Colorado TU, along with its conservation partners the Colorado Environmental Coalition, High Country Citizens Alliance, and San Juan Citizens Alliance, has filed its comments and recommendations for water quality standards to protect against excessive nutrient in Colorado waterways. Through cooperation with one of Colorado's largest dischargers, the Metro Wastewater Reclamation District, these conservation partners have supported a compromise strategy that will put standards in place while allowing facility upgrades to be phased in over the next ten years - helping keep costs to customers reasonable. The Colorado Water Quality Control Commission will be taking final action on nutrient standards in March 2012. Click here to read our press release. Many anglers notice that they can catch larger fish below treatment plants on some of Colorado's rivers and so may wonder why Colorado TU would be looking to restrict nutrients. The "Old Professor" (retired biologist Dr John Nickum) explains the issue in his December 2011 column in High Country Angler. The simple answer is that while some added nutrients can help boost productivity, too much can also create unhealthy river conditions - including declines in key macroinvertebrate and fish species. A little nutrient can help - but too much of a good thing is just that: too much.
Roadless Areas Win Big Victory – But Future for Colorado Still at Risk
Those who care about roadless areas nationwide can rest a bit easier, knowing that the law is indeed on their side. As reported in the Denver Post, on October 21, the 10th Circuit federal appeals court issued a ruling affirming the 2001 roadless rule and reversing and injunction against the rule that had been issued in the District Court. The ruling puts the national roadless rule back on firm legal ground. However, the US Forest Service and Colorado Department of Natural Resources intend to continue forward with a Colorado-specific rule, so we still do not know the protections that will ultimately apply to 4.2 million acres of outstanding Colorado backcountry. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell said that while the Obama Administration "strongly supports [the] court decision … we also remain committed to moving forward with the Colorado Roadless Rule for National Forests there."
The most recent draft of the Colorado Rule, while improved from earlier drafts, still is weaker on balance than the 2001 rule which was just reaffirmed in court. To offset parts of the rule that weaken backcountry protection – such as allowances for coal mining and ski areas – Colorado TU and other sportsmen have called for a number of changes that would strengthen the rule and help it reach a balance that is as strong or stronger than the 2001 rule. Specific points of concern include:
- Since some areas enjoy weaker protections, other areas should receive stronger, “Upper Tier” protection. This status needs to be meaningful, with extra protections such as no surface occupancy stipulations to ensure that energy development takes place without harming habitat, and needs to apply to more of Colorado's backcountry than in the current proposal.
- Protections need to be strengthened so that Colorado’s native cutthroat trout, which depend heavily on habitat in roadless areas, are adequately protected when activities (such as logging or building of temporary roads) are allowed within roadless backcountry.
- “Linear construction zones” – a euphemism for a temporary road along the path of a linear facility such as power lines or a pipeline – need to be more tightly restricted to ensure that they do not become a huge loophole that undermines backcountry protection.
Colorado TU has called on the Forest Service to adopt changes to address these concerns and ensure that any Colorado rule is as strong on balance as the 2001 rule. The fish, wildlife, and recreational economies that rely on healthy Colorado backcountry should enjoy protections every bit as strong as those that apply throughout the rest of the country.
While Colorado’s roadless future remains uncertain, for roadless areas nationwide there is reason to celebrate. The 10th Circuit decision is a clear rejection of Wyoming's legal arguments against the rule -- the appeals court simply disagreed with the lower court's conclusion that Wyoming's legal arguments were valid. For those who like reading legal decisions, the “money” quote from the decision is: "Wyoming failed to demonstrate that the Forest Service's promulgation of the Roadless Rule violated the Wilderness Act, NEPA, MUSYA, or NFMA."
Fraser River gets a boost
by Bob Berwyn Summit County Citizen's Voice
SUMMIT COUNTY — With its flows reduced by upstream tributary diversions, and its river-bottom cobbles choked by highway traction sand, the Fraser River has long been a symbol of the imbalance between resource protection and other uses of water in Colorado.
But the Grand County stream will soon get partial relief, as various agencies from both sides of the Continental Divide teamed up to construct a settling pond near the entrance to the Mary Jane ski area in a project tha symbolizes an emerging spirit of tran-smountain cooperation.
Better maintenance and capture of highway sand can help reduce impacts to tiny aquatic organisms that form the base of the food chain in the river, helping to sustain healthy fisheries. The larvae of the aquatic insects need a coarse bed of rocks at the bottom of the stream to thrive. When the sand fills in all the gaps between the rocks, the bugs have nowhere to go.
The settling pond will also protect municipal and resort water infrastructure and equipment.
U.S. Senate honors Fraser's Kirk Klancke
By Tonya BinaSky-Hi News
U.S. Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., recognized Fraser resident Kirk Klancke on the senate floor in Washington D.C. on Oct. 12 for Klancke's “commitment to preserving our environment and making Colorado a better place to live, work and play.” In his speech to members of the 112th Congress, Udall highlighted the fact that Klancke, president of Grand County's chapter of Trout Unlimited, was recently selected a finalist for Field and Stream's “Heroes of Conservation” Award. “Both Kirk and I have spent time enjoying the natural beauty of our state while appreciating the value of preserving it for future generations,” Udall stated. “His work embodies what I have long held to be true — we don't inherit the Earth from our parents; we borrow it from our children and the generations that will follow.”
Learn more about Colorado TU's efforts to Defend the Colorado River
Guest Commentary: We don't need to drill it all
Denver Post Bill Fales and Auden Schendler
What a thing it was. Seven green John Deere tractors, buckets skyward, hundreds of thousands of dollars in farm ordinance, rolling down Main Street in Carbondale on a beautiful Saturday earlier this month. The tractors, in the height of fall roundup, were on the way to ... a street protest.
Really.
These tractor owners are not Occupy Wall Street types. They wear crushed and filthy felt cowboy hats. They have no iPhones. They don't use Soft Soap. Lotion is as foreign an idea as complaining. And yet here they were, in these fractious times, going to meet their friends -- 300 of them, in fact: the hippies and the hunters, the drummers and the Republicans, the women in long flowing dresses, the businessmen and the children, fellow cattlemen and grandparents.
They gathered under the name the Thompson Divide Coalition (TDC), organized more than three years ago to protect 221,000 acres of Forest Service land just outside of Carbondale from gas drilling. Thompson Divide is a place for all people: It's the town's viewshed; it hosts a popular climbing area; offers five months of grazing for cattle owned by local ranchers who provide an important and growing source of healthy local food; it includes hiking trails around a pristine creek; an incredible nonprofit Nordic ski area; one of the best game management units for hunting elk and deer in the nation; and a vast system of snowmobile trails.
Because these uses touch everyone, it's hard to find anyone in the Crystal or Roaring Fork Valleys who doesn't support the coalition. The signs speak to that: Tractors for Thompson Divide. Ranchers for Thompson Divide. Save It For the Kids. Cows Need Grass, Not Gas. Clean Air, Clean Water = Priceless.
And the message from this group was, in short, that we don't need to drill it all. While gas is useful and necessary, and the business provides jobs and food for families, we don't have to drill every square inch. Today, Western Colorado is seeing some of the highest wellhead density in the West. And we as a state are going to town on our bountiful reserves, no question.
Bill Fales is a rancher and owner of Cold Mountain Ranch. Auden Schendler is a vice president at Aspen Skiing Company.
FERC Finds Million Application Deficient
An application for an environmental review of the proposed Flaming Gorge pipeline, submitted by Aaron Million's Wyco Power and Water Inc., has been found deficent by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. In requesting that Mr. Million provide greater specificity in his plans and fill-in gaps in information, the agency also appears to question the appropriateness of being the lead agency for the project's review: "Because the Commission would only have jurisdiction with regard to the proposed hydroelectric development, which is only one component of the proposed 501-mile-long water supply pipeline project, construction of substantial parts of the overall project may require permits from other federal agencies. For the 3,212 acres of federal land you identify in exhibit 3, please identify the responsible federal agencies that manage those lands."
The Flaming Gorge Pipeline, estimated by the Colorado Water Conservation Board to cost nearly $9 billion to build, is known by its detractors as the "most expensive water in Colorado history."
See complete coverage of the Flaming Gorge Pipeline by Western Resource Advocates.
See the actual FERC letter to Wyco Power and Water.
See the video about the Flaming Gorge Pipeline shot by Pete McBride.
EPA seeks greater pollution control over small waterways
Colorado environment groups presented a box of 23,887 comment cards and letters from residents favoring stricter enforcement to stop pollution. The EPA had extended a 60-day public comment period until the end of July.
Environment Colorado, Trout Unlimited, Sierra Club and others ran a door-to-door campaign.
"If you don't give the EPA the tools to protect those gullies and deal with spills there, ultimately they will not be able to protect rivers either," said David Nickum, executive director of Colorado Trout Unlimited.
Read more: EPA seeks greater pollution control over small waterways - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_18556082#ixzz1TKd4MhU7
Guest Commentary: Congress should halt threat to outdoor economy
Colorado's outdoor recreation industry and our very way of life could be lost forever if some members of the U.S. House of Representatives have their way.
Earlier this month, the U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee voted 28-18 in favor of an Interior spending bill that shreds protections for the public lands, parks and rivers that support Colorado's recreation economy and way of life.
Loaded with detrimental policy changes aimed at undercutting the Clean Water Act and the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to keep our rivers, streams and drinking water clean, the 2012 spending bill poses a unprecedented threat to conservation efforts, the economy and the environment.
This Interior appropriations bill represents an extreme agenda to eliminate decades of protections for the air, water and parks Colorado's economy depends on. The outdoor recreation industry generates $10 billion annually right here in Colorado, according to the Outdoor Industry Association. It's an economic engine in our state that supports over 100,000 jobs and accounts for almost a half-billion dollars in state revenues for our schools and roads.
Visitors travel from across the country and across the world to fish our gold medal streams, raft and kayak our free-flowing rivers, ski picturesque mountain peaks and hunt the elk, moose and waterfowl found in abundance throughout our national forests and public lands.
But House Interior appropriations bill threatens all of that. Currently, it includes damaging efforts to:
- Gut programs that protect our drinking water and preserve parks like the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park and fuel a $730 billion outdoor national recreation industry.
- Clear the way for new uranium mining at the Grand Canyon, threatening the Colorado River water supply for 25 million Americans and a $700 million tourism industry.
- Undo 40 years of efforts to clean up America's polluted waterways, returning to the days when industry dumped toxic sludge into our drinking water and oil-soaked rivers caught fire. The move comes as the Yellowstone River, a treasured waterway that provides drinking water for Montana residents, was contaminated with spilled oil.
While Colorado's economy is showing slow signs of recovery, we cannot afford to lose what little progress we have made. The Interior appropriations bill will permanently alter the condition of the places that support our families and our way of life.
Congress has a choice: support the long term economic benefits provided by places like the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, Rocky Mountain National Park and the thousands of American jobs that they support, or do away with the protections for places where we hunt, fish and recreate.
Continuing to cut critical funding and protections for our nation's rivers, lakes and public only robs our children, grandchildren and local communities of the recreation opportunities we've enjoyed and depended on for generations. Without protections that keep our rivers clean, our parks, local water supplies, gold medal fisheries, wildlife and local economies face a sad future. Programs like the Land and Water Conservation Fund -- funded through offshore drilling royalties, not taxpayer dollars -- could be slashed by 80 percent.
As passionate anglers and sportsmen, we encourage our Congressional Representatives in Colorado -- especially Rep. Cory Gardner, who sits on the Congressional Sportsmen Caucus, and Rep. Scott Tipton, who sits on the Natural Resources Committee -- to recognize the recreational, economic, and lifestyle benefits of protecting our water and rivers when they vote on the Interior appropriations bill and amendments.
Sinjin Eberle is president of Colorado Trout Unlimited. John LeCoq is the founder of Fishpond USA.
Removing protections for Colo.`s rivers and wetlands
Daily Camera
Guest Opinion from Jo Evans, director at large of Colorado Trout Unlimited Board of Directors and Sharon Lance, trustee of Trout Unlimited Board of Trustees.
Salazar report touts fishing, outdoor sports
Pueblo Chieftain Guest commentary by Chris Wood, chief executive officer of Trout Unlimited and Jim Klug, chairman of the American Fly Fishing Trade Association.
