Colorado Parks and Wildlife owns and operates the largest inventory of dams in the state of Colorado. The water impounded is used for purposes such as downstream irrigation, fisheries management and aquatic operations, and a multitude of recreational activities including fishing, boating and swimming.
CPW manages more than 120 dams across the state and has spent more than $126 million in the last decade for dam safety related work. All of this work helps keep downstream communities safe while providing recreational opportunities in Colorado’s reservoirs and on tailwater fisheries. Without these dams creating reservoirs, the state would have significantly less water-based recreation opportunities, as there are only 11 natural lakes in Colorado greater than 50 surface acres.
The average age of CPW’s High and Significant Hazard dams is 77 years. Six of these dams were constructed more than 100 years ago. Most of CPW’s dams were built between 1950 and the mid-1970s.
CPW has four full-time Dam Safety Engineers who, with the help of other dedicated staff located around the state, manage all the work and monitoring on CPW’s dams. They perform regular dam safety inspections on all CPW-owned dams and maintain current Emergency Action Plans for First Responders.
In this episode of the Colorado Outdoors Podcast, we chat with Dam Safety Program Manager and Chief Dam Safety Engineer Eric Eisinger as well as Capital Program Manager Margaret Taylor about what it takes to monitor and manage Colorado’s inventory of dams.
Come for the great information, stay for the beaver jokes.
Podcast hosted by Regional Public Information Officers John Livingston and Kara Van Hoose. Show edited by Ted Mitchell. Art19 is the host platform, and people can also find the podcast online at https://art19.com/shows/colorado-outdoors
One Response
I won’t be hunting or fishing in Colorado anymore, as CPW went along with a unconstitutional gun scheme for Taxes & FEES. I will be doing all my future hunting & fishing out of state.