The unprecedented growth in the Cherry Creek watershed, which includes the nationally-recognized growth in Arapahoe and Douglas counties, has prompted wide-spread focus on local water quality and quantity management strategies for the watershed.   Out of this concern, interested parties have proposed a regional management strategy for the watershed, where the “health” of the region is in terms of both the economy and the environment.  In this strategy, development is economically viable and takes into account the environmental components of open space, natural resources and sustainable habitats.

In response to the need to bring this management strategy to the forefront, the Cherry Creek Stewardship Partners collaboration group was formed in 1999.  The Partners mission is the promotion of stewardship of the watershed so that the resources of the basin and the environmental opportunities (i.e. water quality improvement, flood control, recreational possibilities, trail connectivity, and habitat restoration and preservation) are taken into consideration as the watershed experiences rapid growth.  The Partners has sought to include all parties in the basin, including regulators and regulated industries, local government planning personnel, elected officials, the development community, environmental groups, and private property owners.  The Partners are committed to optimizing opportunities by emphasizing collaborative efforts, incentives over controls, and providing tools to local planning agencies that take watershed development decisions beyond ‘business as usual’ to ‘watershed health’.