Lauren Lecy, Boulder County. On Thursday the GOCO board awarded three grants totaling $597,767 for projects in Boulder County. First, the Town of Lyons received a $282,003 grant for restoration work along the St. Vrain River corridor. Additionally, the Town of Nederland received a $181,029 grant to build new trails and improve access to the Barker Reservoir shoreline. Finally, the City of Boulder received a $134,735 grant for a variety of restoration projects across the city’s parks and open spaces.

These grants are part of GOCO’s Resilient Communities program, which helps grantee partners advance outdoor recreation, stewardship, and land protection work. Funded projects respond to one-time, immediate needs or opportunities that have emerged in direct response to the Covid-19 pandemic all within the context of GOCO’s five program values: resource conservation, outdoor stewardship, community vitality, equitable access, and youth connections to the outdoors.

The Town of Lyons will use its funding to address impacts of increased recreational use along the St. Vrain River corridor, which runs through the center of town. In 2020, Lyons saw triple the amount of visitors during the busy summer months as compared to the previous year. At the same time, the parks department’s revenues fell 20%, limiting the Town’s ability to address issues like trail damage, litter, and parking limitations. 

At Black Bear Hole, a main access point to the river, the Town will restore trails, picnic sites, and landscaping. To improve visitor experience, project partners will install riverside seating and designate 15-20 parking spaces, as no parking exists at the area currently. Additionally, this project will include a new trailhead and parking area at 2nd Avenue, which is located adjacent to Black Bear Hole. This will expand the parking capacity with 125 - 130 spaces and help guide users with a formal trailhead. 

Elsewhere in Boulder County, the Town of Nederland will create new trails and improve access to Barker Reservoir, which also saw an influx of users last summer. This spike in recreation has created multiple maintenance issues, including the creation of undesignated trails, erosion, and water quality concerns. 

The Town will partner with local youth services nonprofit TEENS Inc. to deploy a stewardship crew to build and restore trails, as well as assist in the construction of a nature play structure along the reservoir’s western shoreline. A portion of the property is a former sludge pond reclaimed from the nearby water treatment plant. It will be transformed into a natural meadow complete with native plants, benches, and fencing. The Town will also install dog waste bins and interpretive signage to encourage responsible recreation. 

Finally, the City of Boulder will address a variety of stewardship needs across the city’s outdoor spaces with the help of GOCO funding. Like the rest of the county, Boulder’s trails and open spaces have been impacted by increased recreation during Covid-19, while simultaneously, sales tax revenues that support the outdoors have decreased.

At Boulder Reservoir, the City’s Parks and Recreation department will hire a seasonal ranger to perform surveys and data collection while leading education and stewardship programs. This position will also assist with land management and enforcement including trail construction along the reservoir’s north shore, closing social trails, mitigating invasive weeds, and encouraging compliance by visitors. Across the city’s Open Space and Mountain Parks system, this funding will support invasive species removal and fencing along foothill trails to protect sensitive natural resources.

To date, GOCO has invested more than $25.5 million in projects in Boulder County and conserved 5,500 acres of land there. GOCO funding has supported Tucker Open Space, Bohn Park, Eldorado Canyon State Park, Cal-Wood Education Center, and Nature Kids Lafayette/Jóvenes de la Naturaleza, a Generation Wild community, among other projects. 

Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO) invests a portion of Colorado Lottery proceeds to help preserve and enhance the state’s parks, trails, wildlife, rivers, and open spaces. GOCO’s independent board awards competitive grants to local governments and land trusts, and makes investments through Colorado Parks and Wildlife. Created when voters approved a constitutional amendment in 1992, GOCO has since funded more than 5,300 projects in all 64 counties of Colorado without any tax dollar support. 

Visit GOCO.org for more information.

(Originally published in the March 18, 2021, edition of The Mountain-Ear.)