Speak Out for National Monuments

By Corey Fisher Senior Policy Director for Trout Unlimited Caddis fly blizzards on the Arkansas River in Browns Canyon National Monument. Strongholds of native redband trout in the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument. Fishing with the ghost of Henry David Thoreau in the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument.

These are just a few of the reasons Trout Unlimited supports the Antiquities Act and the ability for presidents to use the act to designate national monuments. As national monuments, each of the places will be kept just the way they are today and provide world-class coldwater habitat and fishing opportunities for future generations – or so we hope.

Take action to stand up for our National Monuments!

On Wednesday, President Trump issued an executive order, Review of Designations Under the Antiquities Act, calling for a review of national monument designations over 100,000 acres since 1996 (or at the discretion of the Secretary of the Interior) and instructing the Secretary to provide “recommendations for such Presidential actions, legislative proposals, or other actions” if determined that a monument should be rescinded or resized.

This unprecedented action could have far-reaching implications for America’s public lands and hunters and anglers. Trout Unlimited cautions that the order could lead to the weakening of national monument protections and the Antiquities Act, a law championed by Theodore Roosevelt and used by sixteen Presidents – eight Republican and eight Democratic – to protect some of America’s most iconic landscapes.

This review starts us down a path that could jeopardize protected public lands that help to sustain our outdoor traditions, such as Rio Grande del Norte National Monument. In these places, locally driven conservation efforts need to be preserved and celebrated, not questioned.

The Antiquities Act has historically been a bipartisan tool for conserving public lands that are part of our natural heritage and important for America’s sportsmen and women. After signing the act into law, President Theodore Roosevelt designated over 1.5 million acres of public land as national monuments, both large and small.  Since then, the act has been used to enable long-term conservation of some of the best fish and wildlife habitat and hunting and angling opportunities in the country.

When Congress has been unwilling or unable to enact widely supported conservation initiatives, the Antiquities Act has provided a path forward to see these efforts through to fruition. The Antiquities Act is a powerful tool for conservation. Like any tool, it must be used appropriately, but it is important to keep this tool available for those times and places it is needed.

For this reason, hunting and fishing groups have been calling on elected officials to uphold the legacy of Theodore Roosevelt and set an example for how the Act can be used responsibly, rather than attacking national monuments and the Antiquities Act. These efforts have included a letter from the CEOs of five national sporting groups expressing opposition to any executive action to overturn a national monument.

An angler looks to hook up with a trout while fishing Rio Grande del Norte National Monument. Joshua Duplechian/Trout Unlimited

It remains to be seen what final actions will stem from the review mandated by President Trump’s executive order, but one thing is clear: we must remain vigilant to ensure that some of America’s most cherished landscapes remain protected as national monuments.

Read more about national monuments and the Antiquities Act.

Take action today – tell Congress don’t mess with the monuments!

Own a business? Sign the outdoor business letter to Congress.

Read a press release from Trout Unlimited and partners in response to the Executive Order.

Corey Fisher is the Senior Policy Director for Trout Unlimited. He can be reached at CFisher@tu.org

Support Sustainable Funding for Colorado's Fish and Wildlife

The Colorado General Assembly is taking up legislation – HB 17-1321 – to authorize the Parks and Wildlife Commission to have the power to set its own fee rates, up to a specified cap, instead of the Colorado Legislature setting all fees. This action would enable them to increase fishing and hunting license fees in order to provide needed funds to maintain fish and wildlife management and to meet growing demands for habitat conservation and for hunting and fishing access. While the bill provides a needed financial boost to Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW), it does include limitations on using these funds for fee title land and water purchases – limiting an important tool in CPW’s tool box for protecting habitat, improving stream flows, and securing access. You can help by contacting your state Representative – today – and letting them know that you support increasing CPW funding, and that you believe CPW should retain authority to purchase land and water to benefit fish and wildlife.  The most effective way to make your voice heard it to call your Representative directly – using your address, you can look up your Representative and their contact information here.  Or you can quickly comment using our email template by clicking here. 

Colorado TU’s Board of Directors has voted to support HB 1321.  Since 2009, CPW has cut or defunded fifty staff positions and sliced $40 million from the wildlife budget. Without new revenue, more painful cuts are inevitable.This bill gives the Parks and Wildlife Commission authority to set fees, within a cap set at a 50% increase from current levels.  Importantly, it allows future license fees to be adjusted gradually over time to keep up with inflation rather than needing the legislature to approve larger increases every few years. The bill would also allow out-of-state fishing license fees for Colorado to be increased to bring Colorado’s pricing in line with peer states like Montana, Wyoming, and Utah. A senior fishing license (not more than half the regular price) would also be re-instituted.  The bill also would add a new sticker and fee program for boats, to help finance inspections for aquatic nuisance species.  You can read more about the bill here.

While the bill provides much-needed financial support for CPW, it also includes language limiting the agency’s purchase of fee title land and water. While such permanent purchases of land and water are not frequent, they are important – for example for expanding or establishing new state parks, obtaining water rights to benefit fisheries, or protecting key wildlife habitat if a landowner wishes to sell their property rather than putting under conservation easement.

Please tell your Representative to support HB 1321’s enhanced funding for CPW, and also to support CPW’s ability to use purchase land and water to benefit fish, wildlife and recreation in Colorado.

Stand Up for Clean Water

Whether you fish or just simply understand the value of clean water, there is no law more important than the Clean Water Act. In 2015, the EPA developed a rule that affirmed Clean Water Act protections for “intermittent and ephemeral streams.” Protections for these streams had been threatened by two splintered Supreme Court decisions in the 2000s. These streams —the headwaters of our nation’s rivers —provide us the fisheries we cherish and the clean drinking water we require. But this essential rule is now under threat of being revoked.

Urge your state representatives to stand up for clean water!

Nearly 60 percent of all of the stream miles in the United States are classified as small, intermittent or headwater.

Protecting these waters is essential to ensuring that adjacent or downstream waters remain clear, clean and healthy for fish, wildlife and communities. Trout Unlimited members work hard to protect our headwaters. We understand that keeping our waters healthy is much more effective than trying to repair a stream after it is damaged or destroyed.

Take a stand and speak up for clean water!

Raise Your Voice for America's Public Lands

As one of the 324 million public landowners in America, I call on the President and my Members of Congress to protect our public lands sporting heritage by strongly opposing any wholesale effort to sell or transfer our country’s public lands. Some of the best fish and wildlife habitat and hunting and angling opportunities available to sportsmen and women are found on these lands. Public lands, owned by all Americans, are indispensable and we must care for them as such.

Further, I ask that Congress and the President work together to address 21st century land management challenges in ways that protect and restore fish and wildlife habitat, ensure that Federal land management agencies have the tools and funding necessary to effectively manage our lands, and uphold America’s public land hunting and fishing traditions.

Visit the TU Action Center to tell our lawmakers why you support Public Lands!

Speak Out for Sound Management of BLM Lands

  The US Senate will soon be voting on whether to block the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) "Planning 2.0 Rule" - and our Senators need to hear your voice as an angler who values our public lands!  BLM properties in Colorado include some of our most outstanding fisheries like the Colorado River and the Gunnison Gorge, as well as important native trout habitats - and sound planning and management of these lands if essential.

Speak out for sound management of BLM lands!

This new rule updates the BLM’s outdated rule and gives the public a stronger voice in public land management decisions. The revised rule will increase agency transparency and opportunities for public involvement in federal land planning, and ensure that important fish and wildlife habitats and looked at up front and at a landscape level, not left as an afterthought.

Trout Unlimited and our partners in the hunting and fishing community have supported Planning 2.0, but this common-sense proposal is under threat of being repealed by Congress using the Congressional Review Act which would not only block the rule but prevent anything substantially like it being adopted in the future.

Please take a few minutes to contact Colorado's Senators and urge them to oppose efforts to do away with Planning 2.0, to ensure that the public has a voice in public land management!

Protecting Colorado's Water Quality

The Colorado Water Quality Control Commission is considering a state policy change that would weaken the temperature standards that are supposed to protect trout streams throughout the state. The proposed changes brought forth by the Water Quality Control Division (WQCD) would put many trout fisheries at risk including during spawning periods. Take Action and tell the WQCC you do not approve of these changes!

The changes proposed by the WQCD will increase the “standard” temperatures allowed for around 1/3 of Colorado's trout streams, based solely on their elevation, allowing the fish' stress levels to increase and ultimately cause problems for their feeding, growing and movement. According to the EPA, the proposed standards for lower elevation coldwater streams (22 C) are actually lethal for trout exposed to them over seven days.Higher temperature standards also would be allowed on all streams during the "shoulder" months of March and April and October and November - which overlaps with Rainbow and Brown spawning seasons when the fish are more sensitive and susceptible to changes in their environment, and where their successful natural reproduction can be harmed. These shoulder standards are also higher (65F) than what is needed to support successful trout spawning (59-61F).

Make your voice heard by sending a letter to the WQCC

Learn more about the proposed changes

Trout Unlimited is working to ensure that the temperatures of Colorado's streams remain at a healthy level for trout to survive. CTU has put together an Action Alert asking members and supporters to reach out to the WQCC and show that these changes will be harmful to our state's trout and fishing opportunity!

Ask BLM: support balanced plan for fish, wildlife & energy on the Roan

In November 2014, Secretary of the Interior Jewell, BLM Director Kornze, Governor Hickenlooper, and a group of energy and conservation stakeholders announced a settlement of long-standing litigation over oil and gas development on the Roan Plateau.  The agreement struck a balance between protecting outstanding habitat for big game and native cutthroat trout fisheries, and enabling responsible development of natural gas resources on less sensitive lands.

The agreement was only a first step - now the BLM needs to finish the job and put in place a new final management plan that incorporates the settlement's protections and approach to responsible energy for the Roan . The BLM has issued its new Draft Environmental Impact Statement and is expected to make a final decision on the Roan in the next few months, so speaking out now can make a difference!  Click here to sign our petition to BLM supporting a balanced approach that protects the Roan's unique cutthroat trout and outstanding big game habitat.

Tell Congress: Support Public Lands and Recreation

If Congress doesn't act this month, one of our nation's most successful public lands and recreation programs will come to an end. From the Great Sand Dunes, to access on the Colorado River, to community parks and trails in our own backyards, the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) has set aside and protected special places in Colorado and nationwide for the past 50 years.

A new Colorado TU report highlights the diverse benefits LWCF has provided to our state, from expanding hunting and angling access, to securing iconic landscapes like the Great Sand Dunes, to conserving private lands through conservation easements and partnerships.  You can read the report here.

Yet this successful program is set to expire on September 30 if Congress doesn't act to extend it.  Please ask your Senators and Representative - today - to support permanent reauthorization of LWCF and keep its benefits flowing to our public lands and our multi-billion-dollar outdoor recreation economy.

Click here to visit our online action alert where you can share your comments with your elected officials.  Thank you!

Ask Congress to Protect Our Headwaters

On May 27, the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers issued new Clean Water rules that restore long-standing protections to headwater streams and adjacent wetlands under the Clean Water Act.  The rules are a balanced package that maintains long-standing Clean Water Act exemptions for standard farming practices, while clarifying that the Act's protections extend to the tributary streams and wetlands that shape the quality and health of downstream rivers. These waters were historically protected under the Clean Water Act until two politically charged Supreme Court decisions in the 2000s put them into regulatory limbo. The court ruled that there must be a proven nexus between these small, sometimes-intermittent waters and the larger rivers they feed in order for the former to receive Clean Water Act protections. Armed with the science that proves such a connection, the EPA and the Corps crafted this rule that protects the clean water sources of America’s rivers. Unfortunately, some in Congress are pushing to block the rules from being implemented.  Legislation to do just that has passed the House and will be considered in the Senate, and other amendments to block the rules will likely be proposed in the coming weeks and months.  Please take a moment to weigh in with your Representative and Senators Bennet and Gardner, and ask them to support the Clean Water Rules and protect Colorado's headwater streams!

Tell the Governor: Healthy Rivers Matter!

On  December 10, a draft of Colorado's Water Plan was formally presented to Governor Hickenlooper - and will no undergo a renewed round of public input and revision with plans to finalize it by late 2015.  The Plan talks about the strategies Colorado should use to meet its future water demands for cities, industry, agriculture, recreation and the environment.  It will set the tone for how Colorado addresses its water challenges - whether there is an emphasis on sustainability, aggressive water conservation, and healthy rivers and landscapes - or emphasis on more dry-up of Colorado's rivers and its irrigated farmlands.  Colorado's sportsmen want to see our values reflected in the Plan. Governor Hickenlooper has said that every conversation about water should start with conservation. Tell him yourself why conserving the health of rivers is important to you! Click here now to weigh in now on the vision for Colorado's water future that you want to support!

This is just the first draft of the first Colorado Water Plan. We have one year to try to secure a healthy future for our rivers for fish, and for people.

You can learn more and read the draft Colorado  Water Plan online by clicking here and by visiting Colorado's Water Plan website.