By Bruce FinleyThe Denver Post

As skiers roll into the high country seeking snow, each vehicle that crosses the Continental Divide over Berthoud Pass worsens the damage to a key tributary of the Colorado River — despite 15 years of trying to solve the problem.

State highway, Denver Water and U.S. Forest Service officials last week said work on a traction-sand removal system along the Fraser River will begin in the spring — at the earliest.

This material slides off the road into the Fraser River, "smothering the rocks, which smothers the bug life, which is the bottom of the food chain. Then the fish starve," said Kirk Klancke, president of Trout Unlimited's Colorado River headwaters chapter and manager of two water districts, who helped line up about $240,000 in federal and state grants for sediment removal.