Recent Updates: (6/25/21)

Filing 3 Natural Areas: The natural areas at Barefoot Lakes are being managed by High Plains Environmental Center as they work to restore more of the native plant community and improve habitat quality in these natural areas to benefit wildlife as a non-profit organization that serves many communities in northern Colorado. The Filing 3 native and manicured landscape areas were turned over to the District under a Temporary Operating Agreement on April 14th. With the historic amount of snowfall experienced this winter, we knew there would be amazing growth for all plant life including native grass, native flowers, shrubs, and trees but not excluding noxious and invasive weeds. We have surveyed the area with native landscape expert High Plains Environmental Center (HPEC).  The best method of control will be mowing at this time due to the significant overgrowth of weeds primarily Canada thistle, curly dock, clovers, and kochia among seeded grasses and wildflowers. We will mow all of the overgrown native areas this week to improve the appearance and to provide better access to weeds for future treatments.

After the mow, we will use herbicide or additional spot-mowing to treat weeds for the rest of the 2021 growing season. In subsequent years, we will use a combination of herbicide and mechanical control (mowing, string trimming, etc.) to control noxious weeds like Canada thistle, musk thistle, knapweeds, curly dock, and cheatgrass. We will also control nuisance weeds like clovers as needed. Herbicide applications are generally focused in the spring and fall when temperatures are lower. Mechanical control is used when temperatures are too high for herbicides to be effective and is used for both weed control and aesthetic purposes. As we reduce the amount of weeds, we can also assess whether any small areas need additional seeding (most likely only small patches of hand-seeding) to get better grass cover. HPEC anticipates these native areas will look much improved by the end of 2022 and will be stable and established by the end of 2023 in most areas. 

The shrubs that were mowed over while completing the native area beauty band. Shrubs that are not in beauty band mowing rows will be replaced by the contractor at no cost to the community and is also on our facility manager’s radar to ensure the drip system/shrub beds are cleaned up and new installations are completed this growing season.

Beauty Band Examples:

Trail/Sidewalk Beauty Band
Fence Line Beauty Band

Filing 3: this area was also walked yesterday with the developer and their installing contractor. An irrigation mainline was hit by active construction, the leak is being repaired today to address leaks and allowing the system to reach all areas of the filing. Any replacement of vegetation will be covered at the developer’s expense.

Filing 1 & 2 Native Areas: HPEC has completed weed mitigation efforts this week in all walkways. If you still see areas of concern please send them our way. We will have our facility manager back onsite Wednesday to walk all areas to confirm the contractor has performed to their scope of work.

*Waterside Park Area & walkways that extend from the park irrigation volume has been increased to help with the establishment of the sod during the extreme heat we are experiencing. We are monitoring and treating runoff areas due to increased watering too. The new grass areas near Waterside Park have undergone additional irrigation system adjustments since the installation and the developer is working with the installation contractors to complete necessary corrections for the system to function as intended. Our facility manager was onsite yesterday with the developer and their installing contractor to address irrigation repairs. This system issue does impact 5 walkways around the waterside park. Repairs are being coordinated expeditiously through the developer.  We’re hopeful these repairs will be completed by end of next week. Any replacement of vegetation will be covered at the developer’s expense after the permanent repair to the irrigation system.

The dead trees shown in the Filing 1 area are slated to be replaced this fall and will be removed in the interim period, this will not be a District cost as it will be funded by the developer. At this current juncture, they are not being removed until additional proposals for this work are received and irrigation that was impacted by builders putting in foundations around the areas are repaired. We are waiting on two vendors to observe the trees to quote removal and replacement costs, and our facility manager is pushing these vendors to provide proposals and working to ensure irrigation is restored.

If there are any areas of concern, please notify us on the website contact us form or email services@svlmd-barefootlakes.com, so we can check to make sure it is on our watch list, provide you an update, and adjust accordingly if needed. We are happy to assist and encourage your feedback.