“We continue to believe the outstanding resources on the Roan deserve full protection,” said Dave Nickum, executive director of one of the organizations, Colorado Trout Unlimited. “We support this bill as an important step forward in protecting key habitat on the Roan, including native cutthroat watersheds.”
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2008/04/17/041808_1a_roan.html
By Andy Vuong and John Ingold The Denver Post
Ken Neubecker, a Carbondale resident and president of Colorado Trout Unlimited, said the erosion into a waterway is "basically one of our worst fears from this kind of development."
By Katie LoobySky-Hi Daily News April 10, 2008
“We have to be really careful about any sediment getting in the water,” Klancke said. “We live on an extremely depleted river. The more water you remove from the river, the less velocity the river has and the less capability of carrying sediment.”
Sediment covers spawning beds and smothers bug life, he said.
“It really has killed off the aquatic habitat,” Klancke said. “You just can’t cover a habitat without killing everything in that habitat. … Trout won’t lay eggs in anything but gravel.”
http://www.skyhidailynews.com/article/20080410/NEWS/886432213
BY BOB BERWYNsummit daily news
A toxic brew of heavy metals has long been seeping from the mine’s shafts and tunnels, poisoning the water far downstream. Experts say there is no direct human health risk associated with the acid mine drainage. But concentrations of zinc are high enough to kill trout and other aquatic life several miles away at Keystone.
“This project could benefit from a Superfund designation,” said Elizabeth Russell, Trout Unlimited’s project manager for the cleanup.
http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20080319/NEWS/265889981/0/FRONTPAGE
Impacts of 1.2 million gallons of drilling mud in stream drainage not yet known
RIFLE—Accidental spills of at least 1.2 million gallons of industrial drilling mud into Garden Gulch and eventually West Parachute Creek on the Roan Plateau demonstrate the importance of protecting the Roan’s sensitive watersheds containing native Colorado River cutthroat trout from future industrial drilling, according to Sportsmen for the Roan Plateau, a coalition of hunters, anglers and sporting organizations from all over Colorado.
“Accidents unfortunately happen, and we’re lucky this spill didn’t occur in a more sensitive drainage that contains important populations of native cutthroat trout,” said Corey Fisher, a field coordinator for Trout Unlimited and a member of the coalition. “This just makes it all the more important to carefully approach the development of the Roan, particularly those portions that contain irreplaceable habitat for fish and wildlife and, by extension, hunters and anglers. What’s more, it highlights weaknesses within existing federal energy regulations that need to be shored up, and shored up quickly.”
Fisher referenced existing laws that exempt the energy industry from stormwater runoff regulations within the federal Clean Water Act. Had industry not been exempt, it’s possible more care would have been taken with the fluids on the sites of the spills, and they would not have been allowed to enter the stream drainage.
In total, four separate spills occurred on private land on the western portion of the Roan Plateau. While drilling is occurring within the Roan Plateau Planning Area, there is no drilling where genetically pure Colorado River cutthroat trout live in Trapper Creek, Northwater Creek and the East Fork of Parachute Creek, all of which eventually end up in the Colorado River. However, the Bureau of Land Management has announced plans to lease and drill the planning area, and its own documents predict an acute impact on those native fish populations. The planning area is also home to trophy deer and elk herds, as well as healthy populations of ruffed grouse, blue grouse and huntable populations of black bear and mountain lion.
“These large spills should completely dispel any notion that natural gas drilling can be done in sensitive wildlife habitat without the risk of an accident that causes drastic harm,” said Suzanne O’Neill, executive director of the Colorado Wildlife Federation. “If an area of the Roan Plateau rim has to be drilled at all, it should be limited to an area where a spill would present the least amount of risk to wildlife, such as Corral Ridge outside of cutthroat trout watersheds.”
The spills were announced by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission on Thursday—two were reported to the commission, and two were not. The spills took place between November 2007 and February 2008. Apparently, the largest spill of about 30,000 barrels of drilling mud—or 1.2 million gallons—occurred in Garden Gulch, a tributary to the West Fork of Parachute Creek. According to the commission, some of the spilled mud is still frozen in a waterfall.
“Drilling mud is really more of a mixture of water or oils and certain other contents, like bentonite or barite, as well as other unknown chemicals,” said John Trammell, a geologist by trade and a member of Grand Valley Anglers in Grand Junction. His organization has put thousands of volunteer hours and invested thousands of dollars into a project on Trapper Creek to protect the stream’s headwaters, which provide critical spawning and rearing habitat for native trout. “Barite gives the ‘mud’ weight, and bentonite is expandable clay that fills in fissures and seals formations. The other ingredients area usually proprietary and depend on the energy company.”
Of particular interest to sportsmen, Trammell said, is the bentonite, which, when released in large amounts, can coat the bottom of a trout stream, smothering spawning gravels and kill off insects on which trout feed. The other ingredients in the concoction, while unknown, “are certainly not things you want in a trout stream.”
Efforts by sportsmen continue, not only to protect the Roan, but to reform federal energy regulations that allow the industry to skirt stormwater runoff rules that apply to other industrial operations.
“We need better energy legislation from Congress,” Fisher said. “We can develop our oil and gas resources responsibly, but the industry needs to be held accountable to elementary clean water and clean air laws. After all, water flows downhill, and while fish and game are the immediate victims of accidents like this, people will eventually be affected, too.”
Additionally, according to David Nickum, executive director of Colorado Trout Unlimited, the spills should demonstrate the need to move forward with an ongoing rulemaking effort that would govern how the state Oil and Gas Conservation Commission reviews energy drilling within Colorado.
“The pace and scale of development now being experienced, and the increased movement into areas of higher environmental significance, makes it vital that Colorado take a hard look at the rules and update them to ensure public health, fish and wildlife, and other key values are protected,” he said.
The potential recreational and environmental effects of the planned Southern Delivery System pipeline from Pueblo Dam to Colorado Springs will be the topic under discussion at the March 13 meeting of Trout Unlimited in Pueblo. Drew Peternell, Colorado Trout Unlimited’s lawyer and the Director of the Colorado Water Project, will address concerns about the pipeline as it is currently presented in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement. See Southern Delivery System EIS. This is an important meeting to the future of recreation on the AK River through Pueblo! Please attend, if at all possible!
THURSDAY, March 13, 7:00 p.m.
Jones-Healy Realty, 119 W. 6th, Pueblo
Everyone welcome - FREE to the public. Donate a raffle item to defray chapter expenses
Kirk Klancke, local river health advocate, likened the tunnel to “a big hole in the ground that can leach heavy metals.”http://www.skyhidailynews.com/article/20080305/NEWS/214229235
A small population of Colorado River cutthroat on the Roan Plateau will receive some much-needed attention this summer, but it’s still a mystery where some of the money for the project is coming from. http://www.gjsentinel.com/hp/content/sports/stories/2008/03/04/030508_OUT_trapper_creek_WWW.html
http://www.postindependent.com/article/20080213/VALLEYNEWS/98654861
Staff Report
Glenwood Springs, CO Colorado
February 13, 2008
CARBONDALE — Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter named Ken Neubecker, a Carbondale resident and vice president of Colorado Trout Unlimited, to a newly created state group called the Colorado Forest Health Advisory Council.
The multi-agency group will help “coordinate and lead efforts to address the mountain pine beetle epidemic” and other threats to forest lands in Colorado, according to a statement from the governor’s office.
“Colorado’s forests are vital to our environment, to our communities, to our economy and to our overall quality of life,” Ritter said in a prepared statement. “But our forests are at risk, and one of the biggest risks is the mountain pine beetle. This epidemic has decimated more than 1.5 million acres of mature lodge-pole pines over the past decade and could wipe them out in another three to five years.”
The council will develop a short-term action plan and will address many issues, including the implementation of priorities identified in community wildfire protection plans, methods to encourage establishment of forest improvement districts, and implementation of landscape-scale stewardship projects. The council will also establish long-term strategies for sustainable forest health that will address a “state-wide vision to protect communities from fire and restore forest health,” according to the governor’s statement.
The council will report back to the governor and the legislature annually. If recommendations require legislative action, those recommendations will be submitted by Oct. 1 prior to the January start of the legislative session, according to the statement.
Harris Sherman, executive director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, and Jeff Jahnke, state forester and director of the Colorado State Forest Service, will co-chair the council.
When Gov. Bill Ritter made a proposal late last year urging the Bureau of Land Management to expand protection of the Roan, it was with full understanding that he had no real authority to make it stick. Which makes one wonder why an avowed wildlife-friendly governor wouldn't ask for the broader safeguards the habitat really deserves, if for no other reason than good public relations.
After all, his counterparts to the north and south — Dave Freudenthal in Wyoming and Bill Richardson in New Mexico — had made what seemed like grandstand plays on resource protection involving federal oil and gas leasing and pulled it off.
The Roan issue involves 67,000 acres of public land sought for lease by various energy companies in concert with a massive leasing initiative in the fading months of the George W. Bush administration.
Ritter's request to increase the Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC) excluded an important refuge for a remnant population of Colorado River cutthroat trout on Northwater Creek, a puzzling omission considering the Division of Wildlife is busily promoting restoration of this threatened species.
It should be noted that Roan public lands represent just 1.5 percent of the land base in the greater Piceance Basin. Further, half the BLM's Roan Plateau Planning Area already is owned or leased by the natural gas industry. Drilling already is occurring on many of these lands.
"We would have liked Gov. Ritter's proposal to be more protective," said Chris Hunt of Trout Unlimited. "Why Northwater Creek isn't included is a mystery."
The overall thrust by the omnibus group Sportsmen for the Roan Plateau is for balance. The notion is that preserving this relatively small part of Colorado's Western Slope would help bring at least some measure of environmental equilibrium to an area already torn apart by energy development.
"They can get to 80 percent of the gas without disturbing the ridges or key watersheds," Hunt said.
It might be argued that the Roan — and other energy-rich areas around the nation — was toast when the nation pulled the lever for George W. Bush more than three years ago. Politicians almost always choose their fading term to repay the most contentious campaign debts without fear of retribution from an electorate denied the use of tar and feathers.
One potential avenue for Trout Unlimited and other wildlife groups is to file a lawsuit that might stall Roan leasing pending a change in administration in Washington.
While the state of Colorado has no official leverage in the granting of BLM leases, it isn't without clout when it comes to enforcing certain regulations concerning the impact of energy development on public health, safety and welfare.
Last year, the Colorado General Assembly passed legislation requiring the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to revise its rules by July 1, 2008, to reflect these concerns, as well as set standards to minimize impacts on wildlife resources.
Through this process, sportsmen have the opportunity to comment or endorse the guidelines established by the Colorado Wildlife Federation and Colorado Mule Deer Association and endorsed by Trout Unlimited.
Submit these to: COGCC Rulemaking, c/o Department of Natural Resources, 1313 Sherman St. Room 718, Denver, CO 80203.
