Conservation Corner

In the time of the novel coronavirus, decision-making bodies on local environmental issues are all on hold while local and state governments concentrate on those parts of the crisis for which they have to assume responsibility. The two local issues that will come back to the forefront quickly, assuming that COVID-19 does not get much worse, are the proposed bike trail from Eldorado Canyon State Park to Walker Ranch and the flood mitigation project for South Boulder Creek.

Proposed Mountain Bike Trail from Eldorado Canyon State Park to Walker Ranch

This proposed multi-use trail was the subject of a couple of public meetings last year, followed by a “ feasibility study ”. The feasibility study was jointly attributed to the three government entities with affected lands: Boulder County, Colorado State Parks, and Boulder City Open Space and Mountain Parks.

While there have been some good aspects to this process, there are also pretty important deficiencies. For example, the first meetings and documents considered a southern, versus a northern alignment. Many commenters, including BCAS, agreed that there were major problems with the southern alignment, and any further discussion should concentrate on the northern alignment. However, when the feasibility study was issued, it simply blew off various alternatives and honed in on one specific alignment. It clearly stated that no decision had been made on building the proposed trail or getting the required approvals, but somehow a bunch of alternatives were off the table without having ever been seriously considered. At the board of county commissioners meeting on the study (not a hearing, because no decision was being made), Commissioner Matt Jones noted that a no-action alternative had not been taken seriously or analyzed—it was simply dismissed without consideration or analysis.

The feasibility study takes a similar cavalier approach to avoid any serious analysis of many questions. Thus, the north route is identified as consisting of the N1, N2, and N3 or N4 sub-alignments in the feasibility study, thereby largely defining the route, even while claiming no decision has been made. Note that the feasibility study includes no discussion of the ecological impacts this route would have, even though it would require dozens of switchbacks in the Western Mountain Parks HCA. Other possibilities for a north route are dismissed without any real consideration. For example, several lower-impact possibilities use existing private roads, because, with no real efforts at negotiation, private property owners said they didn’t want a route there. This process has allowed agency managers to reduce the alternatives considered without actually doing the work that would have been required with a real public process.

In September 2019, Colorado Parks and Wildlife realized that it had signed off on the feasibility study without really having considered the impacts on the state park, and they called a halt to further consideration while they did a Visitor Use Management Plan. This plan has yet to be released, but it put a temporary halt in the rush to go ahead with the trail.

It will be important once the Visitor Use Management Plan is done to make sure that other needed steps are done and that the agencies’ further shortcutting is not allowed. For example, BCAS suggested to OSMP that the delay presented an opportunity to actually look at the ecological impacts of the suggested trail on the Western Mountain Parks HCA. OSMP rejected the suggestion because no decision on the trail had been made. We may have to remind OSMP of this point when the issue comes to the fore again.

Note that if this trail is built, a major use is likely to be from metro area bikers brought in vans by commercial operators to ride downhill from Walker Ranch to the east side of Eldorado Canyon State Park. Speeding downhill on the “multiuse” trails is already a favorite activity at Walker Ranch, as shown in these two videos ( Mountain Biking Walker Ranch | Boulder, Colorado and 2019 Walker Ranch Mountain Biking Colorado ). At the moment, the state park has no way to even collect park fees for bikers entering the park from the west. We know from the activity on the Doudy Draw trail system that commercial outfitters bringing mountain bikers from the metro area can overwhelm local trails while contributing virtually nothing to maintenance and other expenses.

South Boulder Creek Flood Mitigation and CU South

The second major local issue that is currently on hold, but that will re-emerge fairly soon is the construction of flood mitigation structures in the area extending south and west of the intersection of Table Mesa Drive and the Boulder-Denver Turnpike. This area was used for gravel mining in the 1980s and 90s, and was scheduled to be purchased as city open space after reclamation, but was purchased instead by CU, which disregarded the required reclamation plan. This is the obvious place to construct a flood mitigation system to protect Frasier Meadows and surrounding neighborhoods from flooding similar to (or worse than) what they experienced in 2013. CU has seized the opportunity to press its own demands for annexation of the property to obtain city services and allow the development of housing and other possible uses. This has all been complicated by a series of poorly thought-out engineering concepts, along with attending impacts on open space and on CDOT concerns about the integrity of the highway and its bridge over South Boulder Creek.

The city has to deal with its immediate responsibilities for public safety in the face of a history of bad decisions (some by Boulder County) to allow the construction of senior facilities and neighborhoods in a high-hazard floodplain, along with a series of ill-conceived flood-control proposals stretching back to the 1970s.

BCAS is mainly concerned with making sure that there is minimal degradation of the adjoining wetlands, which encompass important habitat for federally endangered species and for globally rare ecosystems.