Welcome back to this biweekly meeting of the South Platte River Committee of Denver City Council.

Join us for the discussion as the South Platte River Committee starts now.

And we will wait.

Okay.

I usually wait till it focuses on the chair, but I'm assuming we're being heard on Channel 8 now.

Welcome everyone to the Wednesday, June 10, 2026 meeting of the Denver City Council's South Platte River Committee.

And we have one briefing today, no action items and one item on consent that'll go forward at the end of the meeting.

Let's have introductions from folks at the table.

I don't uh see anybody online yet, but I'll keep checking.

Uh let me start uh to my left.

Uh thank you uh committee chair, um committee chair, vice chair.

Committee chair, vice chair, committee vice chair, here.

Interrupt chair.

Darrell Watson, um, I'm honored to serve the residence of defined district nine.

Good afternoon.

Chris Hines, Denver is perfect.

Thank you, and I understand we have been joined by uh by uh uh another member if you'd like to make an introduction.

Good afternoon, Diana Romero Campbell, Southeast Denver District 4.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Uh let's just move right into the briefing.

And we have uh uh the uh DDPHE Department of Public Health Environment briefing on our water quality program.

Uh John, uh your introduce yourself and take it away.

Yeah, thank you.

Uh my name is John Novick.

I'm a senior environmental programs administrator with uh the Department of Public Health and Environment's environmental quality division, and I'm here to talk to you about our water quality programs.

Um I'd like to start off by thanking the committee for inviting me here and uh to tell you about the work that we do and um uh give you a chance to learn a little bit more about what we know about water quality in our streams and lakes.

So um DDPHE's water quality programs uh cover a number of topics.

Um the main one is water quality monitoring.

Um, I'll spend most of my time talking about that um that work that we do there in this presentation, but I wanted to give you a little bit of an overview of some of the other work that we do.

Um our water quality program has been collecting surface water and sediment samples from the streams and lakes in Denver since the uh 1960s.

Uh the program uh was established after the South Platte flooded in uh 1965, and it was initially intended to identify and remove illicit discharges from uh the storm sewer system.

Um, but over the years it's evolved based on um changes to technology needs and the development of best practices, and I'll get more into that as we move through the presentation.

Um we're also responsible for the city's mosquito control program.

So if you've seen uh information from our comms office or articles for um for newsletters that comes that information in those uh come from our staff.

Um we also uh review uh capital infrastructure and uh development projects for potential impacts to water quality.

And um we have uh we we respond to uh emergencies and uh concerns that relate to either water quality or mosquitoes.

Uh we have an education and outreach program, and we work on um city policy as well as uh stakeholders for the city on um state and federal policy issues.

We work with a long list of partners, collaborators and customers, including many other city agencies, and hopefully that'll come out in this presentation.

We also work with watershed groups, nonprofits, universities and community colleges, insurance manufacturers, and state and other local and federal government agencies.

Um so a lot of partners.

Um those partners included the include the uh South Platte River Urban Waters Partnership, who you heard from um, I believe, back in March.

So um our water quality monitoring programs cover a lot of ground.

Uh we sample um all sample the streams, many of the streams and lakes in Denver.

We also look at algae and city lakes.

We look at aquatic insects to both of those help us understand water quality and habitat for aquatic organisms a little better.

We work with Dotti's Division of Green Infrastructure to study their green infrastructure for stormwater facilities to help demonstrate the effectiveness of those facilities as well as to help them improve designs for future facilities.

So the work that the water quality program does is important to the Department of Public Health and Environment's mission of advancing health equity and outcomes.

There's evidence showing that environmental determinants like water quality have a greater influence on overall health outcomes than genetics or health care access alone.

Having access to clean water through healthy streams and lakes can significantly improve health equity by ensuring communities, especially socially and economically disadvantaged communities benefit from safe environments.

Safe, free, accessible open spaces offer opportunities for recreation, physical activity, and stress reduction, which are tied to improved mental and physical health.

Having access to these spaces also strengthens community engagement, builds local stewardship, and fosters social stronger social bonds.

Community engagement conducted during development of DPHE's community health assessment revealed that residents rank a clean environment such as air and water quality highly for both for personal and community well-being.

That input led the community health assessment to identify water quality as an upstream factor that shapes health outcomes in Denver.

Water quality in the city streams and lakes is specifically tied to two of DPHE's strategic priorities, which are environmental health and justice and systemic racism because it supports improved outcomes for mental and physical health.

So one of the water quality programs' main focuses is to prevent public health exposure to water and vector-borne diseases.

So we know on the left side of the slide, we know that there are all these pollutant sources present.

And those pollutant sources present public health risks through different pathways, exposure to chemical and microbial contamination that may be in the water, harmful algal blooms, as well as vector-borne diseases.

Some of the key interventions that we use include surveillance for mosquitoes in particular and enhanced water quality monitoring efforts.

So they'd be that would be places like Confluence Park or Berkeley or Sloan's Lakes.