Elmer's Twomile Blog

Did you know we’ve got wetlands areas around? If you didn’t, I encourage you to get on a bike and cruise around, because it’s hard to miss them on our bikeways.

Here’s a partial map of our area, showing wetlands (green), creeks (pink), ditches (bounded by dotted lines) and of course lakes (blue). Boulder’s wetlands have plenty of rules and documentation, as you might expect. There’s also an interactive map you can use to view the wetland areas. Here’s a snapshot of our neighborhood:

The wetlands all serve a function — and it’s pretty safe to assume, in our area, that a large part of that function is flood mitigation. If you want to learn about individual wetlands in our area, you can do so with the evaluation summaries for Boulder wetlands (PDF).

Take, for example, wetland #40308. Of the many wetlands comprising Elmer’s Two Mile Creek, it gets one of the better grades.

General Location: Elmer’s Two Mile Creek, from south of Iris to southern park boundary

Description: Restored creek channel through park. Receives stormwater and urban runoff from Iris. Meandering channel increases functionality, good plant diversity.

That’d be Elmer’s Twomile Park.