A group of workers screws together wooden planks, which will form a new information kiosk at Poudre Ponds in Greeley, Colo.
The fishing and boating spot has gotten more popular as the northern Colorado city grows. But Lori McCullough said the city and state can’t fund these recreation upgrades alone. That’s where her organization, The Great Outdoors Fund, comes in. It leverages private money to fill funding gaps on public lands.
As visits to national parks and forests, for example, have gone up over the past decade, budgets and staffing have generally stayed flat or declined when adjusted for inflation. Plus, outdoor recreation advocates fear the Trump Administration’s firing of federal workers who manage these lands and its proposed budget cuts could further hobble efforts to maintain sites for visitors.
“The funding has never been adequate,” said McCullough, the CEO. “So, we are really advocating now more than ever that private donors step up.”
In this case, the private donor is Occidental Petroleum, a large oil and gas company with production in Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico. The Fund has partnered with the company on recreation projects in all three states this year.
The partnership led to sprinkler system upgrades and a new playground at a park at the bottom of a red rock canyon in Wyoming, known for hiking and biking. In southern Colorado, it supported a long-planned renovation to a Bureau of Land Management site, boosting public access to the Rio Grande River through a new boat ramp, restrooms and interpretive signs.
McCullough said the private investment her organization identifies is not meant to replace public funding. But she said it could be an important model for times when government funding isn’t available or reliable.
Karen Scopel, an environmental planner at the city of Greeley, said her department relies on the city’s general fund for routine maintenance to recreation sites.
“Like a lot of cities, we don't have a lot of extra funds laying around for different kinds of projects, so when we need to do special projects then we usually have to go find some funding to do that,” she said.
The city was awarded a Colorado Parks and Wildlife grant for upgrades at Poudre Ponds, but it only covered $110,000, less than a third of the total project cost. The Great Outdoors Fund and Occidental came in with $162,000 and the rest was covered by the city and the Poudre Heritage Alliance.
Poudre Ponds is currently undergoing construction to increase its water storage capacity and will be closed to the public through at least the end of this year. When it opens, it’ll be better suited for anglers and paddle boarders, with picnic tables, shade structures and grills.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Boise State Public Radio, Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Northern Colorado, KANW in New Mexico, Colorado Public Radio and KJZZ in Arizona as well as NPR, with support from affiliate newsrooms across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Eric and Wendy Schmidt.
