On any list of metro Denver’s greatest treasures, Cherry Creek State Park would be near the top. The 50-year-old, 3,915-acre park is a beautiful recreation and natural area surrounding an 850-acre reservoir built for flood control in 1950, and lures swimmers, boaters, fishermen, hikers, bicyclists, bird watchers, and others.
It is Colorado’s most frequently used state park, with a sparkling lake, sandy beach, shady tree groves, an abundance of wildlife, places to gather or to be alone. The reservoir is one of just three gold medal walleye fisheries in the state.
Cherry Creek Park was the first of Colorado’s 42 state parks. It had nearly 1.5 million visitors in 2008, and is a multibillion-dollar resource to the state.
With so many visitors, and such a vast area to manage, there are constant challenges to maintain water quality and safety for humans and fish. The Denver Post recently reported that both Cherry Creek and Chatfield state park swim beaches were closed a day because tests showed E. coli organisms in the water, a health hazard. State parks officials test the water weekly and post warnings when there is a problem.
The Cherry Creek Basin Water Quality Authority administers larger water-quality standards, dealing with Arapahoe and Douglas counties and nine municipalities whose water treatment systems discharge into the Cherry Creek watershed — from Denver to Black Forest, including the reservoir.
Protecting the water in the Cherry Creek Reservoir is a scientific and political challenge. The board of the water quality authority is charged with meeting the state standards for water quality, yet has repeatedly asked the state’s Water Quality Control Commission to loosen those standards. So in March, the commission allowed higher levels of phosphorus (which is discharged from sewage treatment plants and storm water drainages and stimulates algae growth on the reservoir) and of chlorophyll-a (which measures algae growth).
Some upstream communities argued that it was better to loosen the standards than make them build needed sewage treatment facilities for growing populations, and that the standards could never be met anyway.
But with the more strict standards enacted in 2001, water quality had steadily improved and chlorophyll-a numbers had dropped below the set standard in 2006 and 2007, and were just slightly higher in 2008. If all the water quality authority partners had actually met standards and not had numerous violations, the standards would probably have been met. Instead, they lowered the standards.
Board member Robert McGregor, a consulting engineer in water supply and quality, was a dissenting voter on the March decision. He said the authority decided to loosen standards using a “very pessimistic and very inaccurate computer model,” which predicted algae growth rather than what actually occurred, the reduction of algae.
The authority needs more board members who are concerned about improving water quality rather than making concessions that permit developers and municipalities to degrade the water purity.
Next month, Gov. Bill Ritter can appoint qualified individuals to that board. Cherry Creek Reservoir could too easily be lost to the polluting impacts of ever-increasing and uncontrolled development.
That would be tragic — and unforgivable.
Joanne Ditmer has been writing on environmental and urban issues for The Post since 1962.
