Water park hits more snags

By GARY HARMONThe [Grand Junction]  Daily Sentinel Tuesday, November 20, 2007

It’s late November, and water levels in the Colorado River are dropping. It’s the perfect time to build in the riverbed, just as the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is doing upstream from town, Palisade Town Administrator Tim Sarmo said.  Sarmo, though, is stymied — again — in his plan to build a whitewater kayak park in the river.  Palisade had hoped to build a whitewater park immediately below the Price-Stubb Diversion Dam at the mouth of De Beque Canyon.

The $2 million price tag to hook onto the Reclamation project was prohibitive, and the town had to back out last summer, so the fish-passage project is moving ahead without it. Palisade officials didn’t give up, though. They found a likely spot above Riverbend Park and set to work, getting the backers who had pledged money for the original idea to stick with them for the next edition.  They got a new kayak-park design, let bids and gathered materials, including boulders gathered up and set down near the river, ready to be dropped in as the leaves browned and the Colorado River’s levels fell.

“If I could get my Army Corps of Engineers permit today,” Sarmo said, “I’d be in the river tomorrow.”

But Palisade must wait.  The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers completed the gathering of comments on Palisade’s project on Nov. 5 and is now evaluating them, said Scott Moore of the Army Corps of Engineers regulatory office in Grand Junction. The work on the whitewater park cannot begin without approval by the corps.

“I realize he’s in a rush” to get the permit, and “we’re trying to do it as quickly as we can,” Moore said of the permit application.  There is no deadline for that work, however, and “there are some natural-resource issues that are challenging” in connection with the whitewater park, Moore said.  The idea of dropping rocks into the river to create some eddies and give the river a bit more velocity in spots hardly strikes Sarmo as a major natural-resource issue, he said. “We are not building Hoover Dam,” Sarmo said, just putting some rocks in the river as part of a plan to make the big bend below 38 Road a bit of a recreational haven. Palisade’s plan calls for a $635,000 water park with vehicle access, parking and other stream-side improvements bringing the bill to about $1 million.

“I can’t think of a more innocuous, less intrusive project than this one,” he said.

Others, however, said they aren’t so sure.  The Grand Valley Irrigation Co. wrote to the Corps of Engineers demanding a full environmental review, and the Colorado Division of Wildlife said it was concerned the park might inhibit the travels of the Colorado pikeminnow and the razorback sucker up and down the river.

“A large influx of human recreation to this area may result in the modification of native fish species behavior as a consequence of human activities,” wrote Ron Velarde, northwest region manager for the wildlife division. “There is little information available that would serve to moderate our concerns for native-fish migration and their propensity to negotiate an area of significant water-based recreation.”

Wildlife officials aren’t opposed to the whitewater park, but they need more information, division spokesman Randy Hampton said.  The division’s concerns could be addressed by more information, he said.  Palisade has worked with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and has addressed its concerns, Sarmo said.  The whitewater park plan includes a triple option for the fish to get past the park, including swimming up the main channel, negotiating a small fish-passage alongside the main current and an entirely separate channel away from the whitewater park features.  He can’t think of anything else to do to meet concerns, Sarmo said. If anything, he said, the whitewater park would strengthen the rationale for releases down the Colorado from Green Mountain Reservoir because they would serve a municipal recreational use.

Sarmo said he appreciates that the federal government has spent more than $17 million to reopen the Colorado River above the Price-Stubb to endangered fish, but he said there is a limit.

“It’s really a very simple project,” he said.

Gary Harmon can be reached via e-mail at gharmon@gjds.com.

Pollution control

Construction could begin next fall on a large sand trap called the “Basin of Last Resort” that is designed to catch sediment in Black Gore Creek before it reaches Gore Creek in Vail. The Colorado Department of Transportation is fully funding the $1.1 million project — good news for groups like the U.S. Forest Service and the Eagle River Watershed Council.

The basin already exists — it just needs to be cleaned out. It’s a deep and flat 3-acre stretch of Black Gore Creek around mile marker 183 in East Vail that’s been trapping sand and slowing downstream pollution ever since I-70 was built.

But more than 61,000 tons of sand have piled to the top of the basin pool and can more easily wash away and settle on the bottom of nearby Gore Creek.

The sand, used to keep icy and snow-packed roads safe in the winter, is now covering insect habitats and harming trout.

Environmental assessments on the project must be finished before it can start.

Tons of sand cleared from interstate

More stream-clogging sand was cleaned than used this year http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20071120/NEWS/71120003

By Matt Terrell eagle county correspondent November 20, 2007

EAGLE COUNTY - More than 13,200 tons of river-clogging traction sand was cleaned-up along Interstate 70 this year between East Vail and Shrine Pass.

That's around double the amount of traction sand actually put down by the Colorado Department of Transportation last winter in that area, said Ken Wissel, a deputy maintenance superintendent for the region.

The sand, which is used to keep icy and snow-packed roads safe during cold weather, has a profound environmental impact. It eventually seeps into Black Gore Creek below the highway, smothers insects, harms fish and eventually settles in Gore Creek, the trout stream that flows through Vail.

Much of the sand is caught in sediment basins along I-70 and Black Gore Creek. The basins though require regular cleaning, or else more sand will end up in the water where it does its damage.

"There's 30 years of sand out there, so there's plenty to clean up," Wissel said.

The sand is one of the major concerns of the Eagle River Watershed Council, a watchdog group that promotes river health in the valley. The council has criticized the Department of Transportation in the past for being sluggish in cleaning up traction sand, but members were impressed with the amount of sand cleaned-up this year.

Much of the cleanup work along the highway this year was done with the GapVax, a giant vacuum truck purchased this year by the department of transportation for the sole purpose of cleaning up sand.

If the Department of Transportation continues to pick up more sand than it puts down, the river is headed for a healthy future, said Arlene Quenon, a board member on the council.

In the worst areas, Black Gore Creek has nearly 40 percent of its bottom covered with sand. Ideally, only about 14 percent should be covered. There's already 150,000 tons of sand in the watershed.

And as sand is cleaned up, biologists will literally be counting bugs to determine if all these cleanup efforts are working.

The Forest Service will collect aquatic insects, measure how much sediment is on the stream bed and measure water pool depths to determine how well cleanup is working. All the measurements will be compared to several much healthier streams in Colorado, which are being used as guideposts in determining Black Gore Creek's quality standards.

The more insects, the better. The deeper the pools, the better. The more Black Gore Creek starts looking like these other rivers, the better.

Staff Writer Matt Terrell can be reached at 748-2955 or mterrell@vaildaily.com.

The native dilemma

Hermosa Creek cutthroat project mixes opinions

On the whole, Durango's angling community is "divided" on the issue, according to Ty Churchwell, vice-president of the local Five Rivers Chapter of Trout Unlimited. http://www.durangotelegraph.com/telegraph.php?inc=/07-11-08/localnews.htm

by Will Sands

The push is on to go native in the headwaters of Hermosa Creek. The Colorado Division of Wildlife and San Juan National Forest are currently working to reverse the local decline of the native Colorado River cutthroat trout. However, the reintroduction effort, which focuses on the drainage's headwaters, has also drawn mixed reviews.

The Colorado River cutthroat, the only trout species native to western Colorado, was abundant in rivers through the mid-1800s. At that time, human settlement arrived in the San Juan Mountains, and the fish were over-harvested. Early residents of the area recognized the need to restore the balance in the Animas, San Juan, Florida and Pine rivers, and they imported rainbow, brook and brown trout from outside the region and began stocking them in the area's waterways. These fish, and particularly the brook trout, eventually outcompeted the native cutthroats, leading to the current situation. Only a few pockets of the original fish remain in the San Juans, and the cutthroats have been designated a Species of Special Concern by the DOW and a Sensitive Species by the Forest Service.

"When you have a combination of species, the brook trout typically outcompete the others," explained Mike Japhet, senior aquatic biologist for the DOW. "If we did nothing, the entire upper Hermosa Creek area would be completely populated by brook trout in a number of years."

The DOW is doing something in the upper Hermosa watershed, however. Faced with the threat of an "endangered" designation from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency is continuing its efforts to bring the native fish back to the San Juan Mountains.

"This project is certainly one that is a high priority," Japhet said. "The Forest Service and DOW have agreed that preventing the listing of this species as ‘endangered' is a good thing to do. It's a situation where an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure."

This ounce of prevention actually got under way in 1992 on the East Fork of Hermosa Creek. At that time, a hold-out population of pure Colorado River cutthroat trout was discovered in a remote stream within the Weminuche Wilderness. The DOW then identified that East Fork of Hermosa Creek, located near Purgatory, as an ideal stream to reintroduce the natives. More than a decade later, that population is now flourishing.

"The project on East Hermosa Creek is doing very well," Japhet said. "It's a very stable, very robust population of cutthroats up there."

That 1992 discovery also led to the creation of a Weminuche strain of Colorado River cutthroat trout. Spawn taken from that original discovery has been used to establish a brood stock at the Durango fish hatchery. Since 2005, fingerlings from that stock have been seeded into remote streams and high-mountain lakes throughout the region. Now the DOW plans to stock the native fingerlings into another stretch of Hermosa Creek - 4 miles of the stream's upper reaches above Hotel Draw.

Japhet explained that the upper Hermosa Creek drainage offers the DOW a unique opportunity to restore the natives in close proximity to the East Fork population. With the current project, the agency will reintroduce the fish into 4 miles of upper Hermosa Creek and 1 mile of Corral Creek. To accomplish this, the Forest Service recently built a five-foot waterfall barrier on the stream to isolate the new fish from other trout and potential predation.

Next summer, the stretches will be treated with rotenone, a short-lived botanical pesticide, to kill the existing, healthy population of mixed trout species. Widely used for the last 80 years, rotenone does not harm other species and breaks down completely within 48 hours. Thirty days after the application, the fingerlings will be introduced and special regulations will be implemented to protect the fledgling population.

Though the introduction is intended to be beneficial, it has drawn criticism and split the local flyfishing community. Some have criticized the DOW for destroying one population of fish to create another. Another group of anglers has said that the project will harm their ability to fish on a favorite stretch of water.

On the whole, Durango's angling community is "divided" on the issue, according to Ty Churchwell, vice-president of the local Five Rivers Chapter of Trout Unlimited.

"We can't even come up with a uniform opinion about the project amongst our board," he said. "We took a straw poll at our last meeting, and we don't have strong consensus in one direction or another and can't make a formal statement about the reintroduction."

However, for his part, Churchwell strongly advocates the reintroduction and restoring a local section of stream to the conditions of 125 years ago. "My personal opinion is that I am all for it," he said. "I'd like to see things restored to native genetics as closely as possible. This is a section that the public will be able to drive to, fish and catch a cutthroat trout that is as genetically pure as possible."

Churchwell and Japhet also disputed the claims that the reintroduction will damage the Durango fishing experience. They noted that local anglers have hundreds of miles of stream at their disposal and can readily fish the 23-mile stretch of lower Hermosa Creek as well as countless other similar streams.

"There are so many people who love to fish up there, and they don't care what kind of trout they catch," Churchwell said. "But there are also hundreds of miles of stream just like that in the San Juans, and we're talking about reintroducing natives on one little section."

Japhet added that the project is about reestablishing the viability of an animal species. He asked that anglers endure a temporary disruption in recreation to help accomplish a greater goal.

"We're certainly sensitive to the fact that people are concerned about impacts to their recreational fishing," he said. "But we feel like the short-term disruption will be far outweighed by the benefits of enhancing the habitat and creating a new area for people to fish for these natives. When you restore a native species, it's a win-win for everyone." •

Bureau of Land Misuse

Drilling on Roan could negatively affect wildlife

Trout Unlimited is concerned that "development could result in impacts that would severely harm or even wipe out the sensitive populations of Colorado River cutthroat trout on the Roan," said Corey Fisher, energy field coordinator for Trout Unlimited.   http://www.gjsentinel.com/hp/content/sports/stories/2007/11/14/111407_db_OUT_roan_WWW.html    

By DAVE BUCHANAN The Daily Sentinel Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Bruce Gordon banked his small plane and stared down at a line of drill pads marching across the top of the Roan Plateau. Gordon's attention was fixed at the sight of the six scars on the plateau's winter-bare landscape, an umbilical road tying them together like knots on a rope, each one edging along an unnamed ridge toward the westernmost edge of the Naval Oil Shale Reserve.

"I can't believe it," said Gordon, the lead pilot and president of EcoFlight, a wildlands conservation group based in Aspen. "I flew over here earlier this summer and there's so much more development now. It's like a land rush."

Gordon was leading one of his group's semi-regular trips across the Roan Plateau, giving various public groups the rare opportunity to see first-hand the level of development happening up there.

As energy development continues to ravage parts of western Colorado, and in particular creep closer to the still-unmarked top of the Roan Plateau, more voices are expressing opposition to the Bureau of Land Management's energy leasing policies.

"The BLM is becoming a single-use agency," said Ron Velarde, northwest region manager for the Colorado Division of Wildlife. "I don't blame the energy companies, I blame the BLM for letting this happen on our public lands."

Trout Unlimited is concerned that "development could result in impacts that would severely harm or even wipe out the sensitive populations of Colorado River cutthroat trout on the Roan," said Corey Fisher, energy field coordinator for Trout Unlimited. He quoted a BLM analysis that said effects could be irreversible, "especially those that eliminate genetically unique resources ... such as genetically pure Colorado River cutthroat trout."

While most of the drilling around and on the Roan Plateau is occurring on private land, some is being done on public lands around the base of the plateau. Some interests have written off the bottom of the cliffs as a quasi-sacrifice zone to energy development, but the DOW is quick to differ.

"The base of the plateau is critical (big game) winter range," DOW spokesman Randy Hampton told Daily Sentinel reporter Bobby Magill. "If (the energy companies) hammer the bottom, there won't be any wildlife on top."

Still, much of the focus now is on preserving what little unmarred habitat remains on the top of the plateau. The federal lands up there haven't yet been leased, although that may occur as soon as late next summer.

Wildlife managers, hunters, anglers and conservationists all know that once the BLM opens the plateau to drilling, the effects from development will forever change the Roan Plateau.

The best option, obviously, would be to disallow any energy development in the still untouched parts of the Roan, but that's unlikely to happen.

What critics of the drilling would like to see is moderation, a slow staging of the development so effects could be properly addressed. Stipulations and restrictions could address such problems as controlling runoff, habitat fragmentation, and loss of public access before they happen.

And, Velarde emphasized, these are public lands, no matter how often that point is overlooked by pro-development interests.

However, once the development begins, the constant traffic, noise and disturbance compromise wildlife and recreational uses to where the land becomes a industrial zone and little else.

Part of the 73,600 acres of federal land on the plateau won't be developed, said BLM spokesman David Boyd. Some of it is too steep or in riparian areas and some of it is managed with NSO (no surface occupancy) restrictions.

"Nothing on the top of the plateau is closed to leasing but a little less than half of it is NSO," Boyd said. That means in order to extract the gas, a company has to use off-site directional drilling.

Other restrictions Boyd listed from the BLM's Roan management plan include "staging" the development along the ridge lines and making sure one well pad is finished and reclamation is under way before another pad can be started.

Of the leasable federal lands, approximately 34,758 acres, only 1 percent can be disturbed at any one time, Boyd said.

"We think most of the development will be accessible by existing roads but some of the roads probably will have to be improved," Boyd said. "We think this will motivate them to reclaim things more quickly."

But it's the cumulative effects that cause the most concern for sportsmen and conservationists.

It's long-lasting effects on water, wildlife and air quality. A clear day is rare in western Garfield County because of the dusty haze from constant traffic on gravel and dirt roads. A glance last week at upper Parachute Creek revealed clouds of dust reminiscent of nuclear bomb tests 50 years ago.

Uncontrolled runoff from well pads and roads could damage or destroy isolated populations of cutthroat trout, especially if development reaches down the sides of the ridges.

"The key is to protect the watersheds from ridge top to ridge top," Fisher said. "Gas development (currently) is not precluded in headwaters of the (cutthroat) stream reaches."

Velarde said the 1 percent disturbance limit and requiring mitigation on pads before others are built might soothe some of the DOW's concerns.

"But if they are able to drill all over the Roan Plateau, we have problems," he said.

A provision introduced by Reps. Mark Udall and John Salazar in the House-approved version of the 2007 Energy Bill includes NSO restrictions across the top of the plateau while allowing off-site (directional) drilling to tap the resources below.

As Gordon's small plane flew across the plateau's well-drilled south face, his guests looked down on a couple of new, biggie-sized well pads at the base of the cliffs, where two rigs were working side-by-side. Someone remembered that Williams Energy RMT recently announced its plans to start cluster drilling.

Gordon sighed and headed his plane for home.

"It's a cluster all right," he observed.

Small stream cause of big fuss in state

The Upper Ark district protested the expansion of the Badger Creek water right at a March meeting of the CWCB in Canon City. In the months since, Assistant Attorney General Amy Stengel and Trout Unlimited attorney Drew Peternell have argued that no augmentation water rights are at risk by increasing the in-stream flow rate to 5.5 cubic feet per second (about 3.5 million gallons a day) from the current 3 cfs (about 1.9 million gallons a day). http://www.chieftain.com/metro/1194623125/8

By CHRIS WOODKA THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN

A small stream in western Fremont County is causing a big ruckus as the state ponders expansion of a water right to protect its flows.

Expanding the water right on Badger Creek, a 30-mile-long stream near Howard, to include higher flows is supported by the Bureau of Land Management, Colorado Department of Wildlife, Trout Unlimited and other environmental groups.

The move is opposed by the Upper Arkansas Water Conservancy District, which says increasing protected flows for Badger Creek could impede augmentation plans for future wells in unspecified locations.

The Colorado Water Conservation Board, the agency which approves in-stream flows, will consider the Badger Creek issue again at its meeting next week. A three-hour block for a hearing is scheduled to begin at 3:30 p.m. Nov. 14, at the Golden Hotel, 800 11th St., Golden.

The Upper Ark district protested the expansion of the Badger Creek water right at a March meeting of the CWCB in Canon City. In the months since, Assistant Attorney General Amy Stengel and Trout Unlimited attorney Drew Peternell have argued that no augmentation water rights are at risk by increasing the in-stream flow rate to 5.5 cubic feet per second (about 3.5 million gallons a day) from the current 3 cfs (about 1.9 million gallons a day).

"We don't think there is that much water there every year," said Terry Scanga, general manager of the Upper Ark district. "All we're asking for is that they provide a number that won't take the whole flow."

Upper Ark said its augmentation plan incorporates a flow of 0.25 cfs (about 160,000 gallons a day) and suggested a "variable decree" that would account for that amount, Scanga said.

"I guess it's a matter of when is enough, enough, to maintain a good habitat?" Scanga said.

Stengel, in her brief to the CWCB, says the state's calculations of the flow of the creek show that the flow of Badger Creek exceeds the Upper Ark's potential domestic water supply requirements more than half of the time, with roughly enough water to sustain 117-900 homes, depending on lawn irrigation.

Beyond the simple water availability, however, the state said the water would preserve a natural environment in a 17-mile reach of the stream below a perennial spring. The Upper Ark also has not demonstrated how the proposed state water right would injure its right, Stengel said.

"The subject reach of Badger Creek is an exceptionally pristine section of stream supporting a thriving brown trout population," Stengel wrote, adding that 90 percent of the stream is on public land.

In its statement, Trout Unlimited pointed out the expansion of the in-stream flow would be junior to existing rights held by the Upper Ark.

"It's speculative. What they're really doing is protecting future growth in the upper reaches of Badger Creek," Peternell said. "The Upper Ark is protecting hypothetical future users, but this does nothing to injure their water right."

The Upper Ark is arguing the stream is intermittent in stretches, even below the spring, which is disputed by the Division of Wildlife and Trout Unlimited.

Reed Dils of the Collegiate Peaks Chapter of Trout Unlimited said there are occasions when flash floods move debris to some sections of the stream and temporarily "bury" them, but the flows of Badger Creek soon cut the channel again. A big flood in 2004 disrupted part of the stream, but Dils was able to find fish above and below the point before and after it reopened.

"It's an extraordinary place, and an in-stream flow is needed," Dils said.

The BLM has worked for years with Fremont County residents to protect the public lands on Badger Creek by cleaning up the area and restricting motor vehicle access.

What’s worse than an unethical hunter?

 Writers on the Range - by Pat Wray All-terrain vehicles aren't good or bad in themselves; it's all about context. When my son was lost for an entire night in the mountains of northeast Oregon, search and rescue volunteers from Union County showed up on their ATVs and set out to bring him home. I was never so glad to see machinery in my life. They helped find him later that morning.

Then there are those other occasions. A few years ago, I was slogging through deep snow near the Malheur River east of Juntura, Ore., in search of chukars -- Eurasian partridges -- when I heard the distinctive growl of ATVs. I looked up to see two of them cresting a hill above me.

I had a bad feeling about their presence in a place with no established trails. My concern was proven justified a few minutes later when I cut across their track. The two machines had simply driven straight uphill from the river, taking advantage of the deep snow to drive on top of sagebrush and bunchgrasses. The weight of the machines crushed the sagebrush, leaving a trail of shattered branches and trunks. Where the snow was shallow, tires had cut through to the soil, gouging it out and spraying it across the snow.

By the time I headed back that evening, the ATVs were gone. They had, for the most part, followed the same track down the hill. At least they hadn't carved a new track across the virgin desert, but their second trip completed the destruction of the sagebrush, breaking it down so completely that when the snow melted, it would no longer be high enough to prevent ATV travel. Predictably, ATV drivers began using the track regularly, and now it is a deeply rutted scar from which hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds of dirt washes directly toward the Malheur River.

Another time, after I had killed an elk near Enterprise, Ore., and was hiking back to my vehicle to pick up a backpack to begin hauling the meat, I met the rancher who owned the land on which I'd been hunting, and he offered to help bring the animal out -- an offer I quickly accepted. We hauled the elk up to an established trail, loaded it onto his ATV trailer and pulled it back to his house. The rancher and his machine saved me four roundtrip hikes of three miles each. It would have taken me a long, exhausting day.

Last year was a different experience. I was hunting chukars on the Owyhee River down in southeastern Oregon. I came up out of the canyon far from any road and worked along the rim into the wind with my pointer, Sadie. The dog became almost immediately "birdy" and began moving slowly and carefully. Her careful approach didn't help. A covey of 25 birds flushed almost 100 yards away and bailed off into the canyon. Bad luck, I thought. Two hundred yards later, a second covey of similar size flushed wild, this time nearly 125 yards away. Over the next mile the same thing happened again and again.

Then I found the cause: ATV tracks running along the canyon rim. Hunters using ATVs were busting through the desert, creating their own trails so they didn't have to walk while they hunted some of the best chukar ground in North America. And it was flat! What incredible laziness! The birds had been harassed into a level of paranoia I'd not seen anywhere else in the state, even where hunter numbers were much higher.

It's true that most of the habitat damage done by ATVs isn't caused by hunters, but by a small percentage of recreational riders. Their concept of the outdoors is a warped desire for a place where they can go fast without regard for laws or for anyone else around them. But hunters are far from innocent. Far too many have made the unethical use of ATVs the linchpin of their hunting experience, and instead of confining their driving to established trails as the laws require, they've succumbed to the lure of the easy way.

"The hill is too steep, I'll just make my own trail." "I'll just ride along until the dogs point the birds. Then I'll get out and walk." In following rationalizations like this, they damage both the game animals they pursue and the land on which wildlife depends.

In their slimy devotion to laziness, these hunters make one thing crystal-clear: The only thing worse than an unethical hunter is an unethical hunter on an ATV. And hunters like that are too stupid to know what they have lost.

Pat Wray is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org). He is an avid hunter and outdoor writer who lives in Corvallis, Oregon.

House Passes Mining Reform, White House Threatens Veto

By Brodie Farquhar, 11-01-07 (From NewWest.net) The House voted 244-166 to reform a 135-year-old mining law Thursday afternoon, and force the hardrock mining industry to pay royalties on minerals extracted from public lands – just like the coal, oil and gas industries.

The Hardrock Mining and Reclamation Act (HR 2262) requires miners on federal lands to pay royalties of 8 percent of gross income on new mining operations, four percent on existing operations.

Republicans like Rep. Bill Sali of Idaho, predicted that the bill will destroy the American mining industry, exporting jobs and the industry to overseas countries that have little or no environmental regulations and have child labor in the mines.

The White House has threatened a veto, saying that placement of royalties on existing mining operations invites lawsuits. The House vote is not big enough to override the threatened veto.

“The bill approved today by the House falls far short of the reforms we have worked hard to achieve to provide a fair return to the taxpayer for the use of federal lands and greater regulatory certainty,” said National Mining Association (NMA) President and CEO Kraig R. Naasz. “The enormous costs that would be imposed on the hardrock mining industry by the bill and the failure to provide mining companies with greater security when operating on federal lands will only increase the nation’s growing reliance on imported minerals vital to our economy and our national defense.”

In contrast, conservationists were ecstatic over the win.

“Today the U.S. Congress takes an important step towards updating one of the last remaining laws that gives away our public lands and minerals,“ said Stephen D’Esposito, president of EARTHWORKS, which has long advocated reform of the 1872 mining law. “Although the law was passed before women could vote and long before the advent of national environmental laws, it still governs mining for precious minerals – such as gold, copper and uranium – on public lands.”

Before the final vote Thursday afternoon, the House voted on a number of procedural bills and motions, including seven amendments – five from Republican members. From the first Thursday vote to the last, the Democratic majority lost only one vote, but attracted the support of 24 Republicans – most from the East or MidWest.

Out in New West country, the voting was strictly by party line, although Rep. Barbara Cubin, R-Wyoming, didn’t vote all week, due to the ill health of her husband.

Of the Democratic congressmen who spoke in favor of the bill, Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Colorado, expressed a few reservations, but overall endorsed the idea of reform. His district includes Golden, home of the Colorado School of Mines and several hardrock mining companies.

Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., chairman of the powerful House Natural Resources Committee, has been trying to reform the 1872 mining law for the past 20 years. With half a million abandoned mines scattered across the country and an estimated $30-70 billion price tag on environmental remediation, Rahall compared the old mining law to grand scale bank robbery. Indeed, Rahall said, the greatest bank robberies of history are “chump change” compared to the rip-off that the U.S. taxpayer has experienced over the past 135 years.

During floor debate, Rahall noted that David H. Bieter, the mayor of Boise, Idaho had written Rahall a letter, complaining that the city was “powerless” to protect the city’s source of drinking water from a Canadian mining company’s heap-leach cyanide operation.

“Over the years, the Mining Law of 1872 has helped develop the West and allowed needed minerals to be extracted from the Earth - but we have long passed the time when this 19th century law can be depended upon to serve the country’s 21st century mineral needs,” Rahall said. “At stake here are the health, welfare, and environmental integrity of our people and our precious federal lands, the public interest of all Americans, and the future of the hardrock mining industry in this country.”

Current law permits multi-national conglomerates to stake mining claims on federal lands in the 11 western states and Alaska and to produce valuable hardrock minerals such as gold, silver, and copper without paying any royalty to the public. Further, the law contains no mining and reclamation standards, and provides for claimed lands to be sold for between $2.50 and $5.00 an acre.

Laren Pagel, a lobbyist for EARTHWORKS, said even the mining industry admits what some degree of reform is warranted, and there is bipartisan support for reform in the Senate.

“We just don’t know what that would look like,” she said.

What is clear is that Senate action on reforming the nation’s basic mining law will start in the Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee. Chaired by Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico and with Sen. Pete Dominici as the ranking member, the committee is heavily stocked with Western senators – eight Democratic and four Republican members, from the Western states of New Mexico, Wyoming, Colorado, South and North Dakota, Hawaii, Alaska, Oregon, Washington, Montana and Idaho.

“It’ll probably be next year before we see any action in the Senate,” said Pagel.

Final mining reform bill voting in the House Montana * Dennis Rehberg-R: No Idaho * Bill Sali–R: No * Mike Simpson – R: No Wyoming * Barbara Cubin – R: Absent Colorado * Diana DeGrette – D: Yes * Mark Udall – D: Yes * John Salazar – D: Yes * Marilyn Musgrave – R: No * Doug Lamborn – R: No * Tom Tancredo – R: No * Ed Perlmutter – D: Yes Oregon * David Wu – D: Yes * Greg Walden – R: No * Earl Blumenau – D: Yes * Peter DeFazio – D: Yes * Darlene Hooley – D: No Utah * Rob Bishop – R: No * Jim Matheson – D: Yes * Chris Cannon – R: No New Mexico * Heather Wilson – R: No * Stevan Pearce – R: No * Tom Udall – D: Yes Nevada * Shelli Berkley – D: Yes * Dean Heller – R: No * Jon Porter – R: No

Reed, Hunt work to curtail drilling that threatens cutthroat trout

By Charlie MeyersThe Denver Post

Article Last Updated: 10/06/2007 09:15:20 PM MDT

IDAHO FALLS, IDAHO - It is more than mere commitment that connects these trout conservationists, north and south. More than native trout restoration, more than roadless protection, more than battles against the relentless hum of off-road- vehicles. More, even, than the stench of oil and gas.

When Tom Reed leaves his home in Bozeman, Mont., to fight the infidels in Montana and Wyoming, it's always with a glance back down the continent toward Golden, where he was born and where his parents still live.

From Chris Hunt's perch in Idaho Falls, he often can sail southward to Colorado, where he grew up in Littleton and gained his degree at Western State.

Now here's the strange part, another of those links that keeps winding through the passions of the people who seek to protect trout and other wild things in a time of rampant development: Hunt worked as a college intern at the Gunnison Country Times newspaper. Reed was his editor.

Their paths took separate turns - Hunt to various jobs at small southern Colorado papers before joining Trout Unlimited, Reed through deeper curves to the National Outdoor Leadership School in Lander, Wyo., then as information supervisor of Wyoming Game and Fish, then to TU.

Having come full circle, they now find themselves standing at the same streamside, preaching a gospel of moderation against drilling platforms that threaten both rare cutthroat trout and the downstream watersheds that harbor rainbows and browns.

Reed, who carries a nebulous title - backcountry organizer - spends much of his time on rampant energy issues in both states.

"Drilling is the major thing, but secondarily it's the impact of all the housing development associated with it," he says.

Reed's current preoccupation also includes a campaign to bring Wyoming water law into the 21st century as a way to boost in-stream flows, much like a similar initiative in an equally backward Colorado.

"We're working on a lot of things. We work hard on it," Reed says.

As director of TU's public lands initiative, Hunt's endeavor takes him all over the West. Not surprising, much of his attention focuses on oil and gas - from Colorado's Roan Plateau to a fresh wave of leases in Montana on the Beaverhead and the Clark Fork of the Yellowstone.

"That's the issue connecting everything we're doing. The Bureau of Land Management is becoming much more aggressive in its leasing policy. Instead of the usual pattern of issuing leases every four months, they're now down to two."

Trout Unlimited's endeavors in the northern Rockies include other connections, much closer to home. Matt Woodard, Hunt's neighbor in Idaho Falls, works as TU's project manager on an initiative to maintain populations of indigenous large-spotted cutthroat trout on the Snake River below Palisades Dam.

"I'm a valley native. I fished all over this country since I was a kid," said Woodard, a TU employee since 2001.

As he says this, Woodard holds the oars of a drift boat on the Snake's 10,000-cubic- foot-per-second crest, a liquid platform that makes rowing, and fishing, less than easy.

But it's what happens at an earlier time on the Snake that holds Wood- ard's concern. His primary focus is to keep rainbow trout from degrading the historic cutthroat habitat below Palisades Reservoir. To that end he works in concert with Idaho Game and Fish and the local TU chapter to stifle rainbow spawning, to promote more advantageous flows, improve habitat and remove as many adult rainbows as possible to curtail hybridization.

"This is one of the great populations of Yellowstone cutthroat left in the wild," Woodard said. "It's certainly worth saving them."

That's the sort of commitment that trout lovers everywhere can understand.

New temp standards set to protect trout

Global warming a wild card in new rules, experts say

http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20071004/NEWS/71004014 

By BOB BERWYN summit daily news October 4, 2007 BRECKENRIDGE — Along with monitoring concentrations of toxic pollutants like heavy metals from leaky mines, local streams will also soon be subject to strict temperature standards. After a rigorous scientific process, the state is adopting new rules to protect fish and other aquatic life by setting maximum temperatures.

The idea is to make sure that impacts like discharges from water treatment plants and urban runoff don’t kill fish, or impair their ability to reproduce.

Temperature standards are important because the body temperature of fish basically matches the temperature of the surrounding water, said U.S. Geological Survey research biologist Andrew Todd.

Trout and other species have evolved and spawn under very specific temperature conditions and don’t have a mechanism to adapt to temperature changes in the short-term, Todd said, speaking Wednesday during a water quality summit in Breckenridge.

“When we introduce heat, we disrupt metabolic and reproductive functions,” Todd said.

A number of factors can affect stream temperatures, including sunshine, shading from stream-side vegetation, stream flows and water quantity, as well as direct discharges from point sources like factories and treatment plants.

The latter are less of a factor in the High Country, but increased urbanization around local streams and runoff from paved areas, as well as diversions for snowmaking and other needs, could conceivably influence water temperature in Summit County.

The biggest wild card in the deck is air temperature, which is beyond human control.

Given recent climbing temperature trends associated with climate change, it’s not clear how the state’s new rules will be effective in stemming any potential impacts from global warming.

But as they now stand, the temperature standards are stringent enough to protect even cutthroat trout, most sensitive of the trout species.

“Cutthroat trout drove the setting of the table-value standards,” Todd said, adding that 85 percent of the state’s cold-water streams qualify as cutthroat trout habitat.

Todd explained that the existing standards, set in 1978, were not considered to be scientifically defensible, and that the rules lacked any clear mechanism for enforcement and implementation.

The new temperature limits were determined after scrutinizing hundreds of scientific studies based mainly on laboratory work.

Todd said the rules include criteria for acute conditions (peak temperatures that can kill fish within days), and for chronic conditions — warm temperatures that, over a longer period, can impair reproduction and growth.

The limits also take into account seasonal spawning requirements and are broken down for different types of fisheries, from high mountain trout streams to lowland ponds and rivers with habitat for completely different species.

The rules cover eight cold-water species and 43 warm-water species.

Even these new protective limits may not be adequate to fully protect the resource in the long run, Todd said, explaining that the rules, for example, don’t cover thermal shock, a very sudden change in temperature that can kill fish in a short time.

The state may address that issue during a future round of rulemaking in 2010, he concluded.

The Breckenridge conference included tours of local river restoration projects, streams impacted by mine drainage and other presentations on watershed planning and water quality.

It brought together groups like the Colorado Watershed Assembly, the Colorado Watershed Network and the Colorado Riparian Association.

Local activist Sandy Briggs said the conference was a great networking opportunity, and that he was surprised that no local government officials attended, as far as he knew.

A presentation Tuesday evening by Rocky Mountain Regional Forester Rick Cables focused on the important role of forest health in watershed protection, a crucial issue in Summit County’s beetle-stricken and potentially fire-prone forests.