The Bill Has Arrived
Montclair Watershed Project Gets Real; It’s Time To Act
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When our 2017 Denver Storm Drainage bill arrived last month, the old feelings of disappointment and betrayal came back to me. My wife and I will be paying $78.44 for 6 months. We’re not happy about what the City & County of Denver plans to do with our money.
This response to those old feelings will be short and to the point.
Stormwater management matters to EVERYONE in Greater Park Hill. Pertinent concerns in our neighborhood right now include:
• Pop-tops and scrape-offs that increase the building envelope are decreasing the amount of pervious land in Park Hill
• Lot splits are adding new buildings, driveways, and other impervious surfaces
• Streets originally laid out along natural drainage paths are being re-paved with no consideration of modifying them to better serve their riparian functions
• New buildings are being built on flood-prone land with little or no flood hazard mitigation being provided
• Who knows the future status of the Park Hill Golf Course? (Not the City Park Golf Course, which is also much-discussed, but the course at 35th and Colorado Boulevard)
• To date, a comprehensive examination of watershed issues, with meaningful involvement of residents and business owners, is lacking
Don’t let flood risk in and around Park Hill increase without your doing anything about it.
There are two public meetings scheduled for the Upper Montclair Watershed – one on Wednesday, March 1, and another on Thursday, March 2. Greater Park Hill neighbors need to show up at those meetings and make their voices heard.
The March 1 meeting is at Palmer Elementary School, 995 Grape St., Room 119, from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m.
The March 2 meeting is at the Art Gym, 1460 Leyden St., from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m.
The agenda for both meetings includes this breakdown: From 5:30 to 5:45, people are invited to check out the displays provided by the consultants. From 5:45 to 6, consultants and city staff will make a presentation. A workshop follows from 6 to 7 p.m., with public participants guided by consultants and city staff.
If you still have something to say at the end of the session, SAY IT. Don’t keep it to yourself just because the meeting structure might have made it difficult.
If you think this is just an extension of the process that has led to the current situation at City Park Golf Course, the “Ditch” corridor along 39th Avenue, and the bottomlands north of 40th Avenue (Brighton Boulevard to Colorado Boulevard) through Swansea, Elyria, Globeville, and the National Western Stock Show complex to Riverside Cemetery, you should still attend one of these meetings. Don’t give in to feelings of powerlessness and cynicism.
I know the sense of powerlessness well. City council members have ignored me too, despite my professional knowledge and experience.
Just as with the present situation in D.C., it has taken a lot of back-and-forth inside my head to battle cynicism. I know what it’s like to know that you know what you are talking about better than those listening to you and to have them ignore what you are saying all the same.
I know what it’s like to wonder what “adjustments” may have been made to engineering analyses to arrive at a “more reasonable” characterization of the flood risk at locations of particular interest. (Did politics actually drive the engineering analysis?)
I know what it’s like to watch and listen to consultants whose primary job is to package a travesty and make it fly.
The entire country, indeed the entire world, is in the midst of relearning that part of the cost of democracy is to stand up to bullying of all kinds, especially when you are confused and/or fearful. We must believe that if our cause, whether local or global, is just and our work is thorough and honest, collectively we will prevail. Make sure you have your neighbor’s back and that someone has your back.
The City could undertake some initial steps in Greater Park Hill, based on its own 2014 Storm Drainage Master Plan. These steps could include:
• Formally adopting and publicizing the 1 percent annual risk floodplain mapping for the Upper Montclair Creek Watershed from 23rd Avenue, just north of the City Park tennis courts, upstream all the way through Lowry to Fairmount Cemetery.
• Identifying street blocks in the Upper Montclair Creek Watershed where flood depths predicted in the 2014 Storm Drainage Master Plan would be 18 inches or greater (in some cases greater than 6 feet deep).
• Installing signage along the curb of each floodprone street block to warn motorists about the risk to parked cars when flash floods occur;
• Requiring thorough flood risk reduction analyses for all construction projects located on flood-prone sites and making sure the floodplain development permit process is fully operational.
Push the city to adopt current floodplain mapping for the Upper Montclair Creek Watershed RIGHT NOW, to implement relatively inexpensive projects and programs to make people aware of the existing flood risk, and to regulate all new development activity in the 1 percent annual risk floodplain, as a minimum beginning toward comprehensive management of the entire watershed.
Our watershed needs a flood hazard mitigation plan, and that plan needs to be built on a public engagement process unlike any that I have seen in Denver. Residents, business owners and other community leaders and contributors need to be at the helm of such a process, with strong support from the city. Public Works (Wastewater, Transportation, etc.), Parks and Planning, are just some of the city agencies that should be involved.
The planning process needs to be deliberate enough to allow careful consideration of alternative strategies I have not heard city officials discuss much. These alternatives could include:
• Stormwater reduction strategies at the individual property level
• Integrating green flood/stormwater infrastructure with bike/ped infrastructure and traffic mitigation
• Identification of bottomland riparian corridors suitable for a variety of mitigation strategies, with an integrative framework underlying individual projects and with encouragements from incentives
• Voluntary acquisition of extremely hazardous bottomland properties for open space
• Cooperative agreements with schools, hospitals and other providers/managers of major infrastructure facilities for stormwater quality and quantity enhancement
• Daylighting of specific segments of Montclair Creek
Brian Hyde is an expert in floodplain management and stream restoration. He wants your feedback at westerly_connect_brian@comcast.net or 720-939-6039. Past columns can be read at greaterparkhill.org.