DENVER—Vail Resorts Inc. is shifting money it once used to buy wind energy credits to contribute to a $4 million, three-year project to restore habitat harmed by Colorado’s worst wildfire in history, the company announced Monday.
Vail Resorts and the U.S. Forest Service said they would each contribute $750,000 over three years to the restoration project, which would help protect watersheds that feed into Denver’s water supply. The National Forest Foundation will raise the rest.
Vail Resorts also will devote 1,500 hours of employee time to the project.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who oversees the Forest Service, said the 2002 Hayman fire was extraordinarily destructive.
“When one of our treasures is destroyed, it’s imperative to restore it,” said Vilsack during a news conference announcing the plan.
The Hayman fire destroyed 600 buildings, including 133 homes, as it burned trees and vegetation on about 215 square miles. Erosion from burned areas caused sediment to build up around Cheesman Reservoir, threatening a main source of water for Denver homes.
Most of the work would focus on about 70 square miles of the most severely affected areas in four watersheds feeding the Upper South Platte River. Plans include planting more than 200,000 trees, plus willows, dogwood, grasses and sage to restore river areas.
The project also aims to enhance trails and restore river habitat for fish and threatened species like the Montane skipper butterfly.
The goal is to finish before the 10th anniversary of the Hayman fire in 2012.
“Without our help, it may be literally 500 years before the forest restores itself,” said Tim Sullivan, state director for the Nature Conservancy.
Vail Resorts expects the effort could mean jobs for area youth.
Vilsack said public-private partnerships like the one announced Monday would help make forests more resilient to climate change, protect water resources and improve forest health while creating jobs.
National forests, which are home to several Colorado ski areas, are key to the state’s tourism industry but also to supplying drinking water.
About 65 percent of the water people use, whether on farms or drinking water, comes from watersheds under the management of the Forest Service, said Rick Cables, director of the agency’s regional office in Denver.
About 75 percent of the water supply in Colorado comes through national forests, Cables said. “The mountains are the water towers of the West,” he said.
Vail Resorts committed in 2006 to buy enough wind-generated electricity credits to offset all the power it used for three years. With that commitment expiring, the ski company looked at how it could affect climate change more directly, perhaps by planting trees, CEO Rob Katz said.
Cables and others suggested contributing to restoring the Hayman burn area.
“Our product is really the outdoors. We have a responsibility and opportunity to take a leadership role,” Katz said.
Denver Water, the utility that owns Cheesman Reservoir, has spent about $8 million planting seedlings, building sediment traps, repairing roads, installing bigger drainage pipes and doing other work to protect the watershed.
