The Chatfield Watershed Authority has released the first draft of the first Chatfield Watershed Plan, which proposes ways to maintain and improve the water quality and uses in the watershed.
The Chatfield Watershed roughly encompasses Chatfield Reservoir and parts of Jefferson and Douglas Counties south of the reservoir, where streams like the South Platte River and Plum Creek feed into the reservoir. Various municipalities have been involved with the plan, including Littleton, Castle Rock, Castle Pines and various organizations that have an interest in the reservoir. The reservoir is also a water supply for cities south of it.
“The plan (tries to protect water quality) by looking ahead at a variety of different projects to do as funding is available to protect the resources in that area,” said Julie Vlier, who is manager of the Chatfield Watershed Authority and works with Tetra Tech, the company that helped put the plan together.
One of the projects proposed is to implement stream restoration among Plum Creek, the South Platte River and other streams that feed into the Chatfield Reservoir in part by placing structures and vegetation along the stream banks. Vlier said that would not only improve water quality but provide for a better ecosystem.
She said a fair amount of the land in the watershed is agricultural, so mitigating and reducing agricultural impacts on streams is important. That could include placing vegetation along the stream banks to absorb pollutant nutrients and installing water tanks for livestock so they don’t go into the streams for water.
Also in the plan is accounting for the effect wildfires have on the streams when there is flooding, bringing pollutants such as metals into the streams. Vlier said some precautions they could take include clear-cutting some trees before a wildfire or placing sentiment control structures along the creeks and rivers.
“We’re hoping to get more in front of that and provide management practices with land-use agencies in our district to help manage those water-quality aspects before they occur,” Vlier said.
Vlier said the Chatfield Reservoir has met its water-quality standards for 2013 and that officials would like to see that continued.
The group received a $70,000 grant to complete the plan out of a total $200,000 from different agencies.
The group is looking for public input on the draft, which Casey Davenhill, executive director of the Colorado Watershed Authority, said is just a starting place.
She said residents should be interested in the plan because a lot of people take for granted having clean water and there’s a lot of organizations who come together to make it happen.
“It’s a real hopeful message that all of the planning going on in Douglas County around water supply and increasing supply in Chatfield Reservoir is all deliberate, and if you don’t plan, things just happen, so we’re identifying a common goal and planning together to make that happen,” Davenhill said.
To read the plan, visit . The period for comments ends Jan. 31.
Clayton Woullard: 303-954-2953, cwoullard@denverpost.com or
