environmental education

In 1921, a flood rolled into Pueblo, Colo., submerging the civic center beneath 11 feet of water and leaving more than 100 people dead.  To prevent the recurrence of such disasters, engineers came to town, diverted the river along a different path and encased it in underground levees several blocks away. Seventy years later, a grand project known locally as HARP – the Historic Arkansas Riverwalk of Pueblo – undertook to restore the historic course of the Arkansas River and make it the centerpiece of a 26-acre downtown park.   HARP re-creates 2,220 linear feet of the historic river in concrete-lined (yet naturalistic) channels.  Nearing completion after ten years, the urban park will include 3,300 linear feet of navigable waterway for use by water taxis and pleasure boats as well as dramatic fountains; more than a mile of promenades and other walkways; a two-acre lake; and an outdoor environmental-education center. It has been a massive undertaking, as befits a project aimed at revitalizing an entire city.  For the watershaping community, the project stands as an example of the truly transforming effect that