More than 100 dog owners and other interested parties attended a public input meeting Monday night at Cherry Creek High School to get more information about possible changes to the dog park at Cherry Creek State Park.
State workers say the dog park is overcrowded and the heavy dog traffic is having negative impacts on the soil and vegetation.
“More than 250,000 people come to Cherry Creek and Chatfield State Park every year. There are a lot of dog owners and dogs in those numbers and the parks are really getting used,” said Deb Frazier, spokesperson for Colorado State Parks.
Brain Catalfamo owns two dogs and visits the dog park at Cherry Creek almost every weekend. Catafalmo says he’s concerned the high volume of dogs may lead to the park being closed. He says there are certainly a number of dog owners who are contributing to the park’s degradation.
“On the weekends it’s pretty bad. You’ll see plenty of poop and a lot of times there’s no one picking it up. If they do pick it up then sometimes they’ll just leave plastic bags on the ground, kind of like a situation when you leave it in the yard for your mom to pick it up. There are several owners ruining it for the rest of us,” Catalfamo said.
The state commissioned studies to find out what kind of impact the dog traffic is having at the parks. Those parks were originally designated for use by sportsmen and hunters to train their dogs. Frazier says they were never intended to handle the number of dogs and people they’re seeing today.
While those studies found that fecal matter from the dogs is having a minimal impact on the quality of the water supply near the parks, they did find that there was erosion of soil and the vegetation at the parks was withering.
Recommendations include: subject some areas of the dog parks to seasonal closures and fencing off other sections.
A second meeting to gather input will be held on Tuesday, July 28 at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Visitor Center at 9370 S. Wadsworth Blvd. in Littleton. The meeting begins at 5 p.m. and is scheduled to end at 8 p.m.
Read more of this story and see an interview with Deb Frazier at .
