A stream recovery project in downtown Idaho Springs has gotten an $80,000 boost from a Colorado Division of Wildlife Fishing is Fun grant.For decades, the health of Clear Creek in Idaho Springs was seriously impaired by mining runoff, inadequate sewage treatment and channelization from adjacent road and highway construction.

But in recent years, a broad coalition including the city, county, major businesses and environmental groups have made significant investments to help mitigate and reverse the damage. The result has been a dramatic improvement of Clear Creek. One local business, the Albert Frei and Sons Quarry, provided indispensible support for the project in the form of tons of rock that was used to create structure and stabilize the stream bank. Additional support came from the Trask Family Foundation, the Henderson Mine as well as the West Denver chapter of Trout Unlimited and the Clear Creek Watershed Foundation, which oversaw the project on behalf of the city. Frontier Environmental Services of Arvada, which performed the construction, donated its services for preliminary design and project development.

"Without the core support from Fishing is Fun, this project doesn't come together," said Miles Williams, a member of West Denver TU and the city's advisor on the project. "It helped all of our partners realize that we could really make this happen."

http://www.wfn.tv/news/index.php?blog=411668