FLOOD09973

• County: Douglas
• County: Elbert
• Community: Denver
• Stream Name: Cherry Creek
• Basin: South Platte
• Title: Flood Control on Cherry Creek Above Denver
• Date: 11/1/1939
• Prepared For: State of Colorado
• Prepared By: State Engineer
• Floodplain - Doc Type: Floodplain Report/Masterplan

PROTECTION Pl10GRAM OF CITY OF DENVER CONT'D.

Sullivan Barrier is located on Cherry Creek at a point

10 miles above its mouth, or 5.5 miles upstream from the corporate limits

of Denver. It was designed to protect the City against floods of the

greatest magnitude previously experienced, by reducing peak flcw{s to not

more than 7,500 sec. ft.

Sullivan Barrier is an earthen embankment across Cherry

Creek Valley, with an overall length of 6,090 feet and a height above the

valley floor of 53 feet. Its uncontrolled outlet tube (at stream bed level)

has a capacity (increasing as storage levels raise) up to 7,500 sec. ft. ,

when the impounded water reaches the spillway level. Under such conditions

tho impounded storage would be 10,000 acre-feet. Thus inflows, up to

several times the capacity of Cherry Creek channel in Denver are retarded

and reduced in pea.k flOVl intensities, to such amounts as may be conveyed

through Denver without overflow or damage.

In addition to an improved channel and the recently

constructed Sullivan Barrier, flood control plans of the City of Denver

contemplate that the following measures on the Cherry Creek watershed

will ultimately be undertaken ~~d completed by appropriate agenoies and
beneficiaries:

(1) Heconstruction of Castlewood Dam as a combined irrigation

and flood control project, to re~llate floods from the 168 square miles

of drainage area above that point, loaving the Sullivan Barrier to regu-

late crest flows from the intervening 218 square miles of drainage area.

(2) Soil erosion and water runoff retardation devices and

facilities, including several small retarding barriers on the various

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