Lloyd's Look

By Dave Lloyd

Timely Comment from the District's Executive Director

Hardly seems a year since Bill DeGroot was hammering me to get this article done for the last Flood Hazard News and here we go again.  It must be an "age thing."

I was just scanning the quarterly newsletter for The Conservation Fund and came across an interesting article.  Apparently, Disney, Travelocity, ESPN and others have recently partnered with The Conservation Fund to help neutralize greenhouse gas emissions through reforestation.

Travelocity now offers it's online customers the option to purchase carbon offsets when purchasing vacation packages.  They suggest that a $25 donation negates air travel, a four-night hotel stay and a rental car for two people.  The donations are apparently used in the reforestation of a grove in the Bogue Chitto National Wildlife Refuge in New Orleans.

I bring this up as I reflect upon a couple of field excursions I made this past year.  One was made with our Board of Directors last May to look at a number of District and developer-constructed projects and the other with our administrative staff for their annual tour of District facilities (sometimes you just have to get them out from under the fluorescent lights).

So many of our projects along the major drainageways within the District are very successful in the promulgation of greenway corridors that were virtually nonexistent before the project.  The many miles of linear wetland and riparian habitat created by so many of our stream stabilization projects create a    
valuable resource to the neighboring public.
                                                                                                             
One classic example is the Lower Massey Draw project completed a little over a year ago.  Prior to the project, the erosion and degradation along this reach of Massey Draw had eliminated the potential for any sustainable wetland and riparian vegetation.  Through the collaboration of several partners including Jefferson County, Lockheed Martin, Denver Botanical Gardens, Corps of Engineers and the Chatfield Basin Authority, as well as our design team of Muller Engineering and ERO Resources, the project was successful in stabilizing this reach of channel and creating a valuable stretch of wildlife habitat in this urban corridor.

Organizational and Staff Changes
This past year saw some major organizational changes that we believe will allow us to better serve our local governments.  Mark Hunter and Paul Hindman, Managers of our Maintenance and Design and Contruction Programs, had taken a week of vacation this past spring to go backpacking in the Grand Canyon.  They came back with a suggested organization change which involved combining their two programs into what is now the Design, Construction and Maintenance Program (not very creative, I know, but what do you expect from a bunch of engineers). 

The advantage of this change is that it now provides a single point of contact for our local governments for both maintenance and capital projects.  It also allows a single project engineer to administer both programs within their respective counties.  We believe this will allow us to be more effective in our

day-to-day operations and provide better relationships with our local government partners.

We were saddened when John Doerfer decided, this past spring, to vacate his position as Project Hydrologist here at the District.  John has moved on to new opportunities in Kalamazoo, Michigan where he and his wife have family ties.  We wish John nothing but the best in his future endeavors.

Taking John's place in the District Master Planning Program is Ken MacKenzie who previously worked as a Senior Project Engineer in the Design and Construction Program.  We're confident that Ken will develop his own niche in the areas of drainage master planning and stormwater quality.

Taking Ken's place in the newly created Design, Construction and Maintenance (DCM) Program is Richard Borchardt who came to us from the City of Thornton.  We're very pleased to have Rich on staff and know that he will be a valuable addition to our program.

The creation of the Design, Construction and Maintenance Program also brought with it two new positions for Construction Managers.  Both of those positions have now been filled.  We're very pleased to have Joe Williams, who comes to us from the City of Littleton and Darren Bradshaw from Sellards and Grigg.  Joe will be working in the Design, Construction and Maintenance Program while Darren will be working in the District's South Platte River Program replacing Steve Materkowski who transferred into the DCM Program. We look forward to having Joe and Darren on staff here at the District.