Denver: Montclair and Park Hill basins stormwater design fueling conflict

Here’s a deep-dive into stormwater planning in the Montclair and Park Hill basins from Alan Predergast writing in Westword. Click through and read the whole article. Here’s an excerpt:

The modest proposal, known initially as the Two Basin Drainage Project (TBDP) but now being touted as the Platte to Park Hill Stormwater Systems, is intended to help control storm runoff in the northeast part of the city — water that flows north and west from Fairmount Cemetery through the Montclair, Park Hill, Cole and Whittier neighborhoods to Elyria, Swansea, Globeville and ultimately the South Platte River. The $134 million undertaking is being overseen by Denver’s Department of Public Works, with some financial and technical assistance from the Colorado Department of Transportation and the Urban Drainage and Flood Control District.

Although many details of the project are still officially “under study” and have not been finalized, certain basic features have been presented in public meetings in recent months — and have raised hackles among neighborhood groups. One essential component is an open channel, fifteen blocks long and up to a hundred feet wide, to be dug along East 39th Avenue between Franklin and Steele streets, that would slow down heavy storm runoff headed to the river. Another key piece of infrastructure is a detention “pond,” around thirty acres in size, to be situated either in the Cole neighborhood or on the golf course. The pond would remain dry except in the most extreme storm conditions, yet building it could require demolishing several houses in Cole — an early configuration, since rejected, would have taken out more than forty homes — or removing up to 280 of the 872 trees on the golf course. And that’s just for the first phase of the project, addressing drainage needs in the Montclair Basin; another detention pond is planned for the Park Hill Golf Course as part of drainage improvements for the Park Hill Basin, the second basin in the TBDP.

City officials say the project is urgently needed to fix long-festering drainage problems in some of Denver’s poorest neighborhoods — and curtail hazardous street flooding, such as one event last June 24 after heavy rains in the area. “It is my fervent belief that in this project the city is acting as an advocate for neighborhoods, to deliver the project as fast as we can to provide stormwater relief,” Gretchen Hollrah, the city’s deputy chief financial officer, told one gathering of neighborhood organizations last month.

From The Denver Post (Jon Murray):

A growing chorus of residents and activists across several neighborhoods portray I-70 as the motivating force: the largest factor driving what they see as a set of invasive projects that could scar the City Park and Park Hill golf courses, disturb potentially toxic soils, and sacrifice neighborhoods and parkland to make the highway project viable.

City officials dispute those characterizations. For months, at dozens of public and neighborhood meetings, they have underlined city experts’ assessment of the threat posed by giant storms that, even if very rare, would wreak havoc across a wide swath of the area.

Plenty agree with the plans. But even as officials honed their message, critics who sometimes discount the level of flooding threat have been emboldened.

That’s in part because some areas that would host projects wouldn’t benefit as much as the highway and other neighborhoods to the north — or, initially, at all. Those that would gain protection include parts of the city that are about to see an influx of redevelopment, including some of River North, industrial areas near I-70 and the National Western Center site, only feeding skepticism.