An Overview of the Roan Plateau

Field & Stream The Roan Plateau in western Colorado is the “line in the sand” for the Western sportsman who values intact fish and wildlife habitat and a unique sporting opportunity amidst a sea of industrial development. The Roan, which comprises only one percent of the entire Piceance Basin Gas Field, rests above significant reserves of natural gas, but also provides refuge for trophy mule deer, elk, grouse, bear, mountain lion and pure strains of Colorado River cutthroat trout.

http://www.fieldandstream.com/blogs/finding-deer-hunt/2010/07/overview-roan-plateau

Exploring Colorado's Roan Plateau: Day One

Field & Stream

I went back to the Roan with Field and Stream, some great photographers from Brooklyn, and some guys from Trout Unlimited who have been fighting for this place for over a decade now. We all wanted to spend some days way up high, wander the rugged canyons that crisscross the plateau and shelter the monster bull elk that have made it famous and catch a few native Colorado cutthroats in the shadowed cathedrals of stone and water. It was not a trip to experience what might soon be lost. It was a trip to see and feel what is still truly worth fighting for. In a world that seems haunted by losses for hunters and fishermen and their children, here was a chance, and a place, to hold on to. http://www.fieldandstream.com/blogs/finding-deer-hunt/2010/07/exploring-colorados-roan-plateau-day-one

Exploring the Roan Plateau: Day One

Field & Stream

Conservationist blogger Hal Herring and photographer Kevin Cooley spent three days exploring what's at stake in the current rush to develop the energy resources beneath Colorado's unique Roan Plateau -- some of the best big game hunting and trout fishing in the United States. http://www.fieldandstream.com/photos/gallery/fishing/trout-fishing/where-fish-trout/2010/07/exploring-roan-plateau-day-one

Group pours years into protecting, reviving Roan Plateau creek

By Dave Buchanan

Grand Junction Sentinel

Nearly two decades after the local Trout Unlimited chapter unofficially adopted Trapper Creek, a small stream burbling from the sandstone layers atop the Roan Plateau, the changes are noticeable. Where once cattle trod through decadent sagebrush and the deepest hole was a smelly mud wallow, lush grasses and clear runs mark a stream that more than once has come back from the brink of disappearance.

http://www.gjsentinel.com/outdoors/articles/group_pours_years_into_protect/

Group calls Upper Colorado River ‘endangered'

Julie SutorSummit County Correspondent Post Independent

SUMMIT COUNTY, Colorado — New water diversions could sap the life from the Upper Colorado River Basin, according to American Rivers, a national conservation group.

The organization declared the Upper Colorado America's sixth most endangered river earlier this month in its annual survey of the health of the nation's rivers.

“We can't continue to take and take water from the Upper Colorado without accounting for the serious impacts to fish and wildlife habitat,” said Ken Neubecker of Colorado Trout Unlimited. “This river is on the brink. A vibrant, healthy river system in the Upper Colorado is every bit as important to the future of Colorado as the water it supplies to our farms and cities.”

http://www.postindependent.com/article/20100630/VALLEYNEWS/100629860/1083&ParentProfile=1074

Cars decorate Vail Valley river banks

Sarah MausolfVail Daily

 

There are actually two cars in the banks of the river in Edwards, and one fishing guide estimates there are about 15 cars altogether in the stretch of river that runs through Eagle County.

Local lore claims ranchers placed the cars along the river's edge to stop the banks from sloughing off and prevent the river from encroaching on their land.

“It was done to keep the bank from eroding,” said John Packer, owner of Fly Fishing Outfitters in Avon. “People used to do stuff like that back in the day when it was only slightly illegal. Nowadays, throwing cars in the river is not really kosher.”

Several people familiar with the river guessed the cars date back to the '40s and '50s. Ken Neubecker, a former Eagle resident and past president of Colorado Trout Unlimited, said he once uncovered a car during an Eagle River cleanup event about 12 years ago. Only the roof of the car was peeking out of the river sediment, he said.

http://www.vaildaily.com/article/20100615/NEWS/100619805/1078&ParentProfile=1062

Money flows to study of Lightner Creek

by Dale RodebaughHerald Staff Writer

The Southwestern Water Conservation District has contributed $3,600 to help fund the second phase of a study to determine the source of periodic sediment in Lightner Creek.

Initial results of the study point to the Perins Canyon watershed and a stormwater retention basin as possible sources.

For years, water-protection groups and Trout Unlimited have been concerned about the chalky-colored water that from time to time enters the Animas River from Lightner Creek immediately south of the DoubleTree Hotel.

In February 2009, Buck Skillen, a board member of Trout Unlimited, tested water turbidity at the confluence of the waterways. When he poured 60 cubic centimeters of water (the equivalent of two shot glasses or a medical syringe) in a filter, it became clogged by the time 45 centimeters had passed through.

Overall water quality and the effects of sediment on the Animas' gold-medal trout fishery are the major concerns of the coalition of concerned groups that initiated the study last October.

http://durangoherald.com/sections/News/2010/06/11/Money_flows_to_study_of_Lightner_Creek/

Upper Colorado Makes Endangered Rivers List

Colorado Public Radio

Colorado Matters

The thirst for water along the Front Range makes the Upper Colorado one of the nation's 10 most endangered rivers. That's according to the national watchdog group, American Rivers. The Upper Colorado begins in Rocky Mountain National Park and flows southwest toward Utah. Plans are underway for two separate projects to take more water from it-- near Kremmling-- then send it to Denver and cities in northern Colorado.  Now conservationists say it's not that they want cities to dry up for lack of water. But they don't want that for the river either. Ryan Warner speaks with Ken Neubecker, past president of Colorado Trout Unlimited. Listen to interview: http://www.cpr.org/article/Upper_Colorado_Makes_Endangered_Rivers_List

Sportsman's watchman

A tribute to outdoorsman/journalist charlie meyers

By Karl Licis Special to The Denver Post

On Saturday, the property through which the Dream Stream flows will be dedicated as the Charlie Meyers State Wildlife Area in his honor.

Following, in random order, are some shared thoughts from people with a connection to the stream of dreams.

* * *

"Completely sated." Roger Hill is an expert angler, innovator and author of "Fly Fishing the South Platte River: an Angler's Guide," the first insightful book addressing the Dream Stream. He lives in Colorado Springs and is credited with procuring 12 miles of barbed wire for the Cheyenne Mountain chapter of Trout Unlimited for fencing the property in order to keep out the cattle.

"It's always been a challenge, but also very rewarding. It's had great hatches and demanding fish, but when you were on them it was incredibly good. I have many fond memories of days when the fishing was so good I would leave the river completely sated by the early afternoon."

* * *

For future generations. Sinjin Eberle is board president for Colorado Trout Unlimited, which has been involved in every aspect of making the Dream Stream what it has become. Eberle has limited Dream Stream experience, but he coordinated CTU's Buffalo Peaks project in the upper South Platte drainage. There he met Meyers.

"I was telling him all about the project and he was listening, but he also was observing every mayfly and every rising trout. He was fully in tune with every bit of the nature that was all around him, and that really drove home the point to me about why we're doing these things — the need to pass it on for future generations.

"The Dream Stream, along with two or three other rivers in Colorado, is widely known nationally and internationally, and he was a big part of making it what it is."

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_15236345

Colorado River makes threatened list

By Bobby Magill

Coloradoan

The Colorado River through Rocky Mountain National Park and Grand and Eagle counties was highlighted this week as one of the most threatened rivers in the U.S. by environmental group American Rivers. The group creates an annual list of rivers it considers threatened by development, water depletion and other factors.

More than 60 percent of the water in the Colorado River's headwaters has been removed by water diversion projects, feeding growing cities on the Front Range and elsewhere in Colorado, harming the river's trout fisheries and riparian areas, said Ken Neubecker of Colorado Trout Unlimited.

"If you take all the water out, you kill the river," he said.

http://www.coloradoan.com/article/20100604/LOVELAND01/100604003