Fires could taint water supply

At-risk forests near key reservoirs for Front Range

Jerd Smith, Rocky Mountain News

Friday, July 13, 2007

CRAIG - State officials warned Thursday that key Front Range water sources are extremely vulnerable to wildfire-related contamination.

In the past, catastrophic fires such as the Hayman Fire in 2002, have caused problems with water quality, and water-cleaning operations have cost millions of dollars.

Summit and Grand counties contain many of the pipelines and reservoirs that supply water to the Front Range, including Dillon Reservoir and Lake Granby.

Fire threat is high in the two counties, where forests have been decimated by pine beetle infestations.

Unless the state can find new tools and money to protect the watersheds within these at-risk forests, fires could do severe damage to the land along critical streams, causing contamination and debris buildup.

The beetle infestation is prompting close inspections of the forests, but agencies such as the U.S. Forest Service and the Colorado Forest Service don't have the tools to protect these key water systems, members of the Colorado Water Conservation Board said during a meeting here.

"With the threat of significant watershed deterioration, I would like to see the state have talks with these agencies on what kinds of preemptive measures we can take," said Eric Wilkinson, a board member who also manages the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District. "It has us significantly concerned."

Denver Water owns Dillon Reservoir, and the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District, which serves such cities as Fort Collins, Greeley and Boulder, owns Lake Granby.

Denver Water and Northern are the two largest water-delivery agencies in Colorado. Their systems divert water from rivers that flow through national and state forests.

The devastating Hayman Fire, which occurred around Denver's Cheesman Reservoir, caused massive damage to the watershed of the upper South Platte River, leaving heavy deposits of ash and silt in streams and reservoirs.

Water officials hope similar disasters can be prevented on the Western Slope around the Fraser, Blue and Upper Colorado rivers.

In the past, water agencies have done some of the work themselves, thinning trees and, in some cases, installing temporary debris dams to protect water collection points on rivers. But doing such tasks on a large scale is difficult and costly and can have unforeseen impacts on fish and streams, officials said.

Harris Sherman, executive director of Colorado's Department of Natural Resources, said any solution will be expensive. Officials toured some of Colorado's beetle-infested areas this week.

"Millions of acres of land are affected by this," Sherman said.

To do the work that's needed costs about $1 million for every 2,000 acres. "Even with the resources we're putting into it, it's just a drop in the bucket," Sherman said.

smithj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5474