FLOOD08460

• County: Statewide
• Basin: Statewide
• Title: Stewardship of Colorado Stream Corridors
• Date: 1/1/1998
• Prepared For: CWCB
• Prepared By: McLaughlin Water Engineers, Ltd.
• Floodplain - Doc Type: Floodplain Report/Masterplan

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SCOPE
The scope of the project included hiring a consulting finn, McLaughlin Water Engineers (MWE)
of Denver, Colorado, who then contacted representatives of 268 floodprone Colorado
communities and all 63 Colorado counties, as identified by the Colorado Water Conservation
Board. The contact method chosen was a needs survey requesting communities and water related
organizations to identifY and inventory their needs and identifY their successes in dealing with
watersheds, stream corridors and floodplains.

PROCESSES UTILIZED
The process involved forming a steering committee to provide an overview of the project; bring
an expanded level of expertise and perspective; provide direction and comment; endorse the study
fmdings; and provide recommendations to the CWCB. A survey questionnaire was created to
solicit information from 321 communities and 110 environmental and water related organization.

The fmdings from this survey and the associated follow up contacts with community
representatives were then used to create a computer based data base to analyze and identifY
problems and areas of needs. The findings served as the basis for recommended programs to
address those needs.

ASSESSMENT PROCESS

Survey Questionnaire Development
A needs survey, in the form of a seven page questionnaire containing 28 different areas for
response, was jointly developed by CWCB staff, the steering committee and MWE project staff,
to: 1) secure information regarding community profiles, pressing interests and values of stream
corridors, 2) solicit and identifY basin needs and programs from water organizations, 3) inventory
existing flood problems, 4) evaluate existing programs, 5) determine future needs, and 6)
formulate recommendations for consideration by the CWCB,

Follow up
The questionnaire was mailed on October 23,1997 with a requested return date of November 14,
1997. The November 14th response rate for the communities was 10 percent, and 17 percent for
the counties. MWE staff and associates called those who had failed to return their questionnaires.
The were several reasons for the lack of response, including outdated addresses and phone
numbers, staff turnover, and demands of current work load. An intense effort of follow up phone
calls improved the response rate so by the end of December, 1997, nearly 40 percent of
communities and 44 percent of counties had sent in their survey questionnaire. In addition, 21
percent of the organizations returned their questionnaires.

Data Base Development
A data base was designed to allow the results of the survey questionnaire responses to be entered
and subsequently queried for information. The data base allows nearly 4000 responses to be
further investigated and examined to aid in focusing the recommendations described in this report

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