After decades of on-again, off-again efforts to bring boating to the Barker Reservoir, the town of Nederland has renewed its push to make it legal to use non-motorized watercraft on the lake.
Some Nederland residents were pushing for boat access to the reservoir as early as 1988, when a group of wind surfers took to the water to protest the no-boating rule. A decade later, small sailboats, kayaks and canoes were briefly allowed to cut through the waters in Barker Reservoir on the eastern edge of Nederland for five weekends in 1999 as part of a pilot project that was agreed to by Xcel Energy, which was then the reservoir’s owner.
The pilot project was originally scheduled to continue the next summer, but the city of Boulder’s purchase of the reservoir in 2000 put a stop to the plan while city staffers worked to create a boating feasibility study for the reservoir.
Ultimately, the study, which was completed in 2003, recommended against allowing boating, but the City Council at the time directed staffers to approach Nederland to see if the town was interested in submitting a proposal for managing non-motorized boating on the western-most third of the reservoir.
Get more on this report at .
