Rally for the River II

Join us at the Rally for Upper Colorado River and help deliver a giant postcard to the Governor asking for his help protecting our rivers!

• Who:  Sportsmen, hikers, campers, rafters, kayakers, wildlife enthusiasts--anyone who cares about our state’s rivers and outdoor quality of life

• Why:  To ask Gov. Hickenlooper to use his authority to protect the Upper Colorado River from expanded diversions such as Windy Gap and Moffat

• Where: Colorado State Capitol building, downtown Denver, west steps

• When:  Wednesday, Feb. 22, from 11 a.m. to noon

"A River on the Brink"

Colorado’s namesake river is fighting for its life. A water diversion proposal could reduce the Upper Colorado River’s flows to less than 20 percent of its historic levels. As currently proposed, the Windy Gap Firming Project fails to include measures that will keep the Colorado cold, clean and healthy below Windy Gap—a stretch of the river that sustains local agriculture, mountain communities, and a thriving recreation economy. Unless the Upper Colorado receives stronger protections, this once-mighty river faces a long, continued decline and a potential ecological collapse.

Our Defend the Colorado coalition’s recent January rally in front of EPA building was a huge, noisy success, with more than 100 sign-carrying, chanting supporters calling on EPA to “be a hero” for the river (see photo above).  A few weeks later, EPA issued a letter that fully vindicated and supported our position on the need for further river protections in the Windy Gap Firming Project.

Now the ball is in Gov. Hickenlooper’s court—he has a chance to use his bully pulpit to tell state and federal officials to “do the right thing” for the river and recommend additional protection.

Our healthy, free-flowing rivers are a source of pride for Coloradans—it’s why many of us live here.

Once our rivers are gone—they’re gone. Come out and tell Gov. Hick that Colorado is our home--these places are ours—and we want them protected. Gov. Hickenlooper—be a hero for our rivers!

Speakers include:

Drew Peternell, director, Trout Unlimited’s Colorado Water Project Kirk Klancke, water manager, Fraser Valley For more background on issue, go to www.DefendTheColorado.org

Contact:

Drew Peternell, (303) 204-3057 dpeternell@tu.org Randy Scholfield, (720) 375-3961 rscholfield@tu.org

Upper CO: Do More, Damage Less

Good advice for proponents of Chimney Hollow Reservoir

"Wildlife mitigation plans proposed by Northern Water and sanctioned by the state’s Division of Parks and Wildlife do not adequately address the issues," he [Drew Peternell, Director of TU's Colorado Water Project] said. “What we have currently is not enough,” he said. “We believe they can do more to make this a less-damaging project."

"Substantial springtime flows should be guaranteed," he said, "to improve the health of the [upper Colorado] river. Diverting the river around Windy Gap Reservoir should also be considered."

Read: Effects of Chimney Hollow Reservoir would ripple far and wide by Kevin Duggan on Coloradoan.com

A Look Back at 2011

It has been an eventful year for Colorado Trout Unlimited and our 23 chapters. We’ve seen a growth in capacity thanks to new full-time volunteers and additional National TU staff, conducted on-the-ground projects to improve habitat and restore native trout, extended our advocacy on behalf of rivers, and created new partnerships to strengthen our ability to conserve, protect and restore Colorado’s rivers and watersheds. All of these efforts were made possible through the involvement and support of our members, donors, and partners – and we deeply appreciate each and every one of you. Looking back at the past year, here are a few of the highlights from 2011:

• Yampa Valley Fly Fishers – long time leaders in conservation projects in the Steamboat Springs area – become the 23^rd active chapter of Trout Unlimited in Colorado.
• Colorado TU and the Colorado Water Project expand efforts to educate and engage the public in protecting the Colorado headwaters, launching a new Defend the Colorado website featuring the “Faces of the Fraser” – local residents from an Olympic skier to a logger who share their connections with the river.
• Colorado TU brings on two new OSM/VISTAs – full time volunteers funded with support from the Office of Surface Mining and Americorps – to strengthen our efforts with youth education and RiverWatch water quality monitoring programs.
• Denver Water and west slope interests announce an agreement to provide additional water and funds to benefit the Colorado River headwaters.  The agreement does not address the impacts of proposed new projects, but is a good start in collaboration to benefit the Colorado, Fraser, and Williams Fork.
• Upslope Brewing Company unveils its new craft lager with a “1% For Rivers” program where a portion of all sales of the new beer benefit Colorado TU.
• Our new ColoradoTU.org website launches with an enhanced design, pages on TU activities in basins across the state, and an improved set of tools for visitors to engage with TU in river conservation.
• Grand Valley Anglers and Colorado TU volunteers plant more than 200 willows along Trapper Creek on the Roan Plateau, helping improve riparian habitat for a key native Colorado River cutthroat trout stream.  Grand Valley Anglers also assists federal agencies with reconstruction of a reservoir atop Battlement Mesa as a refuge habitat for native cutthroat trout.
• TU and a coalition of agency and private sector partners – with volunteer support from the Collegiate Peaks Anglers chapter – complete award-winning mine restoration work along Kerber Creek in the historic Bonanza mining district.
• After years of advocacy and volunteer monitoring, TU and the Evergreen Chapter successfully get Bear Creek listed as an “impaired water” for temperature under the Clean Water Act – triggering a state regulatory process to identify the sources of the problem and develop projects to address them..
• The West Denver Chapter completes work on the Canyon Reach project, improving fish habitat and angling accessibility on Clear Creek.
• Colorado TU holds its first “Golf Classic,” engaging more than 120 participating golfers and raising funds for conservation and education.
• Denver TU provides seed money to launch development of a master plan for river restoration in the south Denver metro area; the plan wins unanimous approval from the South Suburban Parks & Recreation District and City of Littleton opening the door to a new “golden age” for the South Platte.

This is a long list, but still far from complete. And with your help, we will work to make 2012 an even better year for Colorado’s rivers and watersheds. Thank you – and happy new year to you all!

Billboard campaign blasts pipeline proposal

Coloradoan Bobby Magill

Conservation group Trout Unlimited on Tuesday released the results of a survey of Wyoming voters showing that 90 percent of the survey respondents said they oppose a Flaming Gorge pipeline.

If it's built, the pipeline would withdraw water from the Green River - a tributary of the Colorado River - at Flaming Gorge Reservoir in southwest Wyoming and pipe it over the Continental Divide through southern Wyoming before entering Colorado in Larimer County.

The survey of 400 Wyoming voters, conducted by Public Opinion Strategies July 31 and Aug. 1, in addition to the polling firm's discussion about the pipeline in focus groups in Cheyenne, showed that Wyoming residents oppose the pipeline because they are concerned about allowing water to leave Wyoming and what it might do to the state's water supplies.

Eighty percent of the respondents said they feel threatened by out-of-state users diverting water from the state, according to a statement from Public Opinion Strategies.

"They think the pipeline is a really awful idea," said Drew Peternell, Colorado director of Trout Unlimited. "It's my expectation that when Colorado citizens learn about the pipeline, they will be equally unimpressed with the proposal."

http://www.coloradoan.com/article/20110914/NEWS01/109140341

Colorado's biggest water project in decades under construction

By Bruce FinleyThe Denver Post

PUEBLO — As much as 100 million gallons a day of Arkansas River water trapped in a reservoir for southern Colorado and downriver states is about to take a left turn — to Colorado's biggest water project in decades.

Construction crews this week began work on the $2.3 billion Southern Delivery System. It is designed to pump water uphill and north from Pueblo Reservoir — through a 62-mile pipeline — to sustain Colorado Springs, which owns the rights to the river water, and other growing Front Range cities.

Environmental groups "are generally satisfied," as long as Colorado Springs live up to its commitments to ensure appropriate water levels in the Arkansas River above and below the reservoir, Trout Unlimited water project director Drew Peternell said.

Huge amounts of energy required to pump water uphill, however, looms as "a greenhouse gas issue," Peternell said. "We'd encourage them to consider renewable sources" of electricity, he said.

Read more: Colorado's biggest water project in decades under construction - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_18110888#ixzz1NBzCScuo

Colorado River: ‘It shouldn’t be about power and money’

Summit County Citizens Voice

By Bob Berwyn

One challenge is measuring the effectiveness of proposed enhancement and mitigation, said Mely Whiting, of Trout Unlimited. “There are some minimum things that need to go into adaptive management,” she said. “Right now, there are no requirements for baseline monitoring. If you’re going to use (adaptive management) as a vehicle for mitigation, you have to have minimum elements … you need to have an enforcement mechanism that becomes part of the federal permit and you have to have public accountability. The public has to have the ability to say, “‘Hey, you’re not doing it right.’ You have to up the ante,” she said.

Trout Unlimited also says there needs to be more money in the mitigation pot to address future impacts and to ensure adequate resources for the long-term monitoring that will be needed. Read this Colorado Trout Unlimited blog post by Whiting to get a good overview of the issues from the conservation group’s perspective.

http://summitcountyvoice.com/2011/05/07/colorado-river-it-shouldnt-be-about-power-and-money/

Anglers want insurance policy for Colorado River projects

Summit County Citizens Voice

By Bob Berwyn

Agreeing to adequate mitigation plans would be a way for Denver Water to live up to its recent statements that that it has acknowledged the impacts of its operations on West Slope streams and is committed to addressing those impacts, said Mely Whiting, with TU’s Colorado Water Project. “We think what we’re asking for is pretty reasonable,” Whiting said. “This is the only chance we’re going get to address some of these impacts. We need to have an insurance policy,” she added.

Whiting said the environmental studies for the Moffat and Windy Gap projects dealt with some of the anticipated impacts in a speculative way, and that there’s no way of knowing exactly how the increased diversions — planned during the peak flow season — will play out.

If the money currently earmarked toward enhancements is sufficient, great. But if not, there needs to be a pot of money in reserve to do the needed work, she said.

Specifically, Trout Unlimited said that significant restoration work and monitoring will be needed to ensure healthy aquatic ecosystems on the Fraser and Upper Colorado rivers. The group estimates that it will cost about $14 million for the needed work, yet only a fraction of that funding is included in the mitigation plans.

The group will also push to include specific monitoring plans to gather the scientific data that’s needed to make adaptive management work. River temperatures, fish populations and river flows have to be tracked carefully and on an ongoing basis, requiring a sustained commitment to science.

Trout Unlimited also wants the Front Range utilities to make a commitment to stop diversions when the water gets too warm or flows drop too low. Removing too much water from the river during runoff or during critical hot summer months raises stream temperatures and eliminates flushing flows that are needed to keep river ecosystems alive.

If flushing flows are not occurring or if temperatures rise above state standards, fish can die. Water providers need to make a commitment to stop diversions when stream temperatures approach state standards or if flushing flows are not occurring in accordance with the community-led Grand County Stream Management Plan.  These commitments, combined with ongoing monitoring, are what is referred to by the concept of ‘Adaptive Management.'

http://summitcountyvoice.com/2011/05/05/anglers-want-insurance-policy-for-colorado-river-projects/

Western Slope water deal surfaces

By Bruce Finley The Denver Post

The most important parts of the deal are "that it looks at the Colorado River Basin from the headwaters to the state line as a whole," said Colorado River District general manager Eric Kuhn, who represented Western Slope communities. "It looks to future solutions rather than past problems."

Environmental advocates are responding favorably — albeit with reservations.

"The deal's great, innovative, the way of the future," said Drew Peternell, director of Trout Unlimited's Colorado Water Project. "But it doesn't deal with the impacts of Denver's Moffat Tunnel project. We want to make sure the stream-flow impacts of that project are fully mitigated. If it is permitted, that project should not be allowed to damage fisheries."

Read more: Western Slope water deal surfaces - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_17912543#ixzz1KYksUKB6

Mitigation plan released for proposed Gross Reservoir expansion

Daily Camera

By Laura Snider

Drew Peternell, director of Trout Unlimited's Colorado Water Project, said that he has several concerns with the mitigation plan and the proposed "enhancement plan."

"The heavy focus on what they call enhancements -- they are fine and good -- but they really address past problems," he said. "What does this mean about these new projects?"

Peternell said he also worries that the plan lacks teeth and clear thresholds for enforcement. For example, Trout Unlimited would like assurances that Denver Water will stop withdrawing water from the upper Colorado River if stream temperatures get too high, endangering fish. And they're also concerned that spring "flushing flows" -- which are ecologically important to the river -- won't be preserved.

"We need more guarantees," Peternell said. "Is this a guidance document or is it actually binding?"

Read more: Mitigation plan released for proposed Gross Reservoir expansion - Boulder Daily Camera http://www.dailycamera.com/news/ci_17829771#ixzz1JQK6kife DailyCamera.com

Water diversions imperil Western Slope river flow

Denver Post Re: “Fraser’s Ehlert says diversions damaging food sources on Colorado River,” March 30 Outdoors story.

Kudos to reporter Scott Willoughby for alerting Coloradans about how water diversions to the Front Range are seriously damaging Western Slope rivers. The Colorado and Fraser rivers and their fisheries already are on the verge of collapse due to existing Front Range diversions. Additional diversions from the proposed Windy Gap and Moffat Tunnel expansion projects could flatline the Fraser and devastate what’s left of the upper Colorado — unless these projects include strict safeguards and guaranteed flow protections. Front Range residents should tell their elected leaders that they care about protecting our rivers and streams. Nothing less than Colorado’s quality of life is at stake.

Drew Peternell, Boulder

The writer is director of Trout Unlimited’s Colorado Water Project.

http://blogs.denverpost.com/eletters/2011/04/11/water-diversions-imperil-western-slope-river-flow/12631/