A recent article in the Denver Post “Denver accelerates “daylighting” of lost waterways, “undoing history” with decades-long re-engineering effort” discusses some exciting new work on restoring hidden hydrology and “Re-opening of buried waterways” in the area to manage stormwater runoff and create habitat. The context:
“Old Denver pulsed with H2O, water that snaked through the creeks and irrigation canals crisscrossing Colorado’s high prairie before 150 years of urban development buried most of them or forced them into pipes.”
A similar story to many cities across the globe, “…developers focused on filling in creeks to make way for the construction of railroads, streets, smelters and housing — all laid out across a grid imposed on the natural landscape.” This can be remedied today “…by reconstructing the urban landscape where possible, they’ll slow down water, filter it through vegetation to remove contaminants, control storm runoff and nourish greenery to help residents endure the climate shift toward droughts and rising temperatures.”
It’s heartening to see this large of a paradigm shift, and engineers, such as Bruce Uhernik, whom quoted saying:
“We’re just trying to take back that space and make waterways more natural and more beautiful. Why would people not want something to be more natural? This is being responsible — not just to what the city and people need, but to the environment’s needs. Birds. Fish. Trees that should be growing along these corridors. All these work in unison. If you break the chain, things fall off course.”
I appreciate some of the language, but the term “undoing history” is a bit strange to me as I always think of projects like this, in any form, as redoing history. I guess it’s your take on what is history: the original pre-development condition that needs to be restored, or the interventions and filling as the history that needs undoing. As mentioned, there’s plenty of history as “Historic Denver maps from the late 1800s show multiple irrigation canals and curving dotted lines denoting unnamed waterways, including a creek that flows through the Montclair Basin from Fairmount Cemetery toward north Denver industrial areas where smelting and rendering plants were located along the South Platte.”
Either way, it’s a cool project, and has some unique components and context, much of which can be found in the Denver Public Works ‘Green Infrastructure Implementation Strategy‘, a document broad interventions for stormwater and habitat. The prevalence of creeks is seen in the map of Recieving Waters (page 7) shows that while there are a number of urban creeks, they are impacted by residential, commercial, and industrial development throughout the region,
A series of maps in the report outlines pollutants of concern like Fecal bacteria and E.coli, Total Suspended Solids (TSS), Nitrogen, Phosphorous. This map (page 21) shows subbasin level designations of Nitrogen, which is elevated by human activity, and can lead to algae blooms, and issues with aquatic species.
A focus on the urban core includes the Platte to Park Hill (Part of area 20 above (City Park/Park Hill), which integrates a number of systems. As mentioned in the report: “Stormwater Systems is taking a
comprehensive green infrastructure approach to better protecting people and property against fooding while improving water quality and enhancing public spaces. Four projects are part of the Platte to Park Hill… Collectively, the four coordinated projects will increase neighborhood connectively, add new park and recreation spaces, provide critical food protection, and improve water quality.” (page 54) The Globeville Landing Outfall project is one of these segments, as part of the strategy, using open channel design, which “…will help clean storm water naturally when possible and will move the water to its ultimate destination, the South Platte River.” A rendering of the plan:
The 39th Avenue Greenway (also seen in the header) also includes open channels for flood control and storm events. The opportunity to layer community function with these facilities is key, as they are “…designed using a community-focused approach to provide the following benefits in addition to flood protection… “ which includes new open space, bike/walking trails, and more. A rendering shows this integration.
An additional article from the Denver Channel provides a bit more perspective in video form on the Montclair Creek Project, including the “gray to green” approach “correcting past mistakes” focusing on the daylighted river weaving through a golf course and some more urban parts of the City, along with a greenway as mentioned above prior to outlet into the South Platte River. The funds for the project, which were not insubtantial at $300 million, were voter-approved, with “daylighting of old waterways that were forced into pipes and buried during the industrial revolution in favor or streets, railroads and homes.”
HEADER: Image of the 39th Avenue Greenway and Open Channel – via the ‘Green Infrastructure Implementation Strategy‘ (page 55)