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.

We're looking to understand long-term trends in water quality.

This helps the city to get ahead of compliance issues and allows us to work collaboratively on efforts that can prevent future enforcement by the state.

We also assess effectiveness of interventions to improve and protect water quality.

I mentioned that we work with the Division of Green Infrastructure to assess the effectiveness of their facilities.

We're also working with the water project team to assess the impacts of changes to weirgulch and future changes of South Platte River on overall water quality as well as aquatic habitat in those streams.

We're also working actively to increase awareness of public health issues and water quality issues.

And we try to get the word out to folks through various means about actions that they can take to protect water quality.

And I'll I'll touch a little bit more on that at the end of the presentation.

As you can see from looking at the slide, it's probably pretty heavily focused on South Platte River, Cherry Creek, and Bear Creek.

It's a little hard to tell from this slide, but we also sample most of the small tributaries that come into the South Platte River and Cherry Creek.

So we have a really long period of record that allows us to do a lot of interesting, allows us to analyze the data that we have in really interesting and meaningful ways that tell a really compelling story about what's going on with water quality in our streams and lakes.

So I want to talk a little bit about uh pollutant sources because I think there's some common misconceptions in this space.

When you talk about pollution in a river, most people think, oh, yeah, it's from industrial sources, wastewater treatment plants, and other big dischargers.

But the reality is that all of those dischargers are required to have discharge permits from the state of Colorado.

Their discharge permits uh contain requirements for what they are allowed to um to dump into the rivers and lakes, and it also provides specific activities and that they have to take to try and keep their discharges down below those levels.

Um that's not to say that they are um there are no pollutants coming from those discharges.

They are just limited and um uh um not as significant as most people think.

Um stormwater on the other hand is a different story, and and this is a graphic from um the city of Wilmington, North Carolina, and I really like it because it does a really great job of kind of showing um what happens to uh stormwater runoff when it um when it rains.

So rain uh fall lands on roofs of buildings, on um on people's yards and parks and other vegetated areas.

It also hits uh people's driveways and streets, and as it moves across those areas, picks up all kinds of pollutants.

Um, it encounters pet waste, um, fertilizers, um, if your car is leaking motor oil or other fluids, it picks up all of that.

Um any trash or sediment that's in the street, it all gets washed away and it goes to a storm drain and then um directly into the receiving stream or lake.

That generally happens without any treatment at all.

So any pollution that's picked up by stormwater runoff goes directly into a surface water body.

Um the division of green infrastructure, they are currently building facilities throughout the city to try and treat some of that water.

Um, however, there's still a lot of ground that hasn't been in where they haven't installed their facilities.

So there's a lot of work to be done in that space.

Okay.

Now I want to kind of change tracks and talk a little bit about what we do with the data that we collect.

So this is actually a visual representation of a water quality index that we have created.

Each slice of the pie chart reflects a suite of pollutants with standards that are intended to be protective of a specific use of water in a stream or lake.

We create a score for each of these uses, looking at each pollutant in that suite.

The score is based on how many times the stream exceeds water quality standards and by how much it exceeds them.

We then color code it and use it to build this pie chart.

This is an example from the South Platte River.

And just to help you understand what you're looking at here, we determine a stream is safe by looking at the presence of human pathogens in the water.

And we also look at levels of metals which bioaccumulate in fish to see if if the water is safe for fishing.

So in this example, this chart is telling us that the South Platte River is not safe for direct contact due to high levels of human pathogens, but that it is safe for fishing because metals levels that accumulate in fish are low.

So we've created these charts for most of the streams in Denver, and what they reveal is that with the exception of E.

coli, water quality in Denver streams is generally pretty good, especially considering that there are streams in an urban setting.

Let me orient you to this graph a little bit.

This is a chart that shows phosphorus levels in the South Platte River at Spear Boulevard.

It represents about uh represents about 10 years of data collected monthly.

Um if you look at the the lower axis, you'll see that the data are broken down by month.

Um the blue line shows the average flow in the South Platte River for each month.

The boxes show kind of the spread of the of phosphorus levels in the water, and then the blue points and the gray line that join them are the average average phosphorus level in the river.

So if you look closely at this chart, um the story that it's telling you is that at high flows, phosphorus levels are um are very low, but at lower flows they are higher.

Um we see this type of relationship with many of the pollutants that we sample for, and um we're able to use this information to infer what might happen to water quality during a drought.

So um uh councilman Floyd, I knew when uh when Sam was here presenting for the South Platte River Urban Waters Partnership, you had asked some questions about water quality and drought.

Um so uh just to give you kind of an idea of what could potentially happen if um you know if the drought that we have that we have now continues.

Um in streams, the droughts likely to reduce in stream flows, which will result in higher in stream temperatures and pollutant levels.

That's but bad for both recreation and aquatic life.

Um the impact on lakes is potentially even greater.

Um we know there's gonna be less uh water in the lakes.

We're already seeing this in some of the lakes in the city.

That's especially true in ditches that are fed by by, or sorry, lakes that are fed by ditches.

Um lower lower water levels translate to higher water temperatures and increased levels of nitrogen and phosphorus.

These are nutrients that algae use to grow.

So those factors mean that we can expect more algae, including harmful algal blooms, and there's a greater potential for fish die-offs later in the year.

Um I know that we have one lake already that is uh that's dry, Houston Lake, and there's the potential that if we don't get more moisture, we may see more city parks, the lakes and more city parks dry up.

For mosquitoes, I bring mosquitoes in just because uh we get a lot of calls from from the public about concerns.

Um we have also communicate sometimes with council members' offices uh about you know messaging and and helping to help their the communities.

Um it's hard to say what's going to happen with drought.

Um if we do have extended periods of dry weather, it could reduce mosquito activity, but if there's uh moisture followed by hot wet weather, kind of like what we're seeing right now, um it could be a challenging year for both nuisance and disease bearing mosquitoes.

So only time will tell on that.

Okay, so um I want to talk a little bit about what the city's doing to address some of the more common pollutants we see in our streams and lakes.

Um I'm highlighting here E.

coli, nitrogen and phosphorus, sediment and trash.

Those are by far the um the pollutants that we see in our waterways that are most problematic.

Um, in fact, the city's stormwater discharge permit includes requirements to address most of these pollutants.

Um I do want to make a point that um all of these pollutants are commonly found in urban streams, and um they're present in Denver streams at levels that are um similar to what most other cities see.

So we're no worse or better than most cities in the country.

Um, most of the other pollutants that we sample for are they're either not present or they're present at levels that are low enough to not be of concern to the public or to the health of aquatic organisms.

Um so a lot of the focus is on these pollutants.

Um I'm gonna save you the misery of having me read everything out here, but there are a few takeaways that I want you to get from this slide.

Um there's a lot of work being done by the city to try and address water quality problems and in our streams and lakes.

Um, and it's not all falling on Dotti.

Um there are other city agencies that are actively engaged, parks is one in particular.

Uh DPHE also works, and we also work with um with other stakeholders such as the Mile High Flood District.

We work with a number of nonprofits that are active in um in the space.

Um, and our local wastewater treatment plants, including Metro Water Recovery and South Platte Renew, do a lot to try and prevent uh degradation of water quality due to the discharges coming out of their plants.

These efforts have generally really yielded really positive results.

If you were to go back and look at water quality 15 20 years ago, you'd see that in many cases it's vastly improved, but we still have a lot of work to do.

Um so most of what the water quality program does is um uh focused on monitoring and assessment and providing other agencies with information that they can use to design or improve designs uh for improvements that they're making.

That doesn't mean that we're not trying to innovate and get better data and do more.

Uh a couple things that we have going on right now.

We are installing um continuous monitoring stations at a few locations around the city.

Uh we have two of these in place right now.

Uh one is in Bear Creek Park, the swing hole down there that a lot of people like to use.

Um there's also one up by the CSU spur campus.

We think that's a great opportunity to partner with the experts up at CSU on education and outreach efforts.

And um next week we will be installing a station at Confluence Park, so another spot where there's a lot of people using the water there.

We're also working on automating our data analysis and reporting so we can get information out to the public and in a quicker manner so that they can make better decisions.

We will eventually develop public-facing dashboards that people can look at if they are thinking about going again in the water and they can get a sense for what water quality conditions are and use that information to make hopefully smart decisions.

Whether they go down to Confluence Park or go to the rec center and get in a pool.

Okay, lastly, I wanted to talk about some of the communication strategies that we use.

It's primarily internal to city staff like uh park rangers, parks, adaptive, and um recreational programs.

And we we also send it out to some nonprofits that uh bring kids down to the water.

Um the email generally start we start sending it out in late April, running through October.

Generally, that's what we consider the um the recreational season.

And if any of you are interested in you know in getting on the mailing list that that uh that goes out to just reach out to me and let me know, and we can get you a subscribe to it.

Um we also do community messaging um through social media, um, through our web page, and we also create um short uh newsletter items that uh folks can install and uh insert into their newsletters.

I know some of the some of the council people have used those over the years.

Um we issue annual reports, which are available on our website, and um we also go to quite a few community events.

Uh we're up at uh CSU hydro building um once a month.

Uh we we're getting ready to start going to Denver Animal Protection is the shelter down there at Central Platte campus.

Uh we've been to we usually go to the Greenway Foundation's cross currents event every year, and um we try to get out to other parts of the city when there are events that that make sense for us to attend.

Um so that's all I have for you.

Um, has questions on more than happy to try and answer.

Thank you, John.

That's not all we have for you.

A couple people in the queue.

Uh, let me start with Councilwoman Albuters.

Thank you so much.

Um thank you for all the great information on the work that you all are doing at DDPHE.

It's great to hear.

Um, one of the things that I am curious about is just um what what are we going to do when and if mosquitoes infected with things like West Nile virus, which is coming to Arizona, happens here in Dunper.

Well, we do have West Nile virus here.

Okay.

Um we um so we try to proactively keep mosquito populations down by um we use uh larvacides, so it's uh it's actually a treatment that kills the mosquito larvae become before they become adults.

Um we're also working with DDPHE's um epidemiology and uh dise disease intervention teams to try and get a handle on early warning signs, whether it's um uh cases that occur in Denver, um uh and we're looking for so crows and ravens and and birds that are in that similar family are early indicators, and we're looking at ways that we could leverage reports of um sick or dying um birds to help us pinpoint in neighborhoods where there might be problems with West Nile.

Um we would use that uh information to target educational resources to let people know, you know, if the out any standing water in your in your around your house, use um you know uh bug spray um or cover up, don't go out at dusk and dawn.

So so you know, we're we're trying to target our messaging into neighborhoods where there's a problem to reduce the number of cases that could potentially occur.

Okay, and then the larvae side, is there an environmental impact to that and what does that process of um yeah, no, it's actually a bacteria that um attacks the guts of the yeah, and so it is it's harmless, it's widely used across the US.

Um so we have um we have staff as well as a contractor that goes out weekly and does surveillance in areas that we know um there's mosquito habitat, they will um they take a little dipper out there and basically um look to see if there are any larvae in the water, and if there are they'll do a treatment right then.

Great, awesome.

Well, I'm glad you guys are taking care of us in that way.

Um another question I have uh you talked about a lot of the contaminants.

What I didn't see was testing for PFAS, microplastics, pharmaceuticals, um, are those part of that?

Um no, those are those are not part of of that of our routine sampling.

Um the PFOS um uh it's a very expensive and um right now there's there's we don't feel like there's a need.

Um if I hate to say it this way, but if we look for it, we're probably gonna find it.

Um the microplastics is a kind of a new and emerging um field.

Uh we worked with a uh doctoral student at School of Mines last summer and and earlier this summer, she was out sampling the South Platte at several locations collecting uh microplastic samples, and um we'll learn more about what she found hopefully soon.

Um so the the pharmaceuticals and personal care products, that's another big area of concern.

Uh we worked with EPA several years ago, they did some some assessments and um uh I I believe they found um kind of the typical things you would expect to find antidepressants, um, some uh illicit drugs, um, caffeine, as well as some other things.

Um there's not really a lot of um movement towards addressing that.

The um the general consensus has been that um if you give way so most of this is coming from wastewater, so that goes through the wastewater treatment plant.

And if wastewater treatment plants are able to hold that water long enough, um it it does a pretty good job of treating for those.

Interesting.

Yeah, so that that was one of those things that was kind of a we really need to understand this, and there were a lot of resources put into it, and then the next thing came up, and then PFOS and microplastics.

So people's focus is has really shifted over the years.

Is there a reason why not PFAS?

I know it's a carcinogen, I know it has an impact.

Is it seen as less of a danger or what is the reason?

Um, I mean, obviously, cost you mentioned.

Yeah, I mean, cost is a cost is a big one.

Um other than that, I don't think we really have a good reason.

I mean, it's uh it's very much the case that if you look for stuff like that and find it, you put yourself at risk of um of having to do something about it.

And um I don't I'm not that knowledgeable about PFOS.

There are other folks who uh I work with who are, but my sense is it's uh could be a very expensive proposition to deal with, and there are there are um areas where the city is focusing on PFOS, primarily in groundwater, um, but the surface water hasn't been a specific area of focus for now.

And then my last question um is just appreciate that you're testing the water so often.

And I'm curious why it's an internal uh mailer and why we don't have any kind of public-facing dashboard that's showing what these results are.

Yeah, so um so the internal email is primarily because um it's it's not the way it's presented is not user friendly, and we're trying to get the information to people who really know what it means and um uh can take specific actions.

We are working on a public facing dashboard.

Um we've had one in the past that um we took down because there were some problems with it.

Um the new dashboard, um I don't I don't want to promise when it's gonna be ready, but it's it's pretty close.

And that'll when it's ready, that'll go up on our website.

Great.

I hope it'll be ready sooner than later.

I appreciate it.

I know the public would love to see the work that you're doing.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, committee chair.

Thank you.

Um next up was Councilman, excuse me.

Councilman Watson.

Uh thank you, uh, committee chair.

Uh thank you once again for the presentation.

I'm first and foremost curious on uh the Platt Park Hill stormwater uh process.

Um you described the impact of stormwater going directly into the plat.

Can you share a little bit of from the uh any assessment or even initial review of the impacts of that um enhanced stormwater drainage on east side?

Yeah, that you saw from that or any improvements of what was coming into the storm.

Yeah, so so we're actually not monitoring that.

It's considered to be part of the um stormwater drainage system, and um the the city's uh stormwater folks, Brad Cox and Dottie, um, would probably be able to answer that question better.

Um I will say that um uh I mean you daylighted the city daylighted um a storm sewer pipe and turned it into a stream, and so you know that right there is a vast improvement.

Um I will point to Westerly Creek over in the central park neighborhood as kind of a analogy.

Um the the water quality there since they daylighted um Westernly Creek has and made the improvements to the stream, it's it's uh gotten vastly better in the past I think this 15 to 20 years.

So anecdotally, some of this stuff you're seeing from the improvements the city is made of.

Obviously, that's stormwater and Dottie and other folks are leading that, not your team, but yeah, anecdotally you're seeing an improvement.

Yeah, and and um there is a um there I mean that there's a lot of vegetation there which provides treatment.

Um there's also for low flows, there's uh Dottie.

I don't know if it's still functional, but they had installed a um a uh ultraviolet light system that was intended to treat for E.

coli.

And um I know when it was working it was very effective, but but like I said, it uh I don't know if it's still functional.

Um again, Brad Brad with Dottie could answer those questions.

I think my second question you're gonna sit, you're gonna direct me to those folks, but I'll put it on a record a little bit just so folks um know the good work, but the city as a whole, maybe specifically our department, but the city as a whole are working on in five points we've been engaging with the uh SWIPT implementation of green infrastructure project.

Are you familiar with that project and and or is your team engaged in that as well?

Yeah, um, I don't know if we are specifically monitoring um sites in the city sites.

Uh yeah, we we are looking, so um I apologize for this.

They've gone from uh uh, you know, calling facilities stormwater planters to level of green, you know, and I get a little confused in their terminology, but we are monitoring um many of those facilities.

Um we uh for sure they've improved um uh neighborhood flooding.

We we've got plenty of evidence showing that benefit.

Uh the water quality piece is a little bit more complicated.

Um but specifically for uh uh those SIGEs that they've installed in five points.

I don't know what we're doing there.

I think those are relatively new.

Um we are planning our uh our work for this year for the green infrastructure monitoring program and I'm sure we could get somebody out there to look at those facilities that'll be awesome my team will just we'll do a reminder on that um maybe in the fourth quarter or something like that I was also curious you brought up Colorado State University hydro building and some of the work you're doing in Globeville can you share a little bit specifically um what body of water you all are are collaborating with out there and if it's just simply a uh uh uh uh overarching collaboration with CSU and the good work that they're doing yeah community it's kind of an overarching collaboration with them we're we're working on many different topics but um the um go back to that slide um this the picture that's kind of got the the uh purple border around it yeah um that's actually one of our continuous monitoring stations and um behind the the truck you can see a building there that's actually the hydro building so this is in the South Platte River right at the hydro building all right those are uh my questions thank you councilman uh I have a couple uh John maybe uh to start with on the map of the monitoring stations uh the the one at the very east end of Bear Creek looks to me like it's at the outfall the the mouth of Bear Creek into the Platte which is actually in the city of Sheridan so that leads me to wonder do we have cooperative agreements with surrounding jurisdictions that border the river allow us to put and that would be a Denver monitor yeah it's so these are just grab samples um then I think pretty much anybody can go into the river and uh collect samples but we do coordinate our monitoring efforts with a group called the South Platte coalition for urban river evaluation the uh that's a number of wastewater treatment plants municipalities um up and down the river throughout the the watersheds is just up the downstream from there yeah yeah but where Sheridan's is yeah and Goldon uh Englewood has some sites down there um uh the South Platte Renew does a lot of their work for them um Sheridan doesn't really have the resources to do this type of work um so we um there's a couple of reasons we have a site there the first one is to kind of get a a better feel for um uh what's happening after the the uh Bear Creek leaves Denver um but also it's a uh important data point because it helps us to understand what Bear Creek's potential impact on the South Platte River is so these these are just location we have nothing permanent there's where we will go to take a sample there's not yeah the only sites where we have permanent installations are the are those three those three yeah okay so that that leads me to ask do you say Sheridan don't really have the resources does Englewood does Littleton does Adams County and their jurisdictions through which the plat flows do they monitor what we're sending downstream yeah and are we all working together yes um so that that's um uh South Platte Cure is what is the what they call themselves um so there's a coordinated effort between basically communities starting at Chatfield Dam going all the way down to Brighton um out into Aurora um and uh everybody samples the same suite of analytes um and they sample on the same days of the month and share the data um yeah and they share the data and um it's it's actually uh really really interesting to see when they put that data together what happens to water quality in in this streams in the um in the metro area as they travel through the urbanized parts of the the area.

Thank you for that.

And my other question is uh related to drought, and you did address it in the uh in the uh presentation.

But I'm wondering if we see any uh with the lack of rainfall and and significant runoff.

I'm wondering what the impact on it is on E.

coli levels because we don't have you know the dog poop and other things flowing into the uh the wastewater system as we used to.

Yeah, so in some ways, you know, the lack of rain falling on people's lawns where their dogs do their business, that means it's not getting into the creek.

I would rather it be raining, but I'm just wondering if there's an offset there.

Yeah, that's a really good question.

And um, so E.

coli is a it's a really challenging um pollutant to deal with.

Um in most pollutants that we're looking at, they're chemicals.

Um, you know, you add some to the water and um it gets worse.

You take it away, it gets better.

With E.

coli, you know, since the living organism, it can kind of hunker down in sediment in the streams and lakes and wait for the right conditions for for it to grow.

Um warmer water is definitely one of those, so um, it's kind of uh, you know, six of one, half a dozen of the other.

Um, when we have lower flows, there's less E.

coli coming in, but the E.

coli that's already there, um, it's the conditions are more favorable, so um I don't I don't think we'll see much in the way of improvements.

Um, in fact, it's entirely possible it can be uh a worse year for E.

coli than in a year where we have more water.

Sounds like a trailer for a horror movie.

Yeah, I mean it's it's it is a very common issue in most urban areas.

Um and you know, once it's there, it's really really hard to get rid of it.

I know that it's been a problem in Bear Creek, and I know that Bear Creek has been posted.

I don't know if it's currently posted, but we've asked people not to let their children wade in the creek.

And are those signs still there?

Um so we have the I don't I don't have a picture of uh one of our signs, but we do have those signs that are um by there's one by the picnic shelter in Bear Creek Park that that um kind of says don't swim.

Um, routinely ignored.

Yeah, well it's also it's also installed way too high for most people to see anyway, so um but uh uh the only other time we would put a posting on a creek would be if there was a spill that affected water quality.

Um in general um the the guidance that we provide is um it's just those educational signs and the reason for that is because um if somebody wants to get in, we can't really enforce there's nothing we can do.

Sydney's park rangers and the police are not gonna go out there and haul people out of the water.

It's just not a good use of their limited amount of time.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Folks, I just was gonna say I I didn't see Shane Wright when I we first started southwest Colorado and all the nonprofits that provide kind of additional support to the good work you're doing.

I just want to say thanks to you all for the work that you do.

Yeah, and I'd like to echo that.

Um we get um we've got a lot of great partnerships with with our local nonprofits, and many most of them are doing really great work that that really complements what we're doing.

Thank you.

Um with no other questions, and only one uh consent item going forward without objection, we'll uh send that to the floor and thank you, John, for being here, and we're adjourned.

Thank you.