From The Pueblo Chieftain (Chris Woodka):
After more than three years of effort by local, state and federal interests, the demonstration project in North Pueblo is designed to show how to control flooding, create wetlands and reduce erosion. “If only Washington would learn to work together like this,” U.S. Rep. John Salazar, D-Colo., told a small gathering of politicians and technical advisers gathered at the site of a future off-channel flood detention pond and wetlands in Fountain Creek, north of Colorado Highway 47 near Dillon Drive. “This is a great example of everyone working together.”
Salazar listed $1 million in earmarks — half this year and half next — for the Fountain Creek Project at the request of Jay Winner, executive director of the Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District. The money will come through the Natural Resources Conservation Service, a federal agency dedicated to land and water conservation. Lower Ark Chairman Pete Moore also praised the cooperation of the Colorado Springs and Pueblo city councils, El Paso and Pueblo County commissioners and state lawmakers who formed the Fountain Creek Watershed Flood Control and Greenway District to get the project off the ground…
In addition to the federal money, the Colorado Water Conservation Board is contributing $225,000; the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, $250,000; and the city of Pueblo $75,000 in cash and $125,000 of in-kind services.
The project will capture peak flows during minor flooding, control erosion or sedimentation and establish wetlands, all listed as high priorities in a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers study and the Fountain Creek Master plan. It will serve as a classroom to determine the best ways to achieve those goals, said Allen Green, state conservationist for the NRCS…
Besides the flood detention pond, a sediment collection system will be tested further downstream, Shanks said. “If this works, we can apply the concepts upstream and provide real mitigation,” he said. “We need to learn from this one.”