LIFEGUARDS

guards are generally seen as rst-time, fun summer jobs, they must possess crucial knowledge regarding saving human lives. A full-course lifeguard training at South Suburban through Red Cross costs $175. Community First Aid, CPR and AED training/ blended learning costs $80. After 75 hours of work, South Suburban reimburses course fees, excluding the $40 certi cation fee.

Despite such incentives, lifeguards still make less than sports o cials at South Suburban. A youth sports o cial starts at $20.00 per hour.

North of Denver, in Federal Heights, the Hyland Hills Parks and Recreation, a youth baseball/softball umpire makes $65 per 90 minutes. A Pilates instructor for Brighton makes $1 more than a lifeguard per hour. e discrepancy is notable, especially considering most lifeguards work on a part-time basis.

Yet, the lifeguard numbers are booming for Hyland Hills. Generally, the district employs roughly 300 lifeguards per season. is season, it’s closer to 375, according to Director of Communications Joann Cortez.

e main focus in hiring and retaining their lifeguards at Hyland Hills pools and the massive Water World water park is legacy, Cortez said. Water World is in its 43rd operating season.

“We’ve been in the water park business for over 40 years, and we’re very aware of the nationwide shortage of lifeguards,” she said. “I think what has helped us is we have a legacy pool of candidates. Kids often know Water World just from coming for the experience, and if one of their older siblings takes a job with us, eventually the ones that are following can’t wait for their turn. We’re just very, very fortunate in that way.”

Cortez said Hyland Hills is committed to creating a memorable rst-job experience. It should be fun, but also taken seriously. It’s a constant balance of managing a “fun job” and literally monitoring people’s lives daily. Recruiting is big, and so are the incentives. e employees get free soft drinks, free membership, and even fun events like “prom night” during the season.

Hyland Hills has an end-of-season bonus as well, with the ability to earn an additional dollar per hour’s pay. e lifeguards’ pay ranges depending on the position, such as a guard lifeguard, a shallow-water lifeguard and a deep-water lifeguard.

On the Water World website, lifeguards are hired at $16.15 per hour. A “lifeguard attendant” makes $16.00 per hour. Returning lifeguards make slightly more depending on experience. Cortez said the main factor in keeping employees is how they treat them.

“We’re in a very favorable position, but we’re sad there aren’t enough lifeguards to go around,” Cortez said.

Meanwhile, local pools and recreation centers around the Denver area have conducted pointed campaigns to ensure their numbers are sustainable and their pools are ready for the masses.

While it remains to be seen if that strategy will work for South Suruban, it seems to be working elsewhere. Recreation centers in the City of Brighton, for example, are fully sta ed ahead of the summer. ey were last year, too.

“It’s been tough at di erent agencies, municipalities, and neighborhood pools. ere was de nitely a lifeguard shortage the last several years, especially last year,” said Je rey Hulett, assistant director of recreation services for Brighton. “But we were fully sta ed last year.” ere have been a number of initiatives and incentives they’ve introduced to get ahead of the lifeguard shortage crisis, he said. It was a top-tobottom e ort in Brighton to make sure the crisis was minimized. Pay was a main focus. It wasn’t too long ago they were paying lifeguards just $13 per hour, he said. Now, it’s up to $17. And it goes up each season for returnees. Head lifeguards make roughly $1.50 more per hour. ere’s also an end-of-season bonus for those that work the entire summer. e grants from the governor’s o ce gave Brighton exibility to expand e orts in hiring and retaining employees. According to Aquatics Supervisor Nicole Chapman, it can be di cult to retain lifeguards for pools and centers too big or too small. Brighton, fortunately, was right in a “sweet spot.”

Recreation bene ts were expanded to the sta and their families, even part-time employees. at includes complimentary membership to the recreation center and discounts on youth programs.

“Some of the much larger municipalities are running into an issue where, physically, the sta we hire are local kids who want to work at their local pool,” Chapman explained. “And if they get hired on by a larger municipality, the expectation is to expect your sta to be willing to work at any of your city rec facilities, and that’s just not feasible for a lot of younger kids that don’t have their own transportation. ey’re really there looking for a summer job around the corner.”

Brighton only has two locations — the Brighton Recreation Center and Brighton Oasis Family Aquatic Park — and Chapman said, and there are options for those living on either side of the city. But it’s still a small enough area that employees can work at both locations.

Perhaps back in the day, they could wait for the applications, and they’d have more than they knew what to do with come pool season. Now, that’s simply not the case. Recruiting is essential, both in the high schools and at job fairs, as well as providing a ordable training opportunities and classes in-house — something Hulett said they’d never do before.

Brighton had 88 lifeguards in 2022, which is considered fully sta ed. ey currently have 70 lifeguards for the upcoming summer, but Chapman said she expects those numbers to ll out to 88 again considering guards in training are set to graduate from classes by the end of the month.

Meanwhile, back in South Suburban, Brehm is looking for dozens more lifeguards to fully sta pools this summer.

High school students and student athletes are encouraged to apply. ey can learn valuable skills and essential life-saving procedures they’ll carry with them forever, Brehm said. Plus, it’s an ideal time for student athletes to make money, considering many sports are inactive over the summer.

As the pandemic continues to dwindle, the lifeguard participation numbers are expected to make a leap. But the job itself, and those working it, must be valued consistently to hire and retain those numbers season after season.

“We really look for not just kids, but really anyone who is going to take the job seriously and understand just how much of a vital role they play every summer in keeping the community safe,” Chapman said. “We really try to emphasize that with our sta , and there are always sta members that really take that to heart, and those are the ones we want to see come back.” simultaneously boosted demand for natural gas and shut down natural gas Texas production leading to skyrocketing prices. e PUC granted Xcel Energy permission to recover an extra $500 million in storm-related gas costs from its Colorado customers. e cooperatives are seeking $6.3 million, but Tom Walsh, CEO of Grand Valley Power, one of four co-ops, said in Senate testimony that the cost to Xcel Energy household and small business customers could be $90 million.

Finding a balance between making sure lifeguards understand the seriousness of the role and not taking all the fun out of the job is a ne line to walk, she said. But they have to walk it every season.

Four electric cooperatives that buy wholesale power from Xcel Energy led a complaint with federal regulators contending that the utility mismanaged its supplies and asked for a partial refund. Xcel Energy denies the allegation.

“You have a terrible situation where the motivations do not line up at all with the real-world risks,” Pearl Street’s Lin said.

For the past decade Colorado natural gas customers bene ted from low and stable Citygate natural gas prices of between $2 and $5 per thousand cubic feet of gas, according to EIA gures.

Gas from Colorado, Wyoming and Utah has been a bargain, selling at a discount to national prices, because there has been limited pipeline capacity to move it to other regions.

Between 2013 and 2020, rates for the Colorado Interstate Gas Company, a major source for the state, averaged 16 cents lower for a million British thermal units than the gas on the New York Mercantile Exchange, according to Mercator Energy data. at changed with Winter Storm Uri. Since then, the Colorado Citygate price has bounced up and down, but remained above pre-Storm Uri prices. is past winter California utilities added to the price woes with the Southern California Gas Index hitting as high as $47 for a million Btus in January. e market pressure pulled up Colorado Interstate prices as well, lifting them $3.60 higher than the NYMEX price.

Brief moments of financial pain may become more common at was a short-term spur to higher prices, but industry analysts say that such spikes may be increasingly common as a result of the growth of renewable generation, if natural gas is the backup, as well as severe swings in the weather.

“Renewables can do a number on gas prices because there are periods where the weather is not cooperating,” said Clark Williams-Derry, an analyst with the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, which is focused on the costs of transition from fossil fuels to cleaner energy.

Gas markets could also be roiled by climate change which will bring polar freezes in the winter, summer heat waves and drought, creating demand peaks. “ ere are complicated feedback loops now in the gas market,” Williams-Derry said. e plans, the bill said, could include techniques to reduce volatility such as hedging supplies, long-term contracts and storing more gas. Xcel Energy currently hedges about 20% of its needs. e risk in these approaches is that consumers could be stuck with higher prices when the market prices fall. It is a trade-o between a potentially higher price and certainty on costs, said Robert Kenney, CEO of Xcel Energy’s Colorado subsidiary. e Colorado Public Utilities Commission, which regulates for-pro t utilities in the state, is directed to come up with a cost-sharing plan between customers and their utility when prices are high.

Given the potential swings in demand, the availability of supply and whether there is adequate pipeline capacity to deliver gas will determine whether there are price spikes, Harpole said.

“It is going to happen in these high demand winter months more and more as more non-dispatchable generation is added,” Harpole said.

To deal with these swings, Senate Bill 291 requires utilities to come up with a gas management plan that includes a cap on the monthly charge to customers. When prices are above the cap utilities will be allowed to recover that money over ve years.

“ is makes sure that they have some skin in the game on these fuel costs,” Senate President Steven Fenberg, D-Boulder, a cosponsor of the bill, said in hearing testimony.

Part of that cost-sharing plan would be an incentive, or bonus, for a utility if they manage to keep gas costs down.

“We have an inherent incentive to purchase least cost gas, because it’s in the best interest of our customers,” Kenney said. “One could argue that you don’t need an incentive. But if there is a belief that we do need an incentive, then we want to work constructively with the commission to design it.” e bill also calls for a study to take a hard look at future natural gas infrastructure investments, does away with a subsidy for new natural gas home hookups and makes it easier to terminate gas service. e state has a target of cutting greenhouse gas emission 90% from 2005 levels by 2050 and it is promoting the switch from home heating and appliances powered by natural gas to those run on electricity, ideally generated from zero-emission sources such as wind and solar. e worry, Fickling said, is that as the customer base dwindles as the

Kenney said the company is already set to propose a performance incentive mechanism for natural gas this spring as part of a gas cost adjustment case before the PUC.

Can Xcel meet its own goal of being zero emissions by 2050?

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