Greenprint Denver: Expanding natural landscapes
By Tillie Fong 
| August 26, 2009 | 7:01 AM
Greenprint Denver is halfway through its four-year plan to make Denver more sustainable. This is the third in a series looking at specific goals in the plan and the progress that has been made.
Returning parts of Denver back to their original prairie state has been a slow process.
“New parks are designed with native grasses and sustainability in mind,” said Jill McGranahan, spokeswoman for Denver Parks and Recreation.
As part of Greenprint Denver’s Water and Environment goals, the city must designate 1,000 acres of park land as protected natural areas by 2011. So far, only 200 acres at five city parks — Babi Yar, Hentzell, Bear Creek, Bear Valley and Parkfield — have been encouraged to revert back to their original state with native plants and wildlife habitat.
It does exceed, however, the 2007 goal of converting 100 acres of Denver park land into natural areas. The city also accomplished a 2007 goal to convert three parks and parkway sites to native vegetation, which require less water, no chemicals and fewer resources to maintain.
The changes have been made at Ruby Hill, Montbello and Milstein parks and various parkways, but it’s still too early to tell whether Denver is seeing any water savings.
“There is a period of time that the plants need to become established before we begin to see at least 50 percent in water savings,” said Denise Stepto, spokeswoman for Greenprint Denver.
The city is making better progress on the 2011 goal of converting 100 acres of bluegrass turf to native vegetation. So far, 61.7 acres have been either converted or planned for conversion. Only 23 acres — 8.8 acres in City Park, 2.7 acres in Kennedy Park and 5.5 acres at Wellshire Park — have been converted. Another 38.1 acres — 11.3 acres in City Park, 23.2 acres at Kennedy and 3.6 acres at Wellshire — also will be making the switch.
“Each acre converted saves approximately 200,000 gallons of water annually,” Stepto said. “It takes at least two years to convert a turf area to natural area, so we will not realize significant changes in water use until these areas are mature.”
In Greenprint Denver’s plan for golf courses, the city decided to strive for a loftier goal than the one initially set. The original plan was to design one golf course by 2011 using the recommendations in Audubon Colorado’s Wildscape book. That has been changed to having all eight of the city’s golf courses certified under the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program for Golf Courses.
“Audubon Colorado Wildscape is an excellent resource for ‘backyard stewardship,’ which falls predominantly into the realm of homeowners,” Stepto said. “While this is an excellent program, we (Parks) are fortunate to employ our own team of experts in this area within Naturalized Areas and Parks Planning. We create ‘wildscapes’ on a much larger and site specific level than the scope of Audubon Colorado Wildscape.”
ACSP certification is a six-step process that requires organizations to develop and implement environmental management plans. According to Audubon International, which oversees the certification, management practices in five key areas will be evaluated: site assessment and environmental planning, wildlife and habitat management, water, resource management, and outreach and education.
“It’s pretty stringent,” McGranahan said. “It does not mean you build a new golf course, but augment the one that you have.”
McGranahan said work has begun for the City Park golf course. It is not clear how far along in the certification process the city is with City Park or whether other golf courses are involved. However, Stepto said that the plan is to approve one certification step for all the city golf courses each year, with complete certification awarded in six to seven years.
Denver also is taking a different approach in promoting citizen involvement with city parks.
The original 2007 Greenprint Denver goal was to train 50 volunteers to be stewards who would evaluate the conditions at 30 parks. However, the city is planning to change its existing stewardship program, called the Parks and People Partnership Program, into an Adopt-A-Park program this year.
“The PPP was more of a park evaluation (report card) and not as much as about performing actual maintenance,” McGranahan said. ”In a time of budget challenges, we welcome the assistance of volunteers to help maintain the parks. There are many tasks that can be performed by volunteers, and we have other ways to evaluate the park condition.”
Under the partnership program, 35 active volunteers checked on 27 parks this year. About 25 to 27 of those volunteers are expected to make the switch to the Adopt-A-Park program, which is being rolled out this month and next. About 30 parks, or at least parts of parks, are expected to be adopted this year.
The original 2011 Greenprint goal was to train 200 volunteers to be part of the citizen evaluation program at 100 parks. The city is falling far short of reaching that target, but McGranahan is not deterred.
“We plan to move currrent active PPP parks over to the Adopt-A-Park this year and add a few more,” she said. ”We will create an outreach effort through the neighborhood groups and increase the parks and volunteers to greater numbers in 2010.”
McGranahan said the switch to Adopt-A-Park will not affect the original Greenprint Denver goal.
“This program engages the public in helping to maintain and sustain our parks, trails and open spaces through regular maintenance,” she said. “They will be asked to sign a contract and commit to at least one year. The focus will be on using environmentally sound practices and promoting stewardship through volunteerism.”
McGranahan said Denver Parks and Recreation is doing what it can to achieve the Greenprint Denver goals.
“We continue to work closely with Greenprint Denver, which complements our own Game Plan (the 50-year vision for Denver Parks and Recreation) goal of sustainability that was established in 2005,” McGranahan said. “Our water conservation team continues to monitor and improve our use of this valuable resource.”
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Denver Parks and Recreation, Greenprint Denver, native grass, natural areas, wildlife habitat
