Washington Park Profile January 2024

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2 Washington Park Profile

January 1, 2024Jan

Crisis Text Line comes to Denver’s youth Schools, community look to text line to help students facing anxiety, other mental health issues BY CHRISTY STEADMAN CSTEADMAN@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

One recent day, Lucy Roberts, a Denver Public Schools nurse, was checking the eyes of the students at Manual High School. While doing a vision test for a 14-year-old student who wears glasses, an unrelated question came up. “How do I know if I have anxiety?” the student asked Roberts. While the question was unex-

pected given the setting, teens asking about anxiety is not uncommon, Roberts said. She leads a professional development course for DPS nurses on mental health interventions, and the in-house estimate is that 80% of the students they work with have some sort of mental health issue. “Anxiety is the most common,” Roberts said. For middle and high schoolers, anxiety can lead to many adverse outcomes, including self-harm and thoughts of suicide. “They (youth) are definitely in need of support,” Roberts said. “The ability to talk about it is critical.” School nurses are not the only ones who have recognized this need in the community. Caring for Denver, which is a tax funded foundation that voters ap-

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proved in 2018, also noticed that youth in need of mental health support has gone up significantly. Assistance addressing violence among youth and suicide has doubled since 2017, said Lorez Meinhold, executive director of Caring for Denver. Caring for Denver focuses on three primary funding areas — youth, being community-centered, and alternatives to jail. It recently put a grant toward a partnership to work with the Crisis Text Line, a national nonprofit that provides free, 24/7, confidential text-based mental health support in English and Spanish to young people. The Crisis Text Line received $326,257 in grant funding to promote the line to students. Another $325,846 went to Montbello’s Struggle of Love Foundation programming, which works to increase mental health support for those in need. Denver Health and its foundation received $1,722,813 to assist with its school-based health centers and a crisis intervention team to respond to mental health needs involving school personnel, hospital emergency rooms and inpatient treatment within 24 hours.

The Crisis Text Line is available to anyone needing mental health support, though it is designed for youth, teens and young adults age 24 and younger. Individuals seeking support can text DENVER to 741741 to immediately reach a live, volunteer crisis counselor 24/7 to have a text conversation in real time. Crisis volunteers are available for text conversations in Spanish as well. Learn more about the Crisis Text Line at crisistextline.org. To learn more about the Caring for Denver Foundation, visit caring4denver.org.

“We have (mental health) resources in our schools, and we have resources in our communities,” Meinhold said. The text line will “bring an additional tool to young people. We want to have as many resources available as possible.” What attracted Caring for Denver to the Crisis Text Line is that it is designed for people age 24 and younger, and can provide free support at any time day or night with a live volunteer crisis counselor in a way that’s familiar to youth — texting. SEE TEXT LINE, P3

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TEXT LINE FROM PAGE 2

Providing the opportunity for youth to get the support they need immediately and in real time via a text conversation is so valuable, Roberts said. She added that sometimes a teen will “clam up” or feel intimidated if they have to talk with a stranger — albeit a professional therapist — about a struggle or mental health issue they are facing. Other teens don’t have the time to commit to an hour-long appointment amid their studies, after school activities, social time with friends and family and/or anything else they’ve got going on. Still others may not have transportation available to them to be able to see a therapist in person. “A text line is key for this type of support,” Roberts said. Youth “are comfortable reaching out by text.” While the Crisis Text Line’s counselors can help with mental health emer-

gencies such as self-harm and suicidal thoughts, they are also available for anything a youth might be struggling with — not doing so well on an important exam, not getting the part in the school play they wanted or the position they trained for on an athletics team, moving or transferring to a new school, isolation, a relationship breakup and much more. “Lots of things can add up,” Roberts said, adding that she has had students say to her that they can’t sleep at night because of something they’re worried about. “Even if they’re not in crisis, they’re going to have some hard days.” Caring for Denver had heard about the Crisis Text Line and found that its success rate included serving roughly nine million youth across the nation. The organization thought it would be a benefit for Denver as well, Meinhold said. “Young people have real struggles,” she said. The Crisis Text Line can help them with “the kinds of things youth are trying to sort through.”

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‘We tell our artists to dream big’ Event series at Denver Art Museum features local artists, live performances BY BRUCE GOLDBERG SPECIAL TO COLORADO COMMUNITY MEDIA

Quána Madison has a unique outlook about how viewing and experiencing art can improve one’s health. “I think the arts world nourishes well-being, and the arts is a diverse set of experiences and the art form,” said Madison. Madison is a multidisciplinary artist whose three main art forms are abstract expressionist painting, healing arts facilitation and fashion artist. “I paint clothes,” she said, adding that collectors and fashionistas have commissioned her to create paintings on clothing so they can wear it. On Jan. 26, Madison and performing artist/musician Wes Watkins will be the featured artists for the series opener of the Denver Art Museum’s Untitled: Artist Takeover events. The quarterly after-hours DAM presentations feature live performances, pop-up installations throughout the museum, art making-stations and other unique experiences, with each event led by local and regional artists and collaborators. The organizers seek to provide “an unexpected and engaging atmosphere,” the museum states. “Untitled is a pop-up, onenight event and we really have this goal of wanting to connect visitors with artists and their communities,” said Sarah Rockett, manager of creative and public engagement at DAM. “The artists really have to think about different ways in which they are sharing their work with the public.” The series began in 2010, eventually evolved into a monthly program, then moved Quána Madison, pictured, and performing artist/musician Wes Watkins will be the featured to the current quarterly sched- artists for the series opener of the Denver Art Museum’s Untitled: Artist Takeover events. PHOTO BY SABRINA MONTOYA ule in 2020.

The other 2024 Untitled events are scheduled for April 26, July 26 and Oct. 25. Tickets to Untitled events are included with museum admission and all museum spaces and exhibitions are open during Untitled. The museum’s onsite The Ponti restaurant and Café Gio also feature special late-night hours during Untitled. Madison has overcome difficult times in her life, and said her skills have helped get her through numerous health crises, homelessness and more. She believes these experiences enrich her soul and well-being. She also is dedicated to helping people overcome illnesses – both physical and mental – and brings a unique set of qualifications to the table. Her skill sets include being a mindfulness teacher, a healing arts workshop facilitator, a self-leadership coach, a model and an artistphilanthropist. Through it all, Madison retains a fervent belief that the arts can heal people. “A lot of people I work with struggle with depression, anxiety, some suicide ideation, stress, traumatic experiences or complex trauma,” Madison said. “At my workshops, I can talk about it as a peer.” Rockett said planning for the Untitled series is at least a fourmonth process, and that the series is open to trying new things. Recent additions included an opera performance. Another was for a couple of stand-up comedians to perform. This year’s lineup ranges from art and performance rooted in reimagined ancient iconography to poetry slam artists. “We tell our artists to dream big, and then we whittle it down from there to things that are actually feasible and doable,” Rockett said. “We try to connect with as many different creative communities as we can in the Denver area.” To learn more about Untitled: Artist Takeover at the Denver Art Museum, visit denverartmuseum. org/en/untitled.

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January 1, 2024

Denver Scholarship Foundation helps make college a reality BY CHRISTY STEADMAN CSTEADMAN@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Rhina Serrano-Zetino always knew she wanted to go to college. “It was my biggest dream as a little girl,” she said. “I always wanted to do something more to make my parents proud.” But being the first generation in her family to pursue higher education, she knew she might have some hurdles to overcome. “There’s a lot of nerves knowing that nobody in my family has gone through this,” Serrano-Zetino said. Then she started working with Miguel Banuelos-Garcia, a Denver Scholarship Foundation college advisor at John F. Kennedy High School. The two talked about Serrano-Zetino’s values and her career and academic goals. Through these conversations, Serrano-Zetino learned about the Denver Scholarship Foundation and what it offers to aspiring college students like her. “We’re helping them paint that window that they see their lives outside of,” Banuelos-Garcia said. “We give them that foundation to understand how to build their lives around it.” The Denver Scholarship Foundation aims to make college possible for all Denver Public Schools students, supporting them with tools and resources. It is known as the “financial aid ex-

perts in Denver,” said Diana Madriz, the foundation’s assistant director of college access. It “is a liaison between talent and resources and opportunities.” The Education Data Initiative states that nationally, 1.7 million scholarships are awarded annually, but only seven percent of college students receive a scholarship. According to the Institute of Education Sciences, about 19 million students in the U.S. pursued higher education for the 2021-2022 academic year. Locally, for that same academic year, the Denver Scholarship Foundation awarded nearly $5 million in scholarships to 1,871 DPS students. Additionally, Denver Scholarship Foundation scholarship awards have been increasing, and have returned to pre-COVID numbers, Madriz said. She added that this school year, the foundation awarded a “record number” of scholarships to more than 2,070 DPS graduates. “More students desire to pursue a college education,” Madriz said. “This is mostly due to the direct correlation between postsecondary education and successful employment with higher-paying positions, job security and social mobility.” While it may be best known for its scholarship awards – the Denver Scholarship Foundation has awarded $57.6 million in scholarships to 8,941 DPS graduates since fall of 2007 – the

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foundation has three main initiatives. They are: the need-based scholarships to attend any college in Colorado, for which any DPS graduate is eligible; access to resources such as financial aid advisement; and ensuring the student is successful through college, career and beyond. Fifteen DPS high schools have a Future Center where students and their families can work one-on-one with one of the foundation’s college advisors. Students who attend a DPS school that does not have a center can talk with their school’s college advisors about resources. The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) for the 2024-2025 academic year opened in December, and the foundation wants to ensure all DPS students and their families are aware of the resources available to them. The foundation also provides resources for the Colorado Application for State Financial Aid (CASFA), which allows Colorado public colleges the ability to award financial aid to students who are not eligible for federal student aid but meet the requirements for Colorado residency, including undocumented students. “Having access to financial aid is the difference between being able to enroll in college or not,” Madriz said. “It’s life changing.” SEE SCHOLARSHIP, P24

DENVER SCHOLARSHIP FOUNDATION’S UPCOMING FUTURE CENTER WORKSHOPS All take place from 3-7 p.m. • South High School: Jan. 23 • George Washington High School: Jan. 24 • Northeast Early College: Jan. 25 • Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Early College: Jan. 30 • Northfield High School: Jan. 31 • North High School: Feb. 1 Montbello High School: Feb. 6 • Kennedy High School: Feb. 7 • Bruce Randolph High School: Feb. 8 • CEC Early College: Feb. 8 • West High School: Feb. 12 • Manual High School: Feb. 13 • Thomas Jefferson High School: Feb. 15 • East High School: Feb. 21 • Abraham Lincoln High School: Feb. 22 If you do not see your school listed, the Denver Scholarship Foundation, 789 Sherman St., Suite 610, is hosting a community workshop from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on March 9. This workshop is open to any senior and their family within the metro area (including high schools that are not Denver Public Schools). To learn more about the Denver Scholarship Foundation, visit denverscholarship. org.

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January 1, 2024J

From suffrage to open mic Denver Woman’s Press Club remains a hub for women writers as it enters its 125th year BY DIANNE BLOMBERG SPECIAL TO COLORADO COMMUNITY MEDIA

Celebrating its 125th anniversary this year, the Denver Woman’s Press Club remains an integral part of Denver’s literary scene. The DWPC started during the Suffrage Movement to give women a safe location to voice opinions, share ideas and support each other as writers. Today, that support and encouragement has spread to the community at large through its popular Open Mic Nights, which take place in the tiny house in Denver’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. Founded in 1898, the club has been located at 1325 Logan St. since 1924. Once surrounded by stately homes of the time, it now sits alone, flanked by parking lots. It is the sentry of history and represents the strength and perseverance of women writers. “The club has been a dynamic spirit affecting cultural and social issues vital to our community and our country,” said Charlotte Hinger of Fort Collins, who is a member and best-selling author. The club was founded by Minnie J. Reynolds, an early political writer at the now defunct Rocky Mountain News and a state and national suffrage leader. Many of her associates joined in her drive to create a press club west of the Mississippi that represented women writers. “The DWPC was created as a refuge, a safe haven and a meeting ground for women who believed in the power of the written word, and still do,” said Corinne Joy Brown, a DWPC past president, journalist and author. The club’s name is a little misleading. Though television and print journalists are members today, so are novelists, essayists, communication specialists, poets, Substack writers, podcasters, screenwriters, editors and more. Its members have received such

Former Rocky Mountain News journalist Minnie J. Reynolds played a major role in organizing the Denver Woman’s Press Club and became its first president. COURTESY OF THE DENVER WOMAN’S PRESS CLUB

accolades as the Pulitzer Prize, numerous state and regional recognitions including awards from the Colorado Press Association, the Society of Professional Journalists and the Colorado Book Award. They have achieved New York Times Best Seller status, and most are widely-published authors. To keep the club moving forward and remain current in attracting new members, the club hosts diverse programs each year. Most are open to the public. Programs include talks like one from Adrian Miller, a food writer and James Beard Award winner, whose 2017 book, “The President’s Kitchen Cabinet,” was a finalist for the NAACP Image Award for Best Literary Non-Fiction. Another event, a presentation highlighting a 2023 best-selling

book, “Lodge, an Indoorsy Tour of America’s National Parks,” by Max Humphrey and co-author DWPC member Kathryn O’Shea Evans, drew a big crowd. Early last year, the board of directors realized that after 125 years, the club needed a modern twist to attract greater participation by its members and the community. Happy hour events interested a few and a Little Free Library that was installed in 2022 and replicates the DWPC clubhouse, has been a hit among the club’s Capitol Hill neighbors, but the most popular new event is the Open Mic Night. Open Mic Night is open to anyone 18 years of age and older, and welcomes all gender identities. Writers from across the Front Range come early to get their

names on the list for a chance at five minutes in front of the microphone. Performances begin at 5:15 p.m. and end at 6:30 p.m. By 7 p.m., the clubhouse is dark and left to the ghosts of the past 125 years. Bruce Walker, a long-time Park Hill resident, has taken the mic many times. “To have immediate, honest feed-back, is important to any writer,” Walker said. “To get it in a place where good writers have been sharing and developing their craft for more than a hundred years makes it all the more meaningful.” In front of this friendly crowd, writers read published, non-published and even early drafts of their work. Poetry, plays, novels, essays and nonfiction are cut to five killer-minutes of story. “Open Mic (Night) motivates me to stretch a little and to try something different. Reading a piece out loud is a great exercise,” said Mary Lou Eagan, a club member who lives in Denver’s University Hills neighborhood. After the readings, with a glass of wine or a cold beer in hand, participants mingle with audience members for casual discussions of their work. Linda Berry of Aurora, who is a club member and award-winning playwright, captured the lure of these performances. “I love the open mics,” Berry said. “It’s partly, I’m sure, because of the novelty – it’s a new thing for me.” Buffy Gilfoil, a teacher, Lowry resident and club member since 1986, talked about why writers need opportunities like the Open Mic Nights. “I love the yin and yang of writing,” Gilfoil said, adding that it’s “the isolated meditation involved in giving expression to ideas and the pleasure of being in the company of other writers.” Editor’s note: Dianne Blomberg is a member of the Denver Woman’s Press Club and served as its president in 2022. The Denver Woman’s Press Club’s Open Mic Nights take place from 5-7 p.m. on the following dates: Jan. 12, Feb. 16, March 22, April 19, May 17. To learn more about the club, visit dwpconline.org.

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January 1, 2024

It’s expensive to go to concerts in Colorado BY PARKER YAMASAKI THE COLORADO SUN

The first concert Jonathan Kahn ever attended at Red Rocks Amphitheatre was Loggins & Messina in July 1976. Nearly 50 years later, Kahn is parked in the lower south lot of the iconic outdoor venue, sitting in the doorway of his Sprinter van with a Snarf’s sandwich, waiting for a storm to blow through before he heads inside to hear Hiatus Kaiyote and Masego. Kahn said he had been to five Red Rocks shows this year, shaking his head slightly — that number used to be a lot higher. Kahn isn’t the only one who has slimmed down his annual concert intake. Overall attendance at cultural institutions across the state is down, according to the Colorado Business Committee for the Arts. In a survey of 285 cultural institutions, attendance between 2019 and 2022 decreased by 15% in metro Denver and 22% in Colorado outside of metro Denver. Some of that dip is due to the fact that some people still don’t — and may never — feel comfortable attending events with large crowds after the pandemic. But more of that dip is attributed to the fact that entertainment is “a want not a need,” said Brian Kitts, Denver Arts and Venues spokesman. People adjust their spending according to what they feel they can afford. And when the cost of living is up in every other aspect of

life, the amount that people are willing to spend on tickets to concerts, plays and museums goes down. In 2018, the share of a person’s overall expenditures on arts and entertainment was 6.1% in metro Denver, significantly higher than the national average of 5.1%. In 2022, that percentage was 4.9%, lower than the national average of 5%. In dollars, this equates to roughly $500 per person per year less in spending. Some experts anticipated a postCOVID price jump that artists and promoters would use to offset lost revenue from the pandemic. That was true in 2021, when ticket prices increased about 15% at Red Rocks and nearly 45% at the Denver Coliseum. But this year the average price decreased from 2022’s averages, indicating a leveling-off of ticket prices. Still, the increase in the average ticket price over the past five years is significantly higher than year-overyear inflation rates. For instance, the average price of a ticket to a Red Rocks concert has grown 31% since 2018, while inflation for metro Denver is about 24% over that same period. The most dramatic change to ticket prices comes from the introduction of service fees. Prior to the 1980s, when Ticketmaster launched, venues paid the ticketing servicer. But Ticketmaster flipped that model, paying venues in exchange for being hired to handle ticketing and then passed the costs on to customers in the form of service fees.

Since these fees are somewhat arbitrary — hashed out in negotiations between the ticketing service, the concert promoter and the venue — service fees as a whole have generated a new rising cost for concertgoers independent of inflation or post-pandemic economics. The opaque charges add to the frustration of spectators upset that outside forces are gouging their entertainment budgets. This story was printed through a news sharing agreement with The Colorado Sun, a journalist-owned news outlet based in Denver that covers the state. This story is also part of the Sun’s ongoing series talking to Col-

A concert at Red Rocks. COURTESY OF RED ROCKS AMPHITHEATRE

oradans about their challenges, their fears and their solutions to the rising costs of living. More at www.ColoradoSun.com

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MAZING DENVER WITH WARREN STOKES

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Columnists & Guest Commentaries Columnist opinions are not necessarily those of the Profile. We welcome letters to the editor. Please include your full name, address and the best number to reach you by telephone. Email letters to csteadman@ coloradocommunitymedia.com Deadline 5 p.m. on the 20th of each month for the following month’s paper.

In 2024, check out our new website and let’s delve into neighborhood news

“No time like the present” This mazetorial represents the 2024 new year. To solve, start at either ‘S’ in the lower right and left corners, and maze-out to the ‘W’ for win where the sand gathers at bottom of the hourglass.

t’s a new year, and there are many new and exciting things to come as we enter 2024. I’ll admit that 2023 was kind of a wild FROM THE ride internally here at ColoraEDITOR do Community Media. There were some changes to the newspaper that you may have noticed – such as smaller page sizes – and things Christy Steadman some you may not have noticed, like how our paragraphs look. But I think the most exciting change around here has been the launch of our new website. If you have not had a chance to check it out yet, I highly encourage you to do so: coloradocommunitymedia.com. On the homepage, you’ll find all of the newspapers in CCM’s portfolio for the two dozen communities we cover around the metro area, including Life on Capitol Hill and Washington Park Profile. This means you can easily access any and all of CCM’s publications with just a click of a button. Want to know the major headlines outside of your neighborhood, like in Brighton or Castle Rock? One click and you can link to the papers for those communities, where our team is on the ground reporting the news. SEE STEADMAN, P21

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January 1, 2024

Charades in the garden: A playful way to edit your garden in winter

N

ow is the time to make plans for your garden before the frenzy of spring arrives. Bundle up and take a walk outside to view your garden while it is stripped down to its bare bones. This time of year, most of the leaves and blossoms have fallen away and you can clearly see the structural elements that hold the garden together. There are two things to look for when ‘winter editing’ your garden: mass and void. Mass in the garden is something more solid and permanent, such as a boulder or dense shrub. Consider structures as well, such as trellises, planters, walls, pergolas, sculptures, etc. These are the framework of your garden. Ensure they fit together nicely in a balanced composition. Do you have too many garden gnomes crowding your view, or too few shrubs anchoring your planting? How does the spacing feel? If these masses don’t look right together in the dead of winter, you probably can’t fix them

with pretty flowers. If you are unsure what sort of structure your garden would benefit from, have a child or playful friend step into the garden and open their arms wide, like a tree, or crouch low, like a small shrub or stone. Play around with it and have fun. You could even use buckets, ladders, or outdoor furniture as placeholders for rocks or trees. Perhaps on a snowy day, you can make snow sculptures. If you prefer pen and paper to charades, you can sketch out different shapes. This can apply to plants, particularly trees and shrubs, as well as built structures, such as arbors, pillars, etc. Embrace void in the garden. Void is simply emptiness. It’s critical to have a balance of mass and void for a garden to feel right. Too many things in a garden can feel crowded, so make room for empty space. This could be a swathe of

GUEST COLUMN Julia Pearson

LETTER TO THE EDITOR We need safe and stable housing for ALL! Pass For Cause Eviction legislation

Think about the warmth of your home, the neighbors you wave to, the close friend down the hall who babysits your kids. You have built a community. We all search for this kind of support and love from the people who surround us, and more importantly, we all deserve it. We all deserve safe and stable housing to ensure our communities flourish. But right now, eviction stories including lack of proper notice, discrimination and violation of lease agreements plague our state. Colorado renters, including many of our members at 9to5 Colorado, can be kicked out of their homes in a moment’s notice. They are forced to scramble to find another house or apartment, pay an entirely new deposit and first month’s rent. They are torn from their neighbors, and for some, their family members and the place they’ve called home for generations.

Year after year, greedy corporate landlords hike rents, block access to loans, buy properties, overdevelop and displace families in order to maximize profits with no regard for our communities. As For Cause Eviction returns to the 2024 legislature, 9to5 Colorado and our partners return even stronger to support this commonsense policy. For years, our organizers and members have fought for better housing protections, and we will not stop fighting until all Coloradans have access to safe and stable housing. We refuse to let predatory corporations destroy our communities. State legislators should pass For Cause Eviction legislation to protect tenants across Colorado from unjust evictions and help keep Colorado families in their homes. Join us to help build and sustain our homes, our neighborhoods and our state. Cesiah Guadarrama Trejo, state executive director for 9to5 Colorado, which is based in Denver.

low planting, a flat surface cutting through plants, such as a path or water. It can also just be air. Leave room to breathe. If you enjoy this sort of garden staging, you could use a tarp to represent a pond or a sunken gravel seating area, or patio cushions as steppingstones. Use whatever you have around the house — get creative! After all this garden play, you should have a better understanding of what elements will complete your garden space. Take the time now to make good decisions before spring fever hits. If you can

get the balance of mass and void, and good structural elements designed to look appropriate in winter, your garden will look nice in all seasons, no matter what is in bloom. Compile your shopping list ahead of time so you don’t go to the nursery hungry for plants and grab anything bright and colorful, but nothing substantial. Check off your list first, then throw in all the extra beautiful flowers your heart desires. Julia Pearson is a horticulturist with the Denver Botanic Gardens.

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January 1, 2024J

Denver Water takes climate change challenges head on The utility service looks at impacts on water, adaptation strategies to safeguard against disaster BY NATALIE KERR SPECIAL TO COLORADO COMMUNITY MEDIA

In 2020, Hillary Hamann and Meghan McCarroll surveyed residents in Aurora about their water literacy – what they know about water and where their water comes from. Part of the survey gave an explanation of watersheds – which are areas where water sources like streams and rivers converge – and then asked respondents a question: Do you live in a watershed? A third of participants said no, a third of the participants said they weren’t sure and the last third said yes. “Everybody lives in a watershed,” said Hamann, a professor of geography and the environment at the University of Denver. “That’s a weird disconnect, and a lack of understanding.” Understanding where water comes from and how it’s used is integral to developing and implementing climate change adaptation strategies as the western United States grapples with decreasing water supply, but high water usage. For water utility Denver Water, which serves about 1.5 million people in the metro area , adapting to a future in which climate change will drastically impact water availability involves gathering massive amounts of data, planning for multiple outcomes, developing water conservation programs and developing a new mindset around water.

Denver Water crews measure snow depth near Winter Park in the spring of 2022.

Denver Water adapts

Climate change impacts on water

Climate change research indicates that increases in the earth’s global temperatures will make rainfall less predictable and decrease natural water storage like glaciers and snowpack. Alternatively, the global sea level is rising, adding saltwater

to fresh groundwater sources and rendering them unusable for drinking water. These impact how much quality drinking water is available, while other climate change related impacts – like increased wildfires, droughts and floods – will increase water demand and strain the water supply. They can also decrease water quality by releasing pollution like sediment into freshwater. Denver Water is taking all of these impacts into account for their operations, said Taylor Winchell, senior climate change adaptation and water resource planner at Denver Water. Every aspect of the utility’s services – from where they source water to the infrastructure used to transport water to financial investments – are already being impacted by climate change, Winchell said. This comprehensive approach has involved developing a new organizational mindset, in which everyone now considers climate change in their work, no matter their role with the company, Winchell added. “We really look at climate change from a holistic perspective,” Winchell said. “To us, climate change really impacts all aspects of a water utility. We say that ‘climate change is water change.’”

The Fraser River, located south of Winter Park, on April 29. The snowpack in the areas where Denver Water captures snowmelt peaked below average for the 2021PHOTOS COURTESY OF DENVER WATER 2022 winter season.

Denver Water began its climate adaptation program in 2008, during a decade when water utilities were starting to think more critically about future water availability and recognizing that climate change was already starting to impact their services. The climate adaptation program yielded several new programs and actions that helped Denver Water monitor and plan for changing water availability. Denver Water helped found the Water Utility Climate Alliance, a coalition of 12 utilities from across the country that collectively serve water to more than 50 million people. This allows water utilities to share ideas and information to better understand and adapt to climate change. SEE CLIMATE, P11

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CLIMATE FROM PAGE 10

Collaboration with groups like WUCA and the Colorado Water Conservation Board, which is the state water policy agency, allows Denver Water to work with other water providers to develop effective adaptation strategies and access vital data from science organizations like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency. This data then goes to help develop programs like Denver Water’s Water Shortage Response Committee, Wildfire Coordination Team, a drought and wildfire response plan and to join the National Forest to Faucets program, which, since 2011, has worked to conserve forest areas as important watersheds. Denver Water also employs its own research teams, like the Colorado Airborne Snow Measurement Program to assess how much water is in Colorado’s snowpack, and the streamflow forecasting tool, which is sourced from the software company, Upstream Tech, and leverages artificial intelligence and machine learning to forecast watershed levels. “We’ve been working on this for a long time,” Winchell said. “Part of what initiated that was really this recognition, that began emerging in the 2000s amongst water utilities, of ‘hey, climate change is here, it’s happening and it’s impacting us already.’”

Denver Water collects and tests thousands of water samples every year, from mountain streams to locations in the metro area, to ensure water quality complies with state and federal regulations.

Preparing for an uncertain future

While it is known that the planet is warming and that human activity like burning fossil fuels is accelerating that process, the exact ways climate change will affect a natural resource like water can be difficult to predict. This uncertainty means that water providers have to plan for multiple futures in which supply and demand are at different levels so that they can be flexible and adaptive as the climate changes. Denver Water engages in longrange planning based on different eventualities, and scenario planning for different economic, population and resource statuses so that they are prepared for a wide range of climate impacts and can remain resilient and reliable. Collaborations among water utilities also help initiate climate ad-

Melissa Botteicher, a member of Denver Water’s Youth Education team, helps plant water-wise plants at the Einfeldt Pump Station at the corner of South Buchtel Boulevard and South University Boulevard, which is near the University of Denver. PHOTOS COURTESY OF DENVER WATER

aptations across the entire water sector and infrastructure decisions because they can leverage more resources to make climate change top of mind, said Kavita Heyn, WUCA chair and adaptive planning and climate manager at the Portland Water Bureau. Many cities and water providers are having to replace or update their infrastructure to be more resilient and nimble, which is not a simple process, Heyn said. The most recent report card from the American Society of Civil Engineers rated U.S. infrastructure at a C-, which means that, in general, infrastructure is in fair condition, but is showing signs of deterioration and vulnerability to risk. “We need to rethink how we build and design and update our infrastructure to be able to tolerate a range of extreme conditions to be able to withstand those,” Heyn said. “At the same time, let’s not forget, we have an opportunity to build infrastructure that can decrease our carbon emissions, which is actually the root cause of climate change.” This collaboration among water utilities and different industries needs to carry over into coordination between local and state governments, said Jacob Smith, executive director of Colorado Communities for Climate Action. Local municipalities only have so much ability to address climate change without the state taking action to create broader change, Smith said. Though the state has increased efforts to create more resilient communities and protect them from natural disasters, the resources needed to adapt are so numerous that current efforts are inadequate to provide them, he added. Many local governments also have to navigate managing several water districts that overlap with other government jurisdictions, which can make enacting changes difficult, Smith said. The state could help smooth the coordination between water districts and local governments alike. “The state can play a role in making sure that across all of those entities, there is a coordinated effort on these water challenges,” Smith said. “And the state is doing that, (but) that’s just the place where they’re going to need to continue to invest more and more.” SEE CLIMATE, P16

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It’s a new year and with that comes some interesting annual events as well as some new things to discover. From farm animals at the National Western Stock Show to marine biology at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, Denver offers a world of fun to get your year off to an excellent start. at 9:30 a.m. in Denver’s City Park. Then the Marade – a march and parade – steps off at about 10:45 a.m. It will proceed down Colfax Avenue to Civic Center Park, where there will be a closing ceremony, resource fair, entertainment, food trucks and more. This free, family-friendly community event is organized by the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Colorado Holiday Commission. Learn more at drmartinlkingjrchc.org.

November), you have another opportunity to see the local artist’s work. Natan’s “Iconic Denver” is a self-guided walking tour of his plein-air watercolor paintings, which will be displayed inside buildings or near the landmarks that inspired them. All the artwork will correspond to stops along the tour, and a QR code will provide a list of stops for each location. The tour opened mid-December, and runs through March. Natan has lived in Denver since the 1950s, and “creates work that evokes the city’s energy and illustrates his feelings while painting,” states a release about the walking tour. To learn more about Natan and his work, visit ednatanart.com. Photo: “Wynkoop & 16th” by Ed Natan. This watercolor painting is part of Natan’s “Iconic Denver” walking tour. Courtesy of Ed Natan.

Animals galore at the National Western Stock Show

When one thinks about Denver’s January events, it’s nearly impossible for the National Western Stock Show not to come first of mind. Can you believe this year’s is the 118th? This twoweek event brings together the best of Western culture together. There are pro rodeos and exquisite horse shows, and youth (primarily 4-H and Future Farmers of America) from across the state compete in exhibitions. And it’s not just cattle and horses. At the stock show, you’ll get to see so many different kinds of animals, from alpacas to yaks. That’s not all – the stock show also offers a ton of vendors that include fine art and home decor, jewelry and clothing, and agricultural products and equipment; and a variety of onsite dining and food options. The National Western Stock Show takes place Jan. 6-21. Find a schedule of events and purchase tickets at nationalwestern.com. Photo: The Westernaires, a youth equestrian organization based in Jefferson County, ride in the 2020 Stock Show Kick-off Parade in downtown Denver. File photo by Christy Steadman. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Marade

Another not-to-miss annual event in Denver that’s happening this month is the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Marade, which takes place this year on Jan. 15. The event kicks off with a ceremony

Mongolian American art at PlatteForum

Ed Natan’s ‘Iconic Denver’

If you were unable to make it to Ed Natan’s “Feel the City” show at Tom’s Starlight (which reopened about a year ago and then suddenly shut down again in

It’s always interesting to see what young creative minds come up with, and PlatteForum allows visitors to do just that. Its latest show, called “>ENTEREXIT<, Animated Immigrant Stories,” features the work of resident artist Eriko Tsogo and PlatteForum’s ArtLab interns. ArtLab is PlatteForum’s flagship arts-education internship program for high schoolers. Tsogo is a Mongolian American multidisciplinary artist, curator and cultural producer based in Denver and Los Angeles. The “>ENTEREXIT<” show features “a series of experimental animations … SEE THINGS TO DO, P13

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THINGS TO DO FROM PAGE 12

(and) altar sculptures about the mixed migration stories of immigrant leaders from our nation who have decided to embrace America as home,” PlatteForum states. The show runs from Jan. 12-29 at PlatteForum’s Annex Gallery, 3575 Ringsby Court #103, in Denver. Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Wednesdays and Thursdays. The opening reception takes place from 6-8 p.m. Jan. 12. Learn more at platteforum.org. Photo: The “>ENTEREXIT<, Animated Immigrant Stories” exhibit features the work of artist Eriko Tsogo, pictured, and PlatteForum’s ArtLab interns. Courtesy photo. ‘Cebollas’ (onions)

When a play’s title translates to the word “onions,” you know it’s going to provide some laughs.The Denver Center Theatre Company is presenting “Cebollas,” by Leonard Madrid and directed by Jerry Ruiz, from Jan. 26-March 10 at The Singleton Theatre, 1400 Curtis St., which is close to the Denver Performing Arts Complex downtown. This play is a comedic tale of three sisters who travel north on I-25, transporting a dead body across state lines. Ticket prices vary for desired date, time and seating within the theater, but range between $35-$79. Learn more or purchase tickets at denvercenter.org/ tickets-events/cebollas/.

Show times are offered at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and 2 p.m. on Sundays. Ticket prices vary, beginning at $27.50 for some performances. Learn more at curioustheatre. org. Photo: Image courtesy of Curious Theatre Company. Texas organist to perform in Denver

If you missed last month’s organ tour, January offers another opportunity to experience some organ music. Denver Rocky Mountain Chapter of the American Guild of Organists is hosting L. Graham Schultz of Dallas, Texas. Schultz will perform in Denver at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 19 at Saint John’s Cathedral, 1350 N. Washington St., in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. Schultz has been featured as a performer at conventions of the American Guild of Organists and the Organ Historical Society across the U.S., as well as playing for numerous choral residencies in Europe. Free will offerings are accepted. To learn more about the concert, visit agodrmc.org.

seum of Nature & Science, 2001 Colorado Blvd., has you covered for an underwater adventure. It is hosting a sensory-friendly family movie night featuring the film, “Secrets of the Sea,” at 5:30 p.m. on Jan. 10 in the museum’s new-ish Infinity Theatre. On this night, audience members are welcome to move about, clap, talk and laugh during the film, with sensory and quiet spaces activated nearby. The film showcases marine biodiversity and was filmed in 16 different locations. Learn more or purchase tickets at dmns.org.

Worldly dance company at the Newman Center

Curious Theatre Company: ‘Truth Be Told’

Denver’s Curious Theatre Company, 1080 Acoma St., continues its 2023-2024 season with a run of “Truth Be Told” from Jan. 13-Feb. 10. This play by William Cameron and directed by Christy Montour-Larson, is a human-interest story that tells a tale of two mothers seeking the truth. It “explores the nature of objective truth and the ways in which we manipulate and distort it to serve our own ends,” states the description on the theater company’s website.

The Newman Center will be welcoming French-Algerian choreographer Hervé Koubi this January. The dance company is made up of Algerian, Moroccan, Bulgarian, Italian and French dancers, who will surely delight the crowd in a show that “explores the historical mix of countless cultures and religions that span the Mediterranean,” states the Newman Center. The show takes place at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 23 at the Robert and Judi Newman Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Denver, 2344 E. Iliff Ave. To learn more or purchase tickets, visit newmancenterpresents.com. Photo: Compagnie Hervé Koubi will perform on Jan. 23 as part of the 2023-2024 season of the Newman Center Presents series. Photo by Nathalie Sternalski. ‘Secrets of the Sea’

Colorado offers some awesome getaways just about everywhere in the state, but one thing we’re missing is the ocean. But the Denver Mu-

PLAN AHEAD: Celebrate the year of the dragon

The Nathan Yip Foundation is hosting its annual Lunar New Year celebration at 5 p.m. Feb. 3 at the Grand Hyatt Denver, 1750 Welton St. This year will celebrate the year of the dragon, and the event will include a full Asian dinner, a Chinese night market, a silent and live auction and a variety of entertainment and performances including palm readings and a lion dance. Tickets range in cost from $200-$350 per person, and all proceeds benefit the Nathan Yip Foundation, which provides funding for teachers and educational projects in rural Colorado. Learn more at nathanyipfoundation.org. Photo: Dragon Dancers will entertain the crowd at the Nathan Yip Foundation Chinese New Year Celebration. Courtesy of the Nathan Yip Foundation.

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Climate-friendly grain enticing craft distillers BY RAE SOLOMON KUNC

In a cool, dark cellar down a flight of stairs at the Denver Distillery on South Broadway, a small batch of whiskey is slowly aging. According to a note scrawled in marker on the barrel’s end, it’s been there since April. On a recent afternoon, General Manager Chris Anderson-Tarver wielded a hammer to knock the cork out of the top and dipped what looked like an oversized turkey baster – a device he called a barrel thief - inside to siphon some of the pale amber liquid into his snifter. “This great aroma,” he said, pointing out some of the unique qualities wafting out of the glass. “There’s a little bit of a fruit note, a little bit of nuttiness, a little bit of an earthiness. There’s also this nice kind of buttery profile.” An alluring profile is to be expected. As one of the very first batches of Kernza-based whiskey ever made in Colorado, this barrel was very different from the usual wheator rye-based whiskey the Denver Distillery usually puts out. Kernza is a new grain that shows promise as an environmentally sustainable crop, and Anderson-Tarver has been experimenting with it to develop an innovative, climatefriendly spirit. The brew in the barrel was only a few months old—quite immature by whiskey standards—but Anderson Tarver has been sampling it every few weeks to check on its progress, which is how he already knew that Kernza wasn’t just an environmentally sustainable gimmick; it also added a striking flavor. “Oh yeah, this is going to be so good,” he said, taking a sip. “What I’m tasting right now is a young whiskey, but there’s these incredible Fig Newton, almost raisin flavors coming through.” According to his knowledgeable palate, this batch would probably need to continue aging for a while longer, but he didn’t really know when it would be done because, for all his experience as a distiller, Kernza whiskey was completely novel to him. “I don’t have any data. Is it going to take two years? Is it going to take three years? Is it going to take four?”

Chris Anderson-Tarver tries a sample of Kernza whiskey directly from the barrel. The batch is only a few months old and isn’t yet done aging, but Anderson Tarver PHOTO BY RAE SOLOMON can taste the unique flavor of Kernza coming through.

he said, shrugging. “It’s what the barrel tells us.” But while it could be quite a long time before this small, experimental batch of Kernza whiskey emerges from the dusty obscurity of the distillery basement, it already has allies in the federal government who are invested and eager to learn from it. Anderson-Tarver’s trial is part of a United States Department of Agriculture study on Kernza. The USDA is overseeing a nationwide effort to understand the grain,from its performance in the field to its performance in the marketplace. The results of that study could help transform millions of acres of future crop production and usher in a new era of perennial, regenerative agriculture. Intermediate wheatgrass, or IWG, is a perennial prairie grass native to western Asia that was introduced in the United States in the 1930’s. It now grows wild, inconspicuous among the mix of prairies grasses waving in fields throughout the American West. In the early 1980s plant scientists looking for an alternative to modern, soil-depleting annual crops noted its promise for development

into a perennial grain crop. Researchers at the Land Institute, a non-profit research organization in Salina, Kansas, started breeding IWG shortly afterwards, working to increase grain size and make it more attractive as a commodity crop. The name “intermediate wheatgrass” lacked market appeal, so the Land Institute came up with a sexier term for their efforts, christening the resulting grain “Kernza.” The researchers who domesticated Kernza did so with regenerative agriculture in mind, making sure it retained some key advantages over conventional commodity crops like its cousin wheat. For instance, Kernza is drought resistant, with roots that grow deep—ten feet or more beneath the surface. Rather than exhausting soils, it improves them and prevents erosion. Importantly, Kernza is also perennial—meaning farmers don’t have to replant it every year, which saves labor and diesel and obviates tillage, the soil-depleting practice of tearing up the soil each year when new seeds are sown. “It’s a huge shift in paradigm,” said Hana Fancher, market stewardship specialist with the Land

Institute. “So much of our agriculture is dependent on an annual system that’s pretty extractive, and the whole idea of … having a grain that is perennial, that requires less inputs, and you don’t have to plant it every year, you don’t have to till every year. That’s really huge.” But Kernza has only recently become commercially available, and farmers have been slow to adopt it. According to the Land Institute, about 4,000 acres of Kernza are currently being grown nationwide. It has more of a foothold in the Midwest, but farmers in arid Colorado are only now just starting to take a look at it. Farmer and maltster Todd Olander is a bit of a pioneer in these very early days for Kernza in Colorado. Last spring, Olander set aside a small field on his 2,000-acre farm in Loveland to experiment with growing Kernza. “I mean, it’s 11 acres out of 2,000. It’s worth a trial,” he said. Olander was unable to harvest any grains this fall because he planted too late in the year. But the initial growth was encouraging, with tufts of broad, green Kernza blades covering the soil throughout the field. “By the time next spring rolls around, it’ll get a nice early start and we’ll have a pretty good grain production, next year,” he said. Olander is one of just five independent farmers not involved in a formal scientific study who have collectively planted a few dozen acres statewide, according to information the Land Institute, which tracks Kernza growers. If Kernza is slow to gain momentum outside of the research world, that’s because from a grower’s perspective, it poses a big risk: the yield is much lower than traditional wheat and the grains are very small, making them very hard to clean and process. It’s also expensive – Kernza can cost several times as much as wheat and there isn’t yet an established market for it. On top of that, some important scientific questions about the environmental benefits of Kernza have yet to be answered, like the plant’s capacity to sequester carbon in the soil, but Fancher says things look promising on that front, as well. SEE DISTILLERS, P15

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Kernza looks promising enough that it’s caught the attention of United States Department of Agriculture. Last year researchers at the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) in Colorado helped launch a long-term, nationwide Kernza study to fill in some of the remaining gaps in the knowledge base. Peter Kleinman, Research Leader for the USDA ARS Soil Management Sugar Beet Research Unit, who heads the Colorado portion of the study, said the objectives of the project are broad because there are still many unknowns. “It’s early. This is the Wild West for Kernza,” he said. “Almost everything we do is the first time.” The team in Colorado now has six acres of Kernza growing in research plots at the USDA ARS station. The study is starting small, but the ambitions are vast. According to USDA Research Agronomist Grace Miner, the work is driven by an understanding that the continued security of the nation’s food system will depend on finding viable alternatives to conventional agriculture, which is not sustainable in the longterm. “Wheat-fallow has been the traditional business as norm, but it has also come with a large degree of soil loss and erosion,” Miner said. “Perennial crops - if they can provide continual soil cover and can

still provide an economic return for the farmer - give that chance for the land to rebuild and rest.” They hope their work will eventually have a broad impact on the country’s agricultural system. But a transformed agricultural system requires a transformed marketplace. Demand for Kernza needs to be built from the ground up. In a white paper on the study, USDA researchers identified the brewing and distilling industry as a potential “high value market for Kernza, driving interest and awareness of its contribution to sustainable production systems.” To test out that theory, the research team shipped a few hundred pounds of Kernza to two craft beverage houses in Colorado, Odell Brewing and the Denver Distillery,and asked them to experiment with the grain and provide feedback. “We’re taking a gamble by reaching out to the brewing industry and distillers,” Kleinman said. “It’s not because that’s the ultimate end, right? The ultimate end is that millions of acres of a crop like this are planted and that it’s brought into human nutrition, not just in the form of beer and bourbon, but in our breakfast cereals, in our breads in the meat that we eat.” Interest from craft brewers and distillers Marni Wahlquist, Head Brewer at the Odell Brewing Company’s Sloan’s Lake Brewhouse, initially became interested in Kernza after watching a documentary film highlighting its environmental benefits. “I am in general interested in any-

thing new that I can play around with in the brewhouse. I’m very adventurous,” she said. “But with something sustainable— grass that’s perennial—I was very excited.” It took a few years, but she finally got her chance to put Kernza to the test when the USDA researchers sent her a bag of the grains last spring. Her first project was a small batch Kernza hazy IPA. A few months later, she collaborated with Patagonia Provisions to create her second Kernza brew, a Kernza lager. At the Denver Distillery, Chris Anderson-Tarver had a similar fascination with the environmental promise of Kernza. “We like to play around with unusual ingredients. But as a distillery, we actually really, really care how our grain is grown,” he said. Denver Distillery is committed to using only local, sustainable grains. “Kernza fit the bill for us in that not only did it have really interesting problems it was trying to tackle but also we have a sense that it will be probably successfully grown in Colorado,” Anderson-Tarver said. Of course, beer has the advantage of a shorter turnover time than aged whiskey—it takes just a few weeks to finish a brew cycle—so whereas Anderson-Tarver must be patient, Wahlquist has been able to test her Kernza experiments in the marketplace. The Kernza lager and hazy IPA have been on tap intermittently at the brewhouse. When they’re available, the menu features a short blurb on the benefits of Kernza.

Both brews have been popular with customers, but not necessarily because of their climate bonafides. “People don’t read a lot the descriptions of the beers,” Wahlquist said adding that her customers care more about the type of beer they’re drinking than its backstory. “Hazies generally sell very well. People like the sweet hoppy flavors.” Olander, who also runs a malthouse and sells most of his crops to the local craft beverage industry is bullish about finding buyers for his future Kernza crop among his regular clientele, even though the grains are too small for his malting equipment. “With the network of breweries that we work with and distilleries, there’s going to be a market,” he said. Anderson-Tarver of the Denver Distillery would almost certainly make up part of the market for Olander’s Kernza. He was impressed enough with the preliminary samples from his pilot batch of Kernza whiskey from the USDA collaboration that he hoped someday to include Kernza in the regular distilling rotation. “It’s just a fascinating grain just because it has some really cool properties,” he said. “The flavor, though, is really what’s going to keep us coming back.” But he said he would wait until locally grown Kernza is more widely available, and the price of the grain comes down. This story via The Associated Press’ Storyshare, of which Colorado Community Media is a member.

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CLIMATE

January 1, 2024Jan water sources like the Colorado River, Smith said. When those resources are compromised by a flood or mudslides that send debris and sediment into the water, not all districts are equipped to handle it, he added. “Every downstream community (would have) to deal with these water treatment challenges that they didn’t design their system for, and they didn’t plan on,” Smith said. “It’s not their fault, but it is imposed on them.” Another common challenge for most water utilities, but particularly for smaller districts, is balancing water conservation goals with income requirements, Hamann said. If people don’t use enough water, the utility service won’t generate enough money to cover its budget. To combat this issue, Denver Water has raised its fixed rate, which helps

stabilize revenue so it can take on improvement projects like reservoir expansions, main break repairs and the FROM PAGE 11 lead pipe replacement program. “It does cause a challenge in our fiInequity in water resources nances, but it’s something that we acNot all water utilities have the same tively plan around, and it doesn’t inresources to be able to prepare for or hibit us from encouraging more water react to major water events, like wildconservation,” said Winchell, Denver fire or flood, said DU professor HaWater’s senior climate change adaptamann. Denver Water is a utility with tion and water resource planner. more financial stability, which allows Denver Water has also seen how it to develop these long term plans making proactive investments into and solutions, she added. climate adaptations can save money This financial discrepancy could later on when extreme weather events further exacerbate socioeconomic inhappen, Winchell added. Recovering equities that correlate with less access from the 2002 Hayman Fire – which to water information and high quality burned nearly 140,000 acres of public water, Hamann said. and private land southwest of Denver Financial inequality between waand forced the evacuation of roughly ter utilities is especially important, 5,000 residents – cost Denver Water considering that many utilities share approximately $27 million. But investments into watersheds and infrastructure should mitigate future damage FATHER OF from EIGHT such natural disasters, Winchell lady. Must love said.kids, be fit and WUCA tries to help close ecoready to jump The in and join the fun. nomic gaps between Military training would be helpful. water providers by making all of its educational resources free to access, and by offering workshops and training to smaller ADVENTUROUS CAT Heyn LOVERsaid. This is to help utilities, adventuroussmaller cat owner. 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have some knowledge, you also will be more likely to push for policies or to call out inequalities that you’re seeing.” Using water sprinklers in the morning when the heat doesn’t evaporate as much water, installing low flow toilets, avoiding synthetic fertilizer and scooping up pet waste are all practices that everyone can do to help conserve water and help keep it clean. But knowing why it’s important to be water conscious in the first place, and understanding how to implement some water conservation practices, are the first steps to adopting those practices at a larger scale, Hamann added. In the past decade, Denver Water, Hamman and Smith all cite having seen changes in people’s perception of water challenges, and the general public’s knowledge in understanding that climate change is happening here and now. For some, this awareness comes from having lived through periods of drought or other climate change related events, like record-setting high temperatures. For others, the shift could have come from the increasing number of public conversations about climate science, which started with climate change as a future possibility to now a present reality. This change in public perception and concern has also led to more political action, especially in smaller communities where climate change once felt irrelevant, Smith said. “We’ve really seen this pivot from, we need to protect ourselves against these future disasters or future problems into it’s happening now,” Smith said. “It’s not hypothetical, or speculative. It is real and worsening.” Water utilities thinking more critically about climate change is an example of the impact of changing attitudes, and how that can have real, practical impacts on how prepared communities are for future challenges, Heyn said. Even though everyone will be personally affected by climate change in different ways, climate change related impacts on health, recreation, weather, temperatures and the economy will be universal. The good news is that there is a wide breadth of local action that communities can take now to be better prepared and to decrease their strain on the planet, Heyn said. “Denver, and other parts of the country, cities in particular, are doing a fantastic job to rise to this challenge,” Heyn said. “It’s just a really exciting time to do this work and there’s a lot of hope for the future.”

Washington Park Profile 17

January 1, 2024

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January 1, 2024J

‘I decided to migrate for a good future’ Number of Venezuelans arriving in Denver is about 30,000 BY JENNIFER BROWN AND JESÚS SÁNCHEZ MELEÁN THE COLORADO SUN AND EL COMERCIO DE COLORADO

Lenny Maris Gonzalez wanted to come to the United States for her children’s sake, she explained as her youngest, 2-year-old Yaxi, scrambled to climb onto her lap beside their tent on a Denver sidewalk. On a chilly December day, the Venezuelan mother described how, after her husband died from COVID, she traveled the rest of the way to the United States from Colombia with her five children and her brother. Now they cook their meals on a tiny grill on the street, wearing donated snow boots and warming up in a tent outside the Quality Inn near the corner of Speer Boulevard and Zuni Street. “He left me with five children and I decided to migrate for a good future, for my children, for their studies,” Gonzalez said in Spanish as she sat in a plush green recliner outside the door of her tent. Around her, the street in the northwest Denver neighborhood of Highland is unrecognizable, a result of a city overwhelmed by its efforts to help the nearly 30,000 Venezuelan migrants who’ve arrived in Denver in the past year. The tent encampment, which has stretched farther and farther up the street in recent weeks, is outside one of five hotels that the Denver Department of Human Services is using to house 2,700 migrants. Cars can hardly pass because both sides of the street are lined with tents covered in tarps. In the middle of the street, nonprofit workers and volunteers park vans and trucks to pass out food and children’s cough syrup. People dig through cardboard boxes overflowing with shoes and kid-sized coats, and a child squeals after finding Spiderman pajamas among the donated clothes. Most of the families, including Gonzalez, have rooms in the hotel. But perishable food is not allowed inside the rooms, so Gonzalez and her children spend their days outside so she can cook for her family. Also,

María and her son, Sebastian, 8, embrace each other outside a Denver Quality Inn near Speer Boulevard and Zuni Street in December. The hotel is being used as a temporary shelter by Denver Human Services. PHOTO BY OLIVIA SUN / THE COLORADO SUN VIA REPORT FOR AMERICA

being outside means they will see the volunteers who are bringing donated food and other items each day. Some of the children in the encampment are attending nearby schools, and Gonzalez said a Denver Public Schools worker who visited the camp told her that her kids could start going to class next week. The migrant encampments are growing in other parts of the city, too, including near some of the other hotels rented by the city’s human services department. That’s in part because families previously were allowed to stay in the hotels for 37 days, and when their stay ended, some moved into tents outside. The city changed its policy Nov. 17 due to cold weather, however, and is now allowing families to stay in the hotels indefinitely. Single adults, though, are allowed to stay for only 14 days before their time runs out. For many, that’s not enough time to find more permanent housing, and they end up in a tent. Gonzalez said she used up her 37 days in the hotel, then moved outside for about 10 days. She was invited to move back into the hotel after the policy change, she said. “They put me back in because of

the snowfall,” she said, wrapped in a brown fleece coat. “It was snowing and they were bringing all the people who were here inside.” Busloads from Texas arrive daily, including 40-50 people who were dropped off in front of the state Capitol on an early December morning. Venezuelans began arriving by busload in Denver a year ago this week, and since then, the city has enacted an emergency operations system and spent $33.6 million. The number of Venezuelans who have come through the city since last December is expected to reach 30,000 by the end of the week. Thousands have received one-way bus tickets to other cities, mainly New York and Chicago, and an unknown number stayed in Colorado. Migrants, many of whom applied for asylum after crossing the U.S.Mexico border in Texas, check in at a reception center after arriving in Denver. If they want to stay in the city, they are shuttled to one of the shelters, including the Quality Inn across Interstate 25 from downtown. Denver Human Services was able to eliminate the shelter time limit for families because, after a surge of arrivals in October, the numbers were dropping. “And there was quite a

bit of snow in the forecast and cold weather,” said Jon Ewing, a Denver Human Services spokesman. “We just wanted to ensure the children were not in the streets in dangerous conditions. We told the families that had timed out, you can come back inside.” Ewing said some families refused, choosing instead to stay outside with the belongings they’ve acquired since arriving in Denver. On a recent night in freezing temperatures, he tried to persuade a woman and her three children to stay inside, suggesting her husband stay in the tent to watch their things. “She would not do it,” he said. “There is no reason that anyone with children should be sleeping outside.” Families are choosing to stay outside — or choosing to stay in their tents in the daytime and sleep in the hotels at night — in part because they are accumulating piles of clothing, blankets, food, barbecue grills and even furniture, Ewing said. “We do have concerns about people accumulating too many belongings,” he said. “Hotel rooms have limited space in them. You can’t stack blankets and clothes — it’s a fire hazard.” So many people are staying in tents that food served in the hotels, provided for the migrants by Denver Human Services, has gone to waste, Ewing said. While families are no longer timing out of their rooms, they can get kicked out for not following the rules, including violent behavior, Ewing said. In the past, some people have been asked to leave after receiving multiple warnings not to stockpile perishable food in their rooms, he said. The goal is for the migrants to find stable housing, and many have received help from nonprofit organizations that will pay their apartment deposit and sometimes the first month of rent, Ewing said. But there is not enough housing, funding or enough nonprofits to help everyone fast enough. After a year of near-daily arrivals of Venezuelans, evidence that public entities and nonprofits have been overwhelmed is visible around the city and other parts of the state. SEE MIGRATE, P19

Washington Park Profile 19

January 1, 2024

MIGRATE FROM PAGE 18

An encampment also formed around another hotel rented out by Denver Human Services, this one near Interstate 70 and Peoria Street. And at a hotel in Aurora, residents who pay a weekly rate said they were ordered to move out to make way for Venezuelan migrants whose rooms were paid for by the city. “We would never ask existing guests to leave,” Ewing said. “That did not come from our direction. I’m not very pleased with that.” And in Carbondale, near Aspen, dozens of migrants were living in cars and tents under a bridge until a local nonprofit invited them to sleep in a community room last month as temperatures dropped below freezing. Local officials are now searching for longer-term housing. Meanwhile, Gov. Jared Polis and Denver Mayor Mike Johnston have been pushing the federal government to make it easier for migrants to get work permits and for more federal aid. They’re also calling out Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for chartering buses to send migrants to Denver, often in the middle of the night and in front of city and state buildings without advance notice. More than 400 migrants have arrived in Denver so far this week. “We get buses every day,” Ewing said. “Are they usually dropped off in

front of the state Capitol? No, they’re not. “I don’t really want to get into a fight with the state of Texas. But we are talking about 3 in the morning. Who is out at 3 in the morning to even see this? You’re not even getting attention politically.” Colorado officials have given Abbott’s administration the address of the shelter-hotels, urging them to drop off migrants there instead of downtown, Ewing said. One night two weeks ago, in 16-degree weather, four buses arrived downtown between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m., Ewing said. “We were able to scramble, to get a shuttle over there and get them out,” he said. “They are getting off with thin little blankets. We are talking about children, pregnant women, people who are sick. They don’t know the city. They don’t know the language. This would all get prevented if they dropped them off at a shelter.” The political stunts add to the chaos of what is already a confusing journey for the migrants, many of whom travel for months or even years to escape political turmoil, violence and poverty in Venezuela to reach the United States. Once they arrive and ask for asylum, they’re given a hearing date — often months or even years out. One mother staying in the northwest Denver hotel with her husband and four children said her family was given a hearing date seven months from now, in Los Angeles. Alejandra, who didn’t want her last name

published, worried about how they would get to California for the appointment, but also had more immediate concerns. After more than a month in the hotel, she believed her time was up and that they would have to move out this week. She had not been told, or did not understand, that the time-limit policy had been dropped. Alejandra is hoping to find work as a house cleaner or a cook, and her husband, who has experience in security systems, is looking for whatever job he can find. They have yet to apply for work permits because they don’t have the money for the application fees, which can cost up to $500, and they were unaware that nonprofits will help. Her two oldest children, ages 8 and 9, were attending the bilingual Valdez Elementary, while her 4-year-old son played outside the hotel and her 2-year-old daughter sat on a bench eating a styrofoam cup of instant noodles with a plastic spoon. They had been traveling for years, through Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Ecuador and Mexico. The children walked through the jungle and had to cross dangerous rivers. By the time they arrived at the U.S. border, they were “tired of walking, of going hungry, of sleeping in the street,” Alejandra said in Spanish. “Thank God we are here alive and well.” Jamillah Richmond, who lives in Boulder and speaks English and Spanish, has been coming to the

street every day for two weeks, bringing boots and tents, and driving Venezuelans who are sick or pregnant to medical clinics. She’s spent about $500 on children’s cough syrup to hand out in the camp, she said. Of the several hundred people sleeping in tents outside the hotel, only one or two are children, Richmond said. They’re single adults who’ve timed out of their shelter stay, and some are elderly. None were prepared for Colorado winter temperatures, which is why Richmond has been collecting camping gear and layers of clothing from Boulder friends and neighbors. She’s also collecting migrants’ phone numbers, asking them to call her if they need to get to a medical or dental clinic. Venezuelans mainly have been asking her about housing and jobs, but also for easier things, including baby formula. Denver Human Services is also collecting donations. “We have a lot of babies,” Richmond said. “One of the babies is 6 months old. I have a woman who is six months pregnant. They need boots and shoes, they need coats. “He’s wearing shoes that are two sizes too big, but that’s all I had,” she said, pointing toward a preschool-age boy stomping around the sidewalk in plush-lined, tan leather boots. This story was printed through a news sharing agreement with The Colorado Sun, a journalist-owned nonprofit based in Denver that covers the state.

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January 1, 2024Jan

Weather, insects ravage Colorado trees BY JENNIFER FORKER THE COLORADO SUN

Arborist Davis Glover of American Tree cuts down branches of a spruce tree that were infested by ips beetles Nov. 21, 2023, in northeast Denver. American Tree, based in Golden, estimates they have cut down hundreds of trees since 2021 due to PHOTO BY OLIVIA SUN / THE COLORADO SUN VIA REPORT FOR AMERICA the insects.

Years of roller coaster weather in Colorado is taking a toll on our trees. Besides frequent drought, the state experiences extreme temperature fluctuations, with day-to-night temperatures often varying by 30 degrees or more. Recall Dec. 21, 2022, when a 51-degree high was followed by a -10-degree low in the Denver area. (Take a stroll down a chilling memory lane with this National Weather Service review of the greatest fluctuations in temperature changes since 1872.) “It’s tough being a tree in Colorado,” says Whitney Cranshaw, Ph.D., emeritus professor of Entomology at Colorado State University. According to CSU Extension, 2018 and 2020 were two of Colorado’s driest years on record, and we’ve experienced many other hot, dry years. Recent summers have been brutal, and last summer was one of the worst, with last August registering worldwide as the hottest on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In the Denver area, the average temperature in August was above normal — with 15 days at or above 90 degrees, according to the National Weather Service. Those are the background facts for this: While humans have intermittently frozen and sweltered, so have Colorado’s trees. And stressed trees become hosts for deadly pests and disease, primarily an ips beetle (there are 11 known species in Colorado) or pine wilt disease. “All insects are advantageous, just like cancer is advantageous,” says arborist Troy King, owner of American Tree preservation service, based in Golden. “Don’t give them the advantage.” Keeping trees healthy requires mulching, watering and fertilizing not only pine and spruce trees, but all trees, from the ash, which are at severe and imminent risk of emerald ash borers, and red maples to birch, linden and the many ornamental and fruit trees. Mulch

“Mulch is a wonderful thing,” says arborist Toni Smith, the Rocky Mountain territory manager for

Rainbow Ecoscience, which provides chemical products and equipment to tree and lawn care companies. Mulch helps retain moisture and keeps the soil temperatures cooler around a tree. It provides a sturdy barrier against weeds (better than landscape fabrics, which Smith discourages using). As good-quality mulch degrades, it adds nutrients into the soil around a tree. Smith recommends using arborist wood chips, which includes any part of a tree that’s passed through a wood chipper. (See if you can obtain the material free via ChipDrop.) The next-best thing? Small bark mulch. Watering

Oftentimes, the difference between a living tree and a dead one is watering. Because of the years of drought and our sizzling summers, trees need to be watered yearround. On a late November afternoon, King pointed out the dead and dying trees in Arvada and Wheat Ridge neighborhoods. Behind a line of six tall, dead spruce trees on 42nd Avenue in Arvada stood the same variety, but healthy and living. What was the difference? Water. Trees are dying from thirst and they’re dying from the opportunistic pests and diseases that prey on stressed trees, King says. The ips is a bark beetle that infests pine and spruce trees, according to CSU. An infested tree dies from the top down. Avoid this — and pine wilt disease — with ample watering. “The ips’ ability to attack a tree is greatly affected by the hydration of the tree,” Cranshaw says. “The tree’s primary defense is a good pitch (or resin) flow that drowns out the (pest).” Give trees a slow, thorough watering weekly or every two weeks during the summer, Smith suggests. During the winter months — November through April — that don’t receive at least an inch of precipitation as rain or snow, water trees an average of 10 gallons for every 2 inches of diameter. Or use a garden hose with a fountainhead sprinkler, set a timer to 20 minutes and slowly soak every tree on two sides, Smith said. SEE TREES, P23

Washington Park Profile 21

January 1, 2024

Free radon test kits available STAFF REPORT

January is National Radon Action Month and the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment would like to remind all residents that it has free radon test kits available, and offers a Low Income Radon Mitigation Assistance program. Radon is a naturally occurring radioactive gas that is colorless, odorless and tasteless. People and pets can be susceptible to negative health effects from radon exposure. Radon can enter homes through cracks in the foundation or other openings and can accumulate unless properly mitigated. In Colorado, about half the homes have radon levels higher than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s recom-

STEADMAN FROM PAGE 8

mended action level of 4 picoCuries per liter of indoor air. The CDPHE recommends that homeowners who already have radon mitigation systems in place should retest their homes every two years to make sure the system is working properly. “January is a great time to test, and it’s a very straightforward process,” said Jill Hunsaker Ryan, executive director of the CDPHE, in a statement. “We want everyone to reduce their risk of radon exposure.” To learn more about radon, get a free test kit or find out about the Low Income Radon Mitigation Assistance program, visit cdphe.colorado.gov/hm/radon or call Colorado’s Radon Hotline at 1-800-8463986.

The print version of the Denver monthlies — Life on Capitol Hill and Washington Park Profile — is known for its design work and magazine-style layout. As an editor, what I like best about the new website is that it allows me to highlight this so that the print and online versions compliment each other. It is so much more eye-catching and appealing. You may have also noticed some changes to our editorial content. The former calendar-style list of things to do has been revamped to better provide curated goings-on locally in Denver. I’m also looking at new ways to cover business news in 2024, mov-

ing away from blurbs to more in-depth stories. There will also be some changes to the opinion pages this year. This January edition features the final Denver Botanic Gardens horticulture column. The horticulturalists have been writing the column for many, many years, and they felt that it has run its course. But, don’t worry — I have some ideas for new local columns that I think will inform you about your community in new ways. And as always, I use this annual first-of-the-year column to remind my loyal readers that I love hearing from you. If you know of something that would make a great news story, column or event, reach out to me at csteadman@coloradocommunitymedia.com.

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TREES FROM PAGE 20

Don’t water trees when air temperatures hit freezing — it could kill them — but do water them when temperatures are above 30 or 40 degrees, said King, who, like some other arborists, will water your trees for you. Among the more than 3,000 clients his company serves annually, he estimates about 100 ask for help watering their trees during the crucial winter months. Fertilizing

Visit a reputable garden center for advice on fertilizer, Smith said, and avoid concentrations that lean heavily into nitrogens, which encourage growth. Instead, look for fertilizers with organic materials such as friendly bacteria and humic acids, which help trees absorb nutrients.

“I’m not a big nitrogen fan,” Smith said. “Nitrogen has its place, but it pushes the tree. It makes the tree push quite a bit of new growth. If it’s not able to support that below ground (in its root system), you’re setting yourself up for failure.” She also recommends using a fertilizer with little or no phosphorus because of its overuse in the agricultural industry. Fertilizers high in nitrogen and phosphorus wash into storm drains, eventually reaching — and de-oxygenating — nearby lakes and streams, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. One more critical detail: Do not fertilize newly planted or stressed trees. “It’s like giving a sick person a shot of adrenaline,” Smith warned. If all else fails … It’s time to call the professionals. If a pine or spruce looks under duress, call a tree care company. But know

that insecticides are preventative, according to CSU Extension fact sheets for ips beetles and pine wilt disease. They cannot save a tree that’s already been infected by either. “The first sign of pine wilt is death,” King says matter-of-factly. Death can occur within three weeks of infection with the nematode, according to CSU research. Still, King will sometimes battle for a tree’s life. “I have the technology to save a tree, but I cannot save every tree,” he says. “I’m a preservationist. That’s what I do. I save trees. But if you don’t water your trees, even if you spray them (with insecticides), you’re probably going to end up with dead trees. You’ve got to water your trees.” This story was printed through a news sharing agreement with The Colorado Sun, a journalist-owned nonprofit based in Denver that covers the state.

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SCHOLARSHIP FROM PAGE 5

And it’s important for students and their families to know that applying for financial aid does not commit them to anything — they do not have to accept any financial aid offered to them, Madriz added. “It just sets them up for options, or expands their options,” she said. The foundation’s FAFSA support includes help with application preparation and submission. This

January 1, 2024Jan includes helping with gathering all necessary paperwork, identifying a timeline to ensure all deadlines are met, creating a studentaid.gov account and answering any questions about what financial aid is. The foundation also works with a student’s family to help them understand the financial aid process, and even what it means to have their child attending college and what to expect. A first-generation student going to college can spark generational transformation in their family, Madriz said. “College attainment changes the

outlook for families because it creates a new standard for what’s possible,” Madriz said. “It is more important than ever for students and families to be equipped with the correct information, tools and handson support to submit financial aid applications and maximize their postsecondary opportunities.” Serrano-Zetino will be graduating high school this spring. She is her class president, part of the National Honor Society, involved with Key Club and helped found John F. Kennedy High School’s brand-new speech and debate team.

She is planning on attending Colorado State University this fall to study international business. SerranoZetino’s ultimate goal is to become a lawyer but is starting with business for her undergraduate degree because she believes it will provide her with many professional and career opportunities as she attends law school and works toward her juris doctor degree. “Some people think that they can’t afford it (college), so why should they even try,” Serrano-Zetino said. “But it’s misunderstood that people do have resources.”

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