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water & environment
greenprint goals
Enhancing Denver's City Forest
We will plant thousands of new trees in partnership with dozens of Denver neighborhoods, schools and community and youth organizations. Trees offer shade, cooling and beauty to our city and help slow climate change by reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
2007 Goals
Expanding Natural Landscapes
- Formally designate 100 acres as protected Natural Areas in Denver's park system.
- With substantial support from Denver Water, convert three park and parkway sites to native vegetation, which uses as little as 20 percent of the water, no chemicals, and requires few other resources for maintenance.
- Design at least one Denver golf course using Audubon Colorado's Wildscape Manual to use native plants and provide habitat for birds and other urban wildlife.
- Train 50 volunteers as park stewards for the citizen evaluation program at 30 park sites.
Improve South Platte River Water Quality
Take the following actions to improve water quality in the South Platte River:
- Focus sanitary and storm sewer maintenance on drainage basins with elevated bacteria contributions into the South Platte River.
- Use new Geographic Information System capabilities to identify and improve sanitary sewer lines that have the potential to contaminate the storm water system.
- Execute and document additional storm sewer maintenance and cleaning to identify illicit discharges, repair inappropriate taps, and remove sediment-containing bacteria.
- Utilize GIS in combination with water quality data to evaluate pollutant-loading sources, intervene appropriately, and develop a process to identify potential point-source polluters.
- Develop small-scale pilot water quality improvement programs to test innovative approaches.
- Complete a microbial analysis to identify contamination sources.
- Complete a local and regional stakeholder process on water quality to develop a common understanding of problems and solutions.
- Implement a concentrated water quality education program to foster behavioral change among residents.
- Add a new water quality program manager to direct and coordinate the overall water quality response.
Conserving Water Resources
Denver Water has developed a 10-Year Conservation Plan that, if approved by the Denver Water Board and successfully implemented, will achieve water use reductions of 22 percent from 211 gallons per capita per day (GCD) in the year 2000 to 165 GCD in the year 2016.
The 22 percent conservation goal was originally set in the Denver Water Board's 1997 Integrated Resource Plan to be achieved by 2050, and some of the plan's proposed conservation programs can be found below, subject to community discussion and input.
City agencies will set the standard for water conservation and lead in early adoption of Denver Water's new conservation programs, including:
- Time-of-Purchase Retrofits: Requires a retrofitting process for indoor fixtures to meet current efficiency standards in the Uniform Building Code and leak repair for all existing single family and multifamily homes at the time of purchase. Many Denver Water rebates would be available to help offset these costs. The program would also include a complete water efficiency check-up for indoor and outdoor uses.
- New Homes Rating System: This involves expanding the Built Green® program of the Denver Metro Homebuilders Association to create a point system for water efficiency. Points will be awarded for water efficient practices and efficient water fixtures. New homes will be required to achieve a minimum number of points before service is started.
- Commercial and Industrial Incentives: Commercial and industrial customers can receive up to $80,000 for improving efficiency of processes that use water. Each of 60 new contracts per year saves an average of 5 percent. Projects must meet a minimum savings potential of 300,000 gallons per year in order to qualify.
Demonstrate Wise Water Use in City
- Accelerate progress in bringing city facilities up to state-of-the-art standards for plumbing fixtures, irrigation systems, cooling towers, kitchen operation, swimming pool operations, laundries and other water uses.
- Require city irrigation systems to be maintained for efficiency, and to meet accepted standards for efficiency in water use.
2011 Goals
Expanding Natural Landscapes
- Convert an additional 100 acres of bluegrass turf to native vegetation, ultimately reducing water consumption by 4 million gallons annually.
- Designate 1,000 acres of parkland as protected Natural Areas in Denver's park system, ensuring their preservation and value as wildlife habitat, islands of peaceful respite for visitors, and low resource consumption for maintenance.
- Design at least one Denver golf course using Audubon Colorado's Wildscape Manual to use native plants and provide habitat for birds and other urban wildlife.
- Train 200 volunteers as park stewards for the citizen evaluation program at 100 park sites.
Improve South Platte River Water Quality
- The South Platte River will meet EPA's swimmable and fishable standards.
Conserving Water Resources
- Continue and expand implementation of the 10-Year Conservation Plan, with progress toward Denver Water's goal of a per capita customer use of 165 gallons per day by 2016.
