Our favorite place to play has always been Smith Ditch. Our interactions with it change with the seasons. In the fall it is empty and becomes a giant sandbox. We dig and make castles and create mudpies. In the winter, it often becomes an ice skating rink; when snow melts into pools on warm days and freezes overnight. In spring, something amazing happens. On April first each year, Smith Ditch fills with water. This isn’t a natural or supernatural occurrence, but an act of intentional land management from Denver Parks and Rec.
First we see the maintenance workers busy clearing the debris from the long winter, and we know today is THE DAY. Then we see it. The rush of clean, cool water filling our former ice skating rink and knocking over our sand castles. The water is hypotonic to watch. We follow it on foot as it fills dry sections throughout the park. The kids chant “Water! Water! Water!” and we know that spring is finally here.
Smith Ditch is not only a favorite place, a memory creator, a friend, it is also a 154-year-old irrigation ditch brought to you by a 19th century entrepreneur John W Smith. In the 1860’s, Smith Ditch was hand-dug by horse and plow to divert water from the Platte River to the arid shrublands of what-is-now Denver. What was once a 25 mile canal has been reduced to what we see today in Wash Park; a small stream that fills up our favorite lakes (Smith lake and Lily Pond) before it goes underground and into another lake at the nearby country club.
But if the rest of the original canal has been turned into highways, shopping centers, and skyscrapers, where does the water come from? The water is actually released from a small water de-chlorination plant behind the local high-school (just south of the park). Before the water makes its way there, it is treated, recycled waste water and purified at 2 other water treatment plants.
Like most of the United States, white men like John W Smith were not the original inhabitants of the land we now know as Denver. The land once belonged to the Arapaho Tribe before gold was found, leading to large numbers of white settlers displacing/massicuring them in the 1860’s. The Arapaho people had strong alliances with the Cheyenne and used the land to grow corn, squash, beans and hunt for meat and hides that they would use and trade with other nearby villages.
The management technique of running water through Smith Ditch makes Wash Park more enjoyable for the people, but they also have a positive impact on the natural environment. Many species thrive during the summer due to the filling of Smith Ditch. Cattails and other aquatic plants bloom to life in the coming months. Dragonflies lay their eggs and we catch the nymphs in mid-summer. Our favorite critter in the ditch to catch and release is the crawdad. The crawdads live underground until the beginning of April and we wonder if they are just as excited as we are for the filling of Smith Ditch.
Although Crawdads are our favorite critter to catch in the summer, they are not native to Colorado. In the 1950’s, Crawdads from the northern lakes region started popping up in Colorado rivers and streams. No one is sure how they made the trip, but it’s likely humans had something to do with it. It’s important to know what is native and not native to an area because while native species are important to an ecosystem, non-native species can be disruptive.
At the end of October, Denver Water turns off the tap to Smith Ditch. The Crawdads begin to burrow down into the sand to reach the groundwater beneath and we know winter is on its way. This is another management technique that Denver does to prevent ice bridges from forming and causing the ditch to overflow. By this time, it’s too cold for us to play in the water, and we are excited to make sand castles and ice skating rinks while we wait for spring to come again.
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