Arapahoe County moves to develop stormwater program for High Line Canal, board gives general approval to proceed

Arapahoe County officials outlined a multi-year plan to treat the High Line Canal as a managed stormwater asset and received general approval from the Board of County Commissioners to continue developing technical criteria, policy and implementation options.

The county’s Open Spaces director, Ginny Pangino, told commissioners the presentation was a high-level “50,000-foot” roadmap and asked for the board's concurrence to allow new stormwater discharges to the canal provided risks are minimized and benefits maximized. Pangino said staff aim to have the program defined enough to guide decisions by Jan. 1, 2027.

Why it matters: The county recently acquired 45 of the canal's 71 miles and faces choices about whether and how to accept stormwater that historically has drained into the channel. Allowing controlled stormwater could help sustain trees and the canal's vegetation and avoid the higher collective cost of redirecting flows to other municipal infrastructure, county staff and Denver Water said.

Denver Water's chief of operations and maintenance, Tom Rood, summarized the canal's history and earlier Denver Water policy of limiting stormwater. He said drought and changing irrigation practices over the past decade prompted new studies and regional cooperation. "If irrigation is gone,…