The one-square-mile Town of Palisade, Colorado—home to 2,500 residents, including a migrant community—is diversifying its local economy as it leans boldly into green and blue infrastructure. Founded 120 years ago, the town has roots in mining, with a history of migrant camps and WW2 camps. Located at the base of the Grand Mesa and bounded by the Colorado River, Palisade boasts a unique microclimate ideal for growing cherries, peaches, and wine grapes. But changing weather patterns are heightening risks such as wildfires, landslide and rockfall risks from the Book Cliffs and, if the Palisade Cabin Dam (a Hazard Class 1 dam) falters, catastrophic flooding and mudslides. The Town of Palisade has a tiny population and limited tax revenue, so it’s getting creative in ways that could make it a model small town. Part of its green strategy involves providing needed ecosystem services—carbon sequestration, solar energy, improving the water quality of the Colorado River—to mitigate hazards and keep residents safe, while raising revenue at the same time.
The Town of Palisade employs 50 full- and part-time staff (including EMS), who join forces with the local community, as well as state and federal partners, to boost its economy while leaning into nature. Nearly 20 years ago, when the BLM awarded natural gas leases on the town’s watershed, the Town of Palisade protested the leases out of concern about the impact of fracking on Palisade’s water quality. The town decided conducted an assessment of baseline surface water quality, which laid the groundwork for a strategy that resulted in outstanding water quality in Palisade. The town then banned drilling and fracking on its watershed to prevent future contamination. More recently, Palisade is planning to transform its sewer lagoons—a smelly, public blight—into vibrant wetlands, which will benefit local wildlife including waterfowl and at least 28 bird species. The USDA is funding sewer consolidation, while town staff and volunteers from Rivers Edge West remove invasive plants along the Colorado River and plant native species. The resulting wetland would improve the quality of water discharged back into the Colorado River, potentially allowing the Town of Palisade to provide a revenue-generating ecosystem service. The town is also installing solar lighting in town and may add floating solar panels (floatovoltaics) on its watershed, then sell any energy surplus back to the grid. Palisade is also considering building sustainable data centers in Palisade and renting them to sustainability-minded tech companies, another revenue-generating project that dovetails with town’s green economic model.