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Darren Beck

Headshot of a man in sunglasses and a Boulder County Parks and Open Space ball cap.

Darren Beck - Parks and Open Space Water Program Supervisor at Boulder County

I manage Boulder County’s water resources and water rights. I coordinate with the State, ditch companies, and other agencies to oversee that the county’s water rights are available to county tenant farmers and for environmental stream flows. My team works with attorneys and water resources engineers to develop new water rights and defend the county’s water rights in water court. Fly fishing and whitewater activities are one of my favorite ways to appreciate our rivers.

My Path

Where’s all the water going?

After graduating from Colorado State University with a degree in natural resources management, I happened to meet someone connected to a position with an engineering firm in Breckenridge.  I signed on as a seasonal employee doing river surveys in Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. I hung out on the water with cool people, exploring remote places. In New Mexico on the Rio Grande River, I noticed a concrete channel running parallel to the river. All the water was in that concrete channel and not in the river and I had to wonder, why? What is the purpose of moving water in this channel versus the river itself? This is how I got interested in water rights and management.

How do we move the water?

I returned to CSU for a graduate degree in watershed science. Now that I began to understand water management, I wanted to explore the engineering side of how we move water around. I started working at a local water resource engineering firm, learning about water rights and water engineering. I saw how water was used by municipalities and how they need to navigate water court to meet their needs.

Who needs this water?

Getting a certification in hydrology allowed me to move into working on a federal program to restore habitat for threatened and endangered species on the Platte River in Nebraska. You can focus on many areas when it comes to water management. I had worked in engineering (moving water around), wildlife (maintaining water habitat for animals). I now wanted to look at water from a new perspective. This ended up being agriculture (managing water for farmers), which brought me to Boulder County. I got the right jobs at the right time and have been able to experience some of the many career paths within the world of water.

My Work

Scales showing how this person's work breaks down. Most time is spent working with people, indoors, and on distinct tasks versus getting creative.

Colorado is a headwaters state with 4 major river basins. Our state’s water management impacts all the states downstream from us, so it’s important to manage responsibly. In the west, we have a system that considers water property; the system controls who can use water, how much they can use, and when they can use it. The person or entity with the oldest water rights has priority, they get to use the water first.

 

Protect the County’s Water Resources

I defend the county’s water in water court. For example, if someone else wants to build a reservoir they need to file an application. We review that application to understand how they will store the water and where they will get it from, then think through whether it will impact our water rights.

Work with Agriculture Tenants

Boulder County leases land to farmers and ranchers for various agricultural uses. One of the goals of our program is to ensure these tenants are getting the water they have leased.

Manage Water Data

I use our data to understand what water rights we own and track where it’s being used. I need to make sure we’re being as efficient as we can with our water.

A slow moving river surrounded by colorful green and yellow vegetation.

My Why

This is a challenging field with no easy answers, which keeps me interested. No two days are the same, and every situation has its own specific set of concerns and opportunities and challenges. Every day a situation comes up that has me thinking about what the best way forward is for this person, the county, and the environment.

My Advice

I didn’t have much direction or opportunity to ask questions and figure things out when I was younger, I just got lucky talking to the right people and found things I was interested in and able to pursue. I now meet with professional youth groups, since I didn’t have that opportunity and want others to learn from my experience. Check out local young professional organizations – nights out, meet and greets, talks by career professionals. You don’t have to be in that field to benefit from their events, just go understand what is out there.

See what seasonal positions there are at cities and counties. There are many disciplines within parks and open space departments, and a seasonal employee could get a lot of experience in a lot of areas by talking to other employees, moving around, and getting to try different things.

There are so many different important areas that involve water management, especially in Colorado and especially today with issues like climate change, population growth, wildfires, more intense rainfall, and soil health. It’s a great field to get into and a lot of different areas to pursue.