New strategic plan to improve water quality in Fountain Creek watershed
By Heather Bergman, facilitator with the Center for Science and Public Policy at The Keystone Center
The Fountain Creek Vision Task Force, a multi-stakeholder collaborative group in southern Colorado, has completed a community strategic plan for the 930-square-mile Fountain Creek watershed in El Paso, Pueblo, and Teller Counties.
The strategic plan builds on a vision in which Fountain Creek becomes an amenity for the greater watershed community, and outlines key goals, strategies, and actions for realizing that vision. The plan addresses issues of water quality and water quantity that are common throughout Colorado, such as E. coli contamination, sedimentation, erosion, and flooding.
Reflecting the commitment of the entire watershed to restoring the creek, the strategic plan includes issues of concern to a variety of stakeholders in different communities and sees all stakeholders as partners in addressing them. The county, city, environmental, community, and ranching partners in the task force all have action items in the strategic plan – giving everyone responsibility for improving the creek and extending to everyone a role in ensuring the plan’s success.
Task force members have also broken new political and collaborative ground by agreeing to work together to create the Fountain Creek Watershed, Flood Control and Greenway District. The group envisions a district that will have the ability to establish revenue and manage projects to control flooding, improve water quality and create recreational facilities along the creek. The strategic plan serves as a road map of projects and priorities for the district to pursue. While several task force members work with state legislators to create the district, collaborative dialogue continues under an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) that creates the Fountain Creek Watershed Governing Board, which will pursue funding and manage projects in the interim.
The Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District, Fountain, Colorado Springs, El Paso and Pueblo Counties, will each have a seat on the board; while Monument, Green Mountain Falls and Manitou Springs will share one seat.
After their respective commissions approved the IGA, El Paso County Commissioner Sallie Clark and Pueblo County Commissioner Jeff Chostner said in a joint statement, “This is the beginning of a new era for Fountain Creek.” Both Clark and Chostner helped create the Fountain Creek Vision Task Force in 2006. “The governing board and the special district we hope to create next year pave the way for meaningful cooperative efforts to address and fix problems that have plagued Fountain Creek for decades,” they stated. “While we still have a lot of work to do, we’re well on our way to transforming Fountain Creek into a tremendous amenity for the residents of Colorado Springs, Pueblo, Fountain, and the many other communities along the creek. This is a truly historic day.”
To read the Fountain Creek Vision Task Force Strategic Plan, visit www.fountain-crk.org. For additional information about the Fountain Creek Vision Task Force, contact the group’s facilitator, Heather Bergman, of The Keystone Center, at 303-531-5511 or hbergman@keystone.org.