The drafted management plan for Button Rock Preserve recommends prohibiting dogs among other suggestions to continue preserving this Longmont resource.
Longmont City Council will get a look at the 112-page management plan draft during a study session on Tuesday. The plan documents the resource conditions and recommends actions to protect the resources to keep up-to-date with current visitor use trends.
While 2,691-acre Button Rock Preserve was purchased and managed by the city to protect its municipal drinking water supply, limited passive recreation is permitted in the area. Current use has far exceeded what the area was initially designed for — the preserve saw annually about 3,200 visitors in 1988 and 18,000 in 1998 compared to nearly 60,000 in 2021, according to staff documents.
Key recommendations as drafted include the following:
- Prohibit dogs for the benefit of the source water, watershed, wildlife, vegetation and overall ecological health of the preserve.
- Keep the Ralph Price Reservoir Fishing Permit Program in place with minor modifications.
- Update rules and regulations to correspond with present-day needs and visitor numbers.
- Use management zoning to protect resources and inform the public.
- Create a sign package for the preserve to include wayfinding and rules signs.
- Use prescribed burning as a forestry mitigation and restoration tool.
- In the future, consider an entry fee and/or shuttle transportation with public input.
The plan that will be presented to council prioritizes maintaining and protecting the water quality and delivery, protecting natural resources and providing passive recreational activities to the public that do not adversely affect the first and second priorities, according to staff documents.
In May 2019, Longmont introduced an interim dog visitation policy that required all dogs to be on leash when in the preserve and allowed only one dog per visitor.
“Unfortunately, even with the Interim Dog Policy and even with most people leashing their dogs and picking up after their dogs, visitor numbers are extremely high, which still results in trash cans that are often full to the brim with dog waste and with the dog waste that does not get discarded ending up along roads, trails, North St. Vrain Creek or in the meadows and forests,” staff said in a memo.
