AURORA, Colo.—Aurora Water is pledging $500,000 over the next two years to help restore about 70 square miles burned by Colorado’s worst wildfire on record.
The utility is joining efforts by the National Forest Foundation, Vail Resorts Inc. and the U.S. Forest Service to restore some of the 215 square miles burned by the 2002 Hayman fire. Rain falling on burned soil barren of vegetation can push sediment into drinking water supplies.
The Forest Service said Thursday that Aurora Water’s investment would help leverage other funds from private partners, including a $200,000 challenge grant from The Gates Family Foundation. The restoration project includes planting more than 200,000 trees and vegetating about 13 miles of riverbanks with native foliage.
Aurora Water also plans to provide about $200,000 under a two-year agreement to help mitigate impacts of bark beetles on the San Isabel National Forest in Lake County, where Aurora stores some of its water. Forest officials have expressed concern that beetle-killed trees could be fuel for catastrophic wildfires, which in turn could cause erosion that sullies reservoir water.
“The quality and reliability of our water supply is dependent upon forest health,” Aurora Water director Mark Pifher said in a written statement. “A healthy forest is how nature keeps sediment from entering the watershed. Aurora and Denver Water are currently spending millions of dollars to dredge Strontia Spring Reservoir as a result of past fires. Failure to take action now would result in more costly measures in the future.”
The Hayman restoration project is budgeted at $4.6 million. Aurora Water’s $500,000 pledge is going toward $2.3 million that the National Forest Foundation hopes to raise in order to get matching funds from the Forest Service for the project. The foundation has raised about $1.6 million so far, Forest Service spokeswoman Janelle Smith said.
