In Pueblo, the Arkansas River, is king. The Fountain Creek, the city’s other river, runs a distant second in the prestige department. But that slight hasn’t kept the Fountain from being a royal pain in the city’s side. For years, poorly managed stormwater runoff by Pueblo’s upstream neighbor, Colorado Springs, often led to flooding and millions of gallons of raw sewage spilling into the waterway. Colorado Springs’ practices caused millions of dollars in flood and erosion damages for Pueblo and fueled tensions and lawsuits between the two cities for decades.

In 2009, the Colorado Legislature created The Fountain Creek Watershed Flood Control and Greenway District . Its mission: solve some of issues faced by municipalities along the Fountain. Part of that solution includes the recently completed $2.8 million Channel Project at 13th Street. It stabilized a problematic 2,000-foot stretch of the Fountain in the middle of Pueblo. By altering the meander of Fountain Creek, using materials like riprap and coir fabric, reseeding the area with native plants, and upgrading a culvert, the project will result in “the mitigation of future impacts from storm-induced runoff,” along the waterway, according The Watershed website.