Fire may help protect waters

Denver utility gets OK to use prescribed burns

Jerd Smith, Rocky Mountain News

Published August 18, 2007 at midnight

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Colorado's largest water utility has won approval from air pollution regulators to use prescribed burns over thousands of acres of land it owns to prevent catastrophic fires such as the Buffalo Creek and Hayman fires.

Super-hot fires can cripple water collection systems, plugging collection pipes with debris and clogging reservoirs with sediment from post-fire rains and erosion. The Hayman Fire, for instance, caused nearly $30 million in damages to areas around Cheesman Reservoir.

Smaller, carefully controlled fires, can help avert the problem.

Denver Water, which serves 1.2 million people in the metro area, owns roughly 60,000 acres in 10 counties and sought the statewide permit to reduce fire risk in forests on its own land. It initially plans fires on about 2,000 acres.

This fall it will begin doing controlled fires along the North Fork of the South Platte River near Cheesman Reservoir, and elsewhere, according to Chuck Dennis, forester with the Colorado State Forest Service, which manages those lands for Denver Water.

To do large-scale fires requires approval from the Colorado Air Quality Control Commission, which also requires the utility to show it has thinned trees and created fire breaks before contemplating use of fire.

"This is a kind of check-and-balance thing to make sure they're doing this wisely," Dennis said. "For each individual burn, we will still have to create a burn plan and get a special permit."

Plan 10 years in making

Don Kennedy, an environmental planner with Denver Water, said the utility has been working for 10 years to treat its forests and lay the groundwork for the burn program.

Though the Hayman Fire ravaged its lands around Cheesman Reservoir, Kennedy said thinning work protected many of the utility's properties.

"In the case of Cheesman, in the areas that we had previously treated, the fire did go down on the ground, and that saved our buildings," he said.

As Denver Water moves to protect its own land, hundreds of thousands acres of U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service lands are also at risk. More than half the water that supplies the Front Range, including Denver, comes from these remote mountain watersheds.

Though the fire risk this summer has been moderate, there is mounting concern over fires in high country watersheds critical to the Front Range, including those on the West Slope that have extensive pine beetle damage.

Prescribed burns are one way to manage that risk after forests have been thinned.

Meeting looks at options

Colorado's seven largest water providers met with forest service officials last week to look at options for preventing the catastrophic fires that foul water pipes and reservoirs and degrade water quality.

Eric Wilkinson, manager of the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District, said he's hopeful the U.S. and state forest services will craft a plan and move quickly to begin thinning trees and creating fire breaks around their mountain water collection systems.

He said Front Range cities have been lucky that fires haven't struck yet.

"The fuel load and the potential for catastrophic fires is still way up there," he said. "We've been very fortunate because of these well-timed rains, but that could change in a week."

Costs to treat the forests to prevent fires and to minimize subsequent damage is likely to be high.

And it's not clear who will pay. "This is a significant unanswered question," Wilkinson said. "But you would also have significant costs if a fire occurred and then you would have subsequent water treatment costs."

Fighting fire with fire

Denver Water may use prescribed burns around Front Range reservoirs.

Denver Water must submit a plan and get a special permit for each prescribed burn. The plan must detail:

1 How burn will be conducted

2 How impact on air quality will be minimized

3 How fire managers have been trained

4 Range of weather conditions under which fire may be ignited

5 How public will be notified: a minimum of 24-hour notice is requiredSource: Colorado State Forest Service

smithj@RockyMountainNews.com

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