Crews at Chatfield State Park have completed the removal of an estimated 6,000 dead trees that were inundated after the water level in the reservoir rose 12 feet in 2023, the result of a federal project dating back to 2017 that was designed to store more water for Front Range municipal and agricultural needs.
Visitors to the park last winter were disturbed to see large piles of felled cottonwoods that died after their roots and lower trunks were subjected to prolonged submersion. During the winter of 2024-25, 2,700 of those trees were removed from the west side of the park where the South Platte River enters the reservoir. Another 3,000 to 3,500 were removed from that area this winter, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
“The west side is done,” said park manager Kris Wahlers. “Everything that is going to be removed from that area has come out.”
Some tree removal may be necessary elsewhere, though.
“There are still a lot of standing dead trees in the Plum Creek area,” Wahlers said about a portion of the park that is further east, near U.S 85. “Over spring and summer, the mitigation company will re-evaluate and see if there needs to be another round of tree removals in the Plum Creek area next winter.”
Chatfield consistently ranks second or third on the list of busiest Colorado state parks, checking in with 2.3 million visitors in 2025.
Gene Reetz, a retired expert in the field of water supply management who spent much of his career working for the Environmental Protection Agency, was dismayed to see the number of trees that were removed when he visited the park with his wife last year. He was “shocked” to see still more being removed when they visited the park last month.
He believes project planners at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers should have given greater consideration to alternatives that could have reduced environmental damage to the park. He was active in opposing the plan, which the Corps approved in 2014.
“I think a combination of some of the four options (that were considered) could have met future water supply needs very easily without a significantly damaging project,” said Reetz, a Denver resident. “They ended up picking this project, which had incredibly significant environmental impacts.”
In approving the project, Corps of Engineers official Jo-Ellen Darcy called it “technically sound, environmentally acceptable and economically justified.” Project manager Gwyn Jarrett said then that the Corps worked with Colorado’s Water Conservation Board as well as “15 water-use districts, multiple interested stakeholders and non-governmental organizations, including environmental groups, through a highly collaborative process, which helped lead to the approval of this complex, comprehensive project.”
The Corps of Engineers made those decisions, not Chatfield managers or Colorado Parks and Wildlife. The land is owned by the Corps and is leased to CPW for use as a state park.
Chatfield Reservoir was originally created in the 1970s for flood control after a devastating South Platte flood in 1965 caused $325 million in damage (in 1965 dollars), killed more than 20 people and wiped out many businesses, bridges and roads in Denver.
As Front Range water needs grew, the Chatfield Reallocation Project was initiated to repurpose the reservoir for water storage in addition to flood control by raising its maximum “full level” by 12 feet. Work began in 2017 and was completed in 2020.
The goal was to store extra water during wet seasons as a hedge against dry years. It took three years before the South Platte poured enough water into the reservoir to reach the “new full” mark. That came in May of 2023 when the area received more than nine inches of rain over an eight-day period. Water levels remained high in 2024, killing thousands of cottonwoods and willows.
Cottonwoods typically grow along rivers and creeks. They can survive short inundation periods, but not two years of it.
“Nobody was planning on them being inundated for as long as they were,” Wahlers said. “The water level came up in May of ’23, and it stayed at really high levels — two years, at this point.” Water levels currently stand at five feet over the “old full” level.
A few of the dead trees have been left in place because they provide bird nesting areas and perches for birds that feed on fish, which include the park’s bald eagle.
“We wanted to provide that opportunity for as long as we could,” Wahlers said. “Long term, those trees will likely fall on their own.”
As part of the reallocation project, more than 100,000 cottonwoods, willows and shrubs were planted above the new high elevation line to offset the environmental impact of the trees that were lost.
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Meanwhile, the Corps of Engineers is considering a similar reallocation project at Bear Creek Lake Park in Lakewood. Like Chatfield, but much smaller, the Bear Creek reservoir was built originally for flood control. Now it is under consideration for additional water storage. Foes of Bear Creek Lake Park reallocation are hoping to get an update from the Corps regarding its plans sometime this year.
Wahlers said it’s too soon to tell what impact Colorado’s severe drought will have on levels at Chatfield this year. The headwaters of the South Platte are located in the mountains of Park County near Fairplay. He notes that the winter of 2023 was a dry one — until that week in May that filled the reservoir to its new capacity.
“We are concerned,” Wahlers said. “It’s shaping up to be a very dry winter, but what the spring and summer bring, it’s really hard to guess at that. We’re definitely making sure we’re considering that, a lot of things we’re looking at for the summer, operations and things like that. But until we actually see it, we’re not going to know for sure what’s going to happen.”
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