---
title: "you don't have to shoulder it alone"
canonical_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/you-dont-have-to-shoulder-it-alone
markdown_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/you-dont-have-to-shoulder-it-alone.md
subtitle: "the forest above the reservoir was never one party's bill"
category: nature-finance
---

# you don't have to shoulder it alone

*the forest above the reservoir was never one party's bill*

**Cost sharing** is several parties paying for one piece of work that none of them would fund alone. Put a utility manager in front of a wildfire map and the definition stops being a procurement term. The snow that becomes a city's drinking water falls on a forest the utility does not own, cannot meter, and could not afford to treat by itself.

That forest exists whether or not anyone buys a policy or a certificate. Ensurance is how the people who already receive that water share the payment, the measurement, and the rules that keep the forest working. The share is not the forest. This post is about the payment, and the moment the bill stops feeling like yours alone.

:::johnson
**no one shipowner carried the sea alone. no one utility has to carry the forest alone.** Denver Water and the Forest Service have been splitting the bill for its source forest since 2010. The state forest service and NRCS are in the same payment.

[the south platte, the place the bill lands →](/south-platte-river.basin?from=guide)
:::

## what cost sharing is

If you searched the phrase, you already know the cousins. An NRCS cost-share agreement pays a portion of a conservation practice on private land, and the landowner pays the rest. A forest partnership pools agency and utility money for thinning that no single budget line would cover. The work is one thing, the benefit reaches several parties, and each party's share is smaller than the whole.

Two halves of the definition matter equally. The work is indivisible: you cannot thin a third of a fire-prone stand and call the reservoir a third protected. And no party would fund the whole, because the whole bill is larger than the benefit that shows up on any one meter. Cost sharing lives in the gap between those two facts.

That is also, at its most basic, what an insurance pool is: a loss too big for one party, carried by many. The difference is when the payment happens. A pool pays after the ship fails to return. A cost share pays for the work that keeps the loss from arriving.

## the bill above the reservoir

Denver Water learned the size of the whole bill the hard way. In 1996 the Buffalo Creek fire and in 2002 the Hayman fire destroyed 150,000 acres in the utility's South Platte River watershed. Hayman alone burned 138,000 acres around Cheesman Reservoir. Then the rain came. Flash floods raced through the burn scars and cost Denver Water more than $27 million to repair infrastructure, remove sediment, and restore land around the drainages that flow into Strontia Springs and Cheesman reservoirs.

Jim Lochhead, Denver Water's CEO/Manager from 2010 to 2023, put the lesson in one sentence: "Those big fires taught us that investing in healthy forests is less expensive than dealing with the after-effects of a catastrophic wildfire."

Notice what the $27 million was: the repair, the check after the loss. It did not put the forest back or prevent the next fire. The forest work is a different bill, paid before the fire, in what Denver Water calls "zones of concern": overly dense stands across 10 counties in north-central Colorado where a large fire would hit the dams, reservoirs, pipes, and streams that supply the Front Range.

No utility could carry that bill alone. Most of that land is not theirs to treat.

## from forests to faucets: four partners, one payment

In 2010 Denver Water formed **From Forests to Faucets**, a forest management partnership with the Rocky Mountain Region of the U.S. Forest Service. The Colorado State Forest Service and the Natural Resources Conservation Service joined, which let forest managers work on non-federal and private land as well as national forest.

As of July 2023, the four partners have invested nearly $96 million in forest management, counting work planned into 2027. More than 120,000 acres have been treated in the areas where Denver Water collects water, with nearly two-thirds of that inside the South Platte Basin. More than 1.4 million trees have been planted in burn areas.

| partner | what it brings to the same payment |
|---|---|
| Denver Water | The utility whose reservoirs receive the sediment and whose customers drink the water |
| U.S. Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Region | Manager of the national forest where the source water falls |
| Colorado State Forest Service | Reach onto state and private forestland |
| Natural Resources Conservation Service | Reach onto private working land through its programs |

Brian Ferebee, then Rocky Mountain regional forester, described the arithmetic without finance vocabulary: "By combining resources, we're able to treat more acres than we could on our own." That is the whole case for cost sharing in one sentence, from a forester, not a banker.

Scott Woods of the Colorado State Forest Service explained why the share has to cross the property line: "Forestlands cover all land ownerships across Colorado, and when a fire breaks out, it simply doesn't respect those boundaries." The fire does not stop at the deed. Neither can the payment.

A reader can hear "forest treatment" and picture a forest that never burns. Erin Connelly, supervisor of the Pike/San Isabel National Forest, is precise: the goal is not to stop fires but to prevent large catastrophic ones. Fire still belongs in that forest. The share pays for a forest that can burn small and keep making water.

## why the bill gets more interesting when others are already paying

This is the part no cost-share manual covers.

The person who needs the water looks at the forest and feels they cannot carry it. That feeling is accurate. One utility, one county, one family with a hillside above a reservoir: none of them can fund the whole stand, and each knows it. So the honest response to the bill is to look away from it.

That changes the moment the same person sees that the Forest Service, the state, and NRCS are already in the payment. Not because the work got cheaper, but because three things become true at once.

The bill is now a share, not a whole. Whatever your piece is, it is smaller than the number that made you look away.

The work is now credible. Three public agencies do not pool money for a decade into one party's pet project. Three agencies with their own mandates have chosen to co-fund the work.

And the land next to yours is now inside the payment, treated by a partner who also could not carry the forest alone, and did not have to.

This is the ordinary logic of the pool, applied before the loss instead of after. Interest rises when the others who receive the benefit will pay with you. Lloyd's rented its tables so several people could insure one ship. Denver Water treats its watershed with three partners for a cousin reason: several parties, one exposure none of them can carry alone. A cost share splits a bill that is already real. An insurance pool spreads a loss that may never come.

The fair objection: is this not paying for somebody else's land? It is paying for the forest that already delivers your water. The benefit was already shared. The payment can be too. If a partner's share depends on a concession that never leaves, that is a different question, and [the subsidy that proves the product](/guide/the-subsidy-that-proves-the-product) handles it.

## the trap: one meter, one bill

Cost sharing fails in two mirror-image ways.

The first trap is believing the whole bill is yours. Your meter shows the water and your reservoir fills with the sediment, so the forest must be your problem, and since you cannot afford it, you defer it. The prevention does not happen, and the $27 million repair arrives on schedule.

The second trap is believing the whole bill is someone else's. The forest is federal land, so the Forest Service should pay. The fire is a state emergency, so the state should pay. Everyone waits for the party whose meter shows the most, and the forest gets denser every year they wait.

Both treat a shared benefit as if it had a single owner. A cost share is the decision to stop pretending it does. From Forests to Faucets did not resolve who owns the water quality above Cheesman. It agreed that four parties receive it and four parties will pay for the work that keeps it.

## where the share goes from here

From Forests to Faucets stays. It is doing useful work on more than 120,000 acres, and nothing in this series proposes to replace the table where those four partners decide treatments and seasons.

What the next two posts add is a question the partnership's own numbers raise. The $96 million is a share of one piece of work, held as an agreement among agencies. It is a share of one piece of work among four partners. The next post asks what else a share like that can carry, and how a town or an insurer that also drinks from that forest could hold a piece.

Ensurance is how that share can be held: financial value, the ecological result the money bought, and the community stake in the same forest, split among the people who already receive its water. The share is not the forest. The forest and the snow that become Denver's drinking water were there first, and the point of the payment is that they keep working.

The next post shows what a share can carry beyond the check. For now, hold the sentence the utility lead, the commissioner, and the family above the reservoir all needed to hear: other groups are already paying with you.

## frequently asked questions

### what is cost sharing?

Cost sharing is several parties paying for one piece of work that none of them would fund alone. The work is indivisible, the benefit reaches all of them, and each party's share is smaller than the whole bill. NRCS conservation agreements, grant matches, and forest partnerships like From Forests to Faucets are all cost shares.

### who pays in from forests to faucets?

Four partners: Denver Water, the Rocky Mountain Region of the U.S. Forest Service, the Colorado State Forest Service, and the Natural Resources Conservation Service. As of July 2023 they had invested nearly $96 million since 2010, counting work planned into 2027, and treated more than 120,000 acres where Denver Water collects water.

### what if my partners will not join?

Start with the parties who already receive the benefit, not the ones you wish would care. In Denver's case the Forest Service already managed the land and NRCS already had programs on private ground; the partnership organized payments each had a reason to make. If a party receives the water and still will not pay, a share among the willing is still smaller than the whole. The pool does not need every shipowner. It needs enough of them.

## sources

[Denver Water — Building a better forest](https://www.denverwater.org/tap/building-better-forest) — From Forests to Faucets partnership, investment and acreage figures as of July 2023, Buffalo Creek and Hayman fire history, $27 million repair, and quotations from Jim Lochhead, Brian Ferebee, Scott Woods, and Erin Connelly (updated July 2024)

## the series

1. [what insurance actually is](/guide/what-insurance-actually-is?from=guide)
2. [the pool pays the disaster](/guide/the-pool-pays-the-disaster?from=guide)
3. [the benefit was already shared](/guide/the-benefit-was-already-shared?from=guide)
4. [you don't have to shoulder it alone](/guide/you-dont-have-to-shoulder-it-alone?from=guide) (this post)
5. [what a share can carry](/guide/what-a-share-can-carry?from=guide)
6. [who governs a natural asset](/guide/who-governs-a-natural-asset?from=guide)