FLOOD02337

• County: Statewide
• Community: State
• Stream Name: South Platte River
• Basin: South Platte
• Title: Geomorphic Assessment at Surveyed Cross-sections South Platte River
• Date: 6/1/1996
• Prepared For: UDFCD
• Prepared By: Michael Stevens
• Floodplain - Doc Type: Floodplain Report/Masterplan

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Figure 8.

A diagonal gravel bar in the South Platte River creating a long shallow rippled
flow, aerating the water.

New Bridges. Since 1983, new vehicular bridges have been built at Mineral Avenue and at
19th and 20th Streets. Also, the Park Avenue West viaduct and 20th Street HOY have been
completed. The gravel haul road bridge near Chatfield and the Crestview Avenue bridge are
gone. Now there are 57 bridges over the South Platte River in the metropolitan area (Appendix
C, Table 2).

Gravel Pits. A major activity in the floodplain of the South Platte is gravel mining in the
northern Suburban and Rural reaches. Some pits are precariously close to the river. In fact, the
South Platte broke into the Cooley Pit in Thornton in 1995. The river is eroding towards a pit
near I 20th Avenue (Spot Photo 16, Appendix B). The operators protect their pits by using the
overburden to create a levee along the river.

Trash. There does not appear to be as much trash along the river now as in 1986. In prior
times, one could run into more old refrigerators, stoves, and car parts. Granted, some still use
the river to get rid of their wastes, but more people are changing and more are cleaning up.
Urban Drainage cleans up the river three or four times a year and posts "No Dumping or Filling"
signs on the riverbank property where it has easements.

Freedom to Wander. Where left to wander, to create, and to destroy, the South Platte Rive,
takes on morphology more diverse than where it is confmed and controlled. Compare the
photograph in Fig. 9 to any in the Urban reach; for example, Cross Sections 33 and 34