Trout Unlimited, EPA agree on creek cleanup

Pueblo Chieftain

By MATT HILDNER

Elizabeth Russell, who manages Trout Unlimited's efforts on Kerber Creek, said the mine tailings the group encountered on private lands were hazardous enough that it wanted protection from liability. That led to a year of negotiations that resulted in the draft, she said. If finalized, the agreement would cover Trout Unlimited's past actions. The  agreement is only the second of its kind, following on the heels of one the agency and Trout Unlimited signed to clean up the American Fork River in Utah.

http://www.chieftain.com/news/local/article_4a870758-acf0-11df-b597-001cc4c03286.html

Best Wild Places: Exploring the Alpine Triangle (Day Two)

Field & Stream Editor-at-Large Kirk Deeter and photographer Kevin Cooley spent three days with Trout Unlimited exploring the Alpine Triangle, a rugged expanse of the San Juan Mountains in southwestern Colorado, so named because the region is loosely contained within the shape made by connecting the towns of Ouray, Lake City, and Silverton. TU wants Congress to declare the place a National Conservation area to protect its streams from mining expansion and new road development. Here's what they found on day two.

http://www.fieldandstream.com/blogs/where-fish-trout/2010/08/best-wild-places-exploring-alpine-triangle-day-two

Best Wild Places: Exploring The Alpine Triangle

Field & Stream The “Alpine Triangle” is a rugged expanse of the San Juan Mountains in southwestern Colorado, so named by the Bureau of Land Management because the region is loosely contained within the shape made by connecting the towns of Ouray, Lake City, and Silverton. 

I jumped at the opportunity to cover this story when the Field & Stream editors were divvying up the “Best Wild Places” assignments, because the region has been my home away from home for 25 years.  It’s where many of my formative trout fishing adventures happened, and near where I still make an annual elk hunting camp.  It is, without question, my favorite wild place on earth. 

Yet, as familiar as I thought I was with the Alpine Triangle region, I had never experienced it from as many angles as I did on day one of the Trout Unlimited/Field & Stream adventure.  We kicked off the tour with a full-on “Planes, Trains, & Automobiles” agenda…

http://www.fieldandstream.com/blogs/where-fish-trout/2010/08/best-wild-places-exploring-alpine-triangle

An Overview of the Alpine Triangle

Field & Stream In the high-country heart of southwest Colorado’s San Juan Mountains rests 180,000 acres of alpine habitat that has sheltered some of the best big game hunting and wild trout fishing in the southern Rockies for thousands of years.

The Alpine Triangle, named because it rests between three communities at it’s “corners”—Lake City, Ouray and Silverton—is a rare stretch of Bureau of Land Management real estate in the heart of traditional “forest” country. Not only does it shelter outstanding wild and native trout habitat, and prime big-game habitat for mule deer, elk and especially bighorn sheep, it’s home to a unique cultural heritage that is truly “old Colorado.”

http://www.fieldandstream.com/blogs/hunting/2010/07/overview-alpine-triangle

Group continues scientific monitoring of West Creek

By Dave BuchananGrand Junction Sentinel

The brushy creek harbors a healthy population of wild brown trout, which are gifted with the ability to survive the warm water temperatures of summer and early fall.

All that brush makes West Creek challenging to fish, which is why you don’t see a whole lot of cars parked along the road.

What you might see, once or twice a year, are members of the Grand Valley Anglers Chapter of Trout Unlimited continuing a creek-monitoring project begun 13 years ago.

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

Slamming carp for trout

By Karl LicisSpecial to The Denver Post

"What seems improbable today — fishing for trout downtown — someday could become a normal thing," said Todd Fehr, president of the Denver Chapter of Trout Unlimited, who was among the prime movers in establishing the tournament as a chapter project.

The chapter hopes to partner with the appropriate government agencies and other entities for habitat-improvement projects along the river that would make it a better trout fishery while providing new opportunities for fishing in an urban setting.

http://www.denverpost.com/motorsports/ci_15809352

Willoughby: Healthy upper Colorado isn't sure thing anymore

By Scott WilloughbyThe Denver Post

"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 is a river 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."

Estimates place as much as 60 percent of the upper Colorado already being diverted from the drainage and the proposed Windy Gap Firming Project could take another 20 percent of a river struggling to survive. The proposed Moffat Firming Project, seeking federal approval at the same time, will further reduce flows in the upper Colorado.

http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_15725733

Save our waters

By Tonya BinaSky-Hi News

The Grand County chapter of Trout Unlimited has forwarded a petition to Moffat Firming project stakeholders, signed by Grand County residents and visitors, reiterating the need for protection of the area's rivers.

With the comment period on the water firming project long over, and as citizens await the ruling on the proposed increased diversions by Denver Water and the Northern Water Conservancy District, Trout Unlimited's Colorado River Headwaters Chapter President Kirk Klancke said the reason for the petition was to “just keep things simmering.”

In just over a week, as many as 429 people signed a petition urging sound use of headwaters resources in Grand County. Signatures had been gathered on three separate occasions, during a Trout Unlimited event at the Crooked Creek Saloon, at the Trout Unlimited Annual Banquet and at Winter Park's Art Affair, where Trout Unlimited hosted a booth.

“It was to let the people who are governing this process understand how much this means to the people of Grand County,” Klancke said.

http://www.skyhidailynews.com/article/20100807/NEWS/100809931/1079&ParentProfile=1067

Project clears invasive plants from river

Trinidad Times

Randy Woock, Staff writer

Eradication efforts are underway in Trinidad for vast swaths of invasive plant species that threaten to choke out the native riparian plant life of the Purgatoire River. Tackling Tamarisk on the Purgatoire, part of the Purgatoire River Watershed Woody Invasive Removal Project, is a multi-phase project aimed at removing such invasive species as the tamarisk and Russian olive in order to facilitate the development of the river area for recreational purposes.

The main stem of the Purgatoire River flows from Culebra Peak in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains through Trinidad and on to the county’s northeastern quadrant where it joins the Arkansas River.

The project’s origins stretch back to about five years ago with the Trinidad Community Foundation (TCF) and has grown since to include a multitude of active and supporting partners such as Trout Unlimited, The Nature Conservancy, the Spanish Peaks-Purgatoire River Conservation District, the Colorado Division of Wildlife, the City of Trinidad, the Tamarisk Coalition, private landowners and host of other agencies and groups. “We were talking about how the Purgatoire River, from the dam all the way through the town, was a very under-utilized resource. When the (TCF) got together, one of the tenants of their reason for being was recreation within the area,” TCF and Purgatoire Anglers chapter of Trout Unlimited member Howard Lackey said. “I took the project with the river as kind of our banner project for recreation.”

 http://www.trinidad-times.com/clients/trinidad-times/project-clears-invasive-plants-from-river-p675-1.htm

Thanks to Coyote Gulch for the link! http://coyotegulch.wordpress.com/

Denver Water Plan Draws Environmental Concerns

CBS4 Denver

Paul Day

WINTER PARK, Colo. (CBS4) ― Tumbling off a mountainside near Winter Park, Jim Creek carries a healthy volume of snowmelt until it flows smack into a concrete structure.

 

"This ... is built to divert water," explains Kirk Klancke, a fly fisherman and Grand County resident.

The structure does its job well. On the downstream side, all that's left is barely a trickle.

Jim Creek is one of many tributaries to the Fraser River. In this valley, Denver Water operates dozens of diversion structures that siphon water from what would naturally flow in the Fraser. The big utility now wants approval to take even more water and pipe it to Denver as part of its Moffat Firming Project.

Recreation and tourism would suffer if the stream is further imperiled, says Klancke who's president of the local chapter of Trout Unlimited.

"This river is struggling for survival," Klancke said. "An additional withdrawal could put it over a tipping point where it may not survive."

http://cbs4denver.com/news/fraser.denver.water.2.1826940.html