gives Back organization paint wooden cattails at new the Josh Holt Memorial Playground inside Utah Lake State Park in Provo on Tuesday, July 29. 2025.
-
- Members of the Vivint Gives Back organization paint wooden cattails at new the Josh Holt Memorial Playground inside Utah Lake State Park in Provo on Tuesday, July 29. 2025.
-
- Utah Lake State Park celebrated the grand opening of the Josh Holt Memorial Playground on April 28, 2025.
-
- Members of the Vivint Gives Back organization paint wooden cattails at new the Josh Holt Memorial Playground inside Utah Lake State Park in Provo on Tuesday, July 29. 2025.
In an effort that blends environmental stewardship with honoring a local public servant, around a dozen volunteers braved the hot summer sun earlier this week for a meaningful service project.
On Tuesday, Vivint employees spent part of the afternoon picking up trash along the shoreline at Utah Lake State Park and putting the finishing touches on the Josh Holt Memorial Playground — named after the late park director who died unexpectedly in January.
The gesture is a part of the company’s Vivint Gives Back program, which organized and funded the service project, with coordinating help from the Utah Lake Authority.
Utah Lake State Park and the lake authority celebrated the grand opening of the playground in late April, but the wooded cattails inside the play structure were left unpainted because funding for the attraction ran out.
“This playground was dedicated in his (Holt’s) honor as a memoriam to him and his vision of making the Utah Lake State Park more accessible for families and kids especially,” said Kelly Cannon-O’Day, communications and events manager for Utah Lake Authority.
Vivint Gives Back, a nonprofit within the company that recently formed a partnership with ULA to help with various beautification efforts, learned about the lingering needs of the playground and wanted to help finish the job.
“We love coming out and supporting our community and getting to better the community, because it’s where we work and where we live, and that’s a huge proponent for Vivint to do,” said Stephanie Williams, program manager for Vivint Gives Back.
In addition to adding a fresh coat of paint to the new playground and picking up scattered trash around the state park, the volunteers, which largely consisted of Vivint’s sustainability team, also were introduced to a form of technology that addresses harmful algal blooms in Utah Lake.
Five years ago, Utah Valley University chemistry professor Kevin Shurtleff and a team of biology students developed and built an algae-harvesting flat-bottom boat that can be deployed to problem areas along Utah Lake with the highest algae concentrations.
The 34-foot-long, 10-foot-wide watercraft weighs about 27,000-pounds and is used to vacuum algae from Utah Lake.
The Daily Herald tagged along with Williams and Vivint Public Relations Manager Rachel Reid to get a look at how the boat works.
Shurtleff demonstrated the boat’s primary function and how it operates to clean toxic areas where many people interact with the lake.
“So what we’re doing is essentially vacuuming up, sucking up the algae, filtering the algae out, and then we put clean water back in,” he said.
Shurtleff explained during Tuesday’s demonstration that the boat was designed after researching seven techniques to remove algae, with a filter press and diatomaceous earth being the most effective.
A few years ago, UVU received a grant from the state of Utah for $400,000, which covered costs to build the boat and procure needed equipment. The current costs for students to operate the boat are being covered by UVU and the ULA.
“It’s about $35,000 for the whole summer,” Shurtleff noted. “We start in early May (and) we end in mid August.”
Tuesday’s demonstration came during a time of the year when harmful algal blooms are more prevalent at Utah Lake.
The large body of water is currently under a harmful algal bloom advisory, according to the ULA.
The agency issued a warning to the community Thursday in a media release, after receiving notice Monday from the Utah Division of Water Quality that it had made visual inspections of the lake and, along with satellite imagery, determined there was a lakewide bloom of harmful algae.
“It is advised that residents avoid contact with the water, including swimming, skiing, wading or drinking. Do not let your pets swim in the water. Paddlers and kayakers in smaller crafts are urged to use caution,” ULA said in its release.
Luke Peterson, executive director of the ULA, said that while the blooms are unfortunate, they are a reality of the lake “that requires some temporary adjustments for avid recreators.”
He notes that the overall quality of the lake water is still high and “the best it’s been in decades.”
Simultaneously, the occurrence of algal blooms is one of the reasons why sustainability employees at Vivint — a technology company — are interested in learning more about the algae-harvesting boat and its operation, according to Williams.
“We also have our parent company, NRG (Energy), that is out in Texas. They have lakes out there as well that have algae problems,” she said. “(It) could be a very cool investment of expanding outside of Utah, across the U.S. And so, (we’re) super interested in learning more about the tech that’s behind it.”
In regard to preservation efforts around Utah Lake, Cannon-O’Day said the ULA wants to expand its volunteer programming to accommodate more community involvement.
Those who want to organize future projects or are curious about ways to help out at Utah Lake are encouraged to visit utahlake.gov for more information.
“If you just have a group and you’re like, ‘I don’t know what we want to do, but we want to do something,’ we are more than happy to figure something out,” Cannon-O’Day said.
