Tell Congress: take action before America's most successful access and recreation program expires

From crown jewels like the Great Sand Dunes and Black Canyon of the Gunnison, to access on the Colorado River, to community parks and trails in our own backyards, the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) has set aside and protected special places in Colorado and nationwide for more than 50 years. If you've gone fishing, hiking or camping on public lands, or picnicked at a community park in your area, there's a good chance the LWCF helped protect it. But despite more than 50 years of success, the program will expire on September 30 if Congress doesn’t take action to renew it. 

Senators Bennet and Gardner have both been leaders in supporting LWCF – but we need Colorado’s House delegation to also step up so that this successful program isn't lost to Congressional gridlock.

TU praises passage of bill to support wildlife and recreation

Trout Unlimited praises passage of bill to support wildlife and outdoor recreation

(Denver)—Trout Unlimited praised the passage of the Hunting, Fishing, and Parks for Future Generations Act (SB18-143) today in the Colorado General Assembly – creating a sustainable funding stream for Colorado Parks and Wildlife that will help fund efforts to preserve the state’s prized fish and wildlife populations and support outdoor recreation opportunities.

In recent years, Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) has seen its resources increasingly squeezed. The last resident license fee increase took place in 2005—and since that time, expenses have climbed by more than 25 percent and Colorado’s population has grown rapidly, putting more and more pressure on fish, wildlife, and their habitat as well as on the state’s recreation infrastructure.

Moreover, the budget squeeze has forced the agency to cut or defund 50 positions and slice $40 million from its wildlife budget—and without new funding, further cuts would be required. The bill passed today by the Colorado legislature will give CPW authority to raise hunting and fishing license fees to offset the rising costs of inflation. The modest fee increase ($8 for resident fishing licenses) will begin in 2019, with any future increases tied to the consumer price index. CPW is also looking at other revenue sources to support conservation priorities.

“Sportsmen and women have always taken pride in supporting our state’s outstanding outdoor resources and hunting and fishing opportunities,” said David Nickum, executive director of Colorado Trout Unlimited. “Hunters and anglers understand that Colorado’s wildlife and natural spaces are among our most valuable resources—and that we need to invest in our outdoor quality of life. This fee authority will help ensure that future generations have access to the same quality hunting, fishing and recreational opportunities available today.”

The enhanced revenue stream will help CPW invest in a range of sportsmen’s programs and initiatives, including:

• Providing more funds for critical programs like hunter education and Fishing is Fun;
• Expanding access for hunters and anglers by renewing high-priority leases and access programs on private land;
• Repairing CPW’s aging dams and reservoir infrastructure to keep them open for fishing;
• Modernizing hatcheries to increase the number of fish stocked in those Colorado waters that can’t support robust wild populations.

“TU is grateful to have been afforded a seat on the CPW ‘Sportsmen’s Roundtable’—a collaborative, statewide forum to engage sportsmen and women on the agency’s strategic plans and financial issues,” said Ty Churchwell, TU’s San Juan Mountains coordinator. “We applaud the CPW for involving sportsmen’s conservation organizations in development of this bill, and holding dozens of public meetings across the state. Their commitment to broad, extensive, debated input on development of this bill has helped secure support for its passage.”

Trout Unlimited thanks Colorado Parks and Wildlife Director Bob Broscheid for his leadership as well as the bill sponsors, state Senators Stephen Fenberg and Don Coram, and Representatives Jeni Arndt and James Wilson.

Download the Press Release here.

Save Bristol Bay!

  Pebble Limited Partnerships recently applied for one of the major permits they’ll need to mine in Bristol Bay. Filing that application is huge news because it brings their catastrophic proposal one step closer to becoming a reality. Now, we have the first chance for you to weigh in on this process.

Pebble Limited Partnerships wants to develop an open-pit mine in southwest Alaska, approximately 17 miles west/northwest of the villages of Iliamna, Newhalen, and Nondalton. They also are proposing a 188-mile natural gas pipeline from the Kenai Peninsula across the Cook Inlet to the mine site as their proposed energy source. These developments would dramatically affect Bristol Bay’s fisheries which are critical to Alaska's economy and culture.  Speak up and let The Army Corps of Engineers know that we should protect Bristol Bay, and the businesses and communities these waters support.

Add your name and comment below to tell the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to reject Pebble's proposal as incomplete. Feel free to edit the suggested content. Click the button to take action!

Trout Unlimited in Colorado 2017 Annual Report

We are happy to announce that our 2017 Annual Report is live and available for your viewing. Last year was filled with great work across the whole state and the finishing up of many restoration projects and continuing others! Thank you to everyone who supported Trout Unlimited in Colorado last year.

Click here to read the CTU 2017 Annual Report

High Country Angler spring issue released!

The High Country Angler (HCA) is the official digital magazine of Colorado Trout Unlimited! HCA is published 4 times a year by High Country Publications, LLC., in cooperation with Colorado Trout Unlimited, the 3rd largest TU Chapter in the nation.  

Read the Spring 2018 Issues for free here.

Colorado voters consider themselves to be conservationists - Not a surprise to us.

A new bipartisan study, the Conservation in the West Poll, was released January 25, 2018 by the State of the Rockies Project, in conjunction with Lori Weigel, Public Opinion Strategies and Dave Metz, Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, and Metz & Associates. The survey, conducted in eight western states, explores bi-partisan opinions in each state and for the Rocky Mountain West region concerning conservation, environment, energy, the role of government, trade-offs with economies, and citizen priorities. The survey now includes polling in the states of Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.

Colorado College in Colorado Springs has released all of the polls publications broken up by state, topic, and additional reports about Sportsmen and Agriculture. You can go through them all here, but we are going to take you through some of the most interesting results.

One demographic that we are very familiar with is those who identify as a sportsman or woman. The poll found that 79% are the most likely vote sub-group to identify as a conservationist which is a 4% increase from last year. Among that voter group, 58% preferred that the Trump Administration would focus on protecting clean water, air quality, and wildlife habitats on public lands.

In relation to the recent national monuments and public lands reductions happening to Utah's Grand Staircase and Bear's Ears, a majority of those who identify as a hunter or angler found this to be a largely bad idea and that any future reductions or stripping of other Monuments was also a bad idea. 

Currently, there is legislation around our national monuments and you can speak up against it with our current action alert. 

Another demographic that is extremely involved in the water issues of Colorado are voters who identify as being part of a rural or small town. Now some might think they don't share the same values as those in the growing cities of the Front Range, but that notion couldn't be farther from the truth. Rural communities overwhelmingly share similar values in regards to conservation, development, and public lands.

And to sum up the state's opinions as a whole, below is an infographic showing the support for different initiatives regarding water conservation, national monuments, and outdoor recreation. If you would like a closer look at the reports shown here or any of the images in this post, see the links at the bottom of the page.

Takeaway from the Data

The results of this poll are encouraging and also not unexpected. As part of Trout Unlimited, we know that our members who identify as sportsmen/women, farmers, activists, and outdoor recreationists are and have always been conservationists. This poll just further proves that we are a strong majority of people who believe in the future of clean water, access to public lands, and healthy fisheries. We stand together as a collaborative and influential community that puts conservation first.

Resources and References:

1. Conservation in the West 2018 Report - Sportsmen
2. Conservation in the West 2018 Report - Rural
3. Conservation in the West 2018 Report - Colorado Infographic
4. Conservation in the West 2018 Report - All Materials & Reports

Funding the Future of Conservation

Colorado Parks and Wildlife is looking for the legislature to provide it with authority to increase hunting and fishing license fees for the first time in more than a decade, and we expect to see legislation along those lines during the 2018 legislative session. At one level, the reason for such an increase is very simple - the revenue generated by license fees has been eroded by inflation since the last increase, and in order to deliver the same kinds of service the agency needs to have the funding to keep up with those escalating costs.

But the most frequent question we've heard from anglers and sportsmen generally has been to hear more of the story: what are these funds needed for, and what types of investments specifically will the state make if anglers and hunters increase what we pay for licenses?

The most recent issue of High Country Angler offers some answers. Needs run the gamut from modernizing fish hatcheries, to restoring funds for the "Fishing is Fun" program to improve habitat and create new fishing access, to completing needed maintenance on fishing reservoirs that otherwise could be forced to be drained for dam safety reasons.

Read all about it here - and decide for yourself - are these investments good reasons to pay more on my fishing license? You'll have the chance to speak up on that question with your legislators this year.

Parks & Wildlife Commission Approves Poudre Protections for NISP Plan

On September 7, the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission unanimously approved the Fish and Wildlife Mitigation and Enhancement Plans for the Northern Integrated Supply Project (NISP) in the Cache la Poudre (Poudre) basin. Colorado TU and the local Rocky Mountain Flycasters Chapter supported the final plans, which had been revised to address several key concerns raised by TU earlier in the public comment process. The plans now move to the Colorado Water Conservation Board for final approval. It is important to note that in supporting these plans, neither the Commission nor TU have endorsed the NISP project itself.  Rather, the state mitigation review process is designed to identify “reasonable” mitigation measures, as well as possible enhancements, that can help protect fish and wildlife resources should the project be constructed.  Federal permitting – still faced by NISP – is where the fundamental need for the project must be demonstrated and alternatives considered that may be less damaging to the environment. The state mitigation plans do not “authorize” a project, but they do help provide a recommended “floor” of protective measures that should be implemented if a water project is authorized by federal permits.

The NISP project, proposed by Northern Water, consists of two off-channel reservoirs: Glade Reservoir, northwest of Fort Collins, and Galeton Reservoir northeast of Greeley. It uses in-basin water, including the Grey Mountain project water rights that were once proposed for a mainstem reservoir in the Poudre Canyon. Galeton Reservoir facilitates down-river water exchanges, while Glade is focused on capturing peak and shoulder season flows – meaning that key impacts of concern include the loss of periodic flushing flows and overbank flows that help sustain riparian communities.

Key provisions of the Mitigation & Enhancement Plans that will benefit fishery resources on the Poudre River include:

• Base flows. A “conveyance refinement” plan to improve base flow conditions on the Poudre through most of Ft Collins, by delivering storage releases from Glade Reservoir through the river (rather than through pipelines) for about 12 river miles, to the ultimate point of diversion for delivery to the end-use cities. Under this plan, 18 cfs (winter) and 25 cfs (summer) would be delivered through the river and shepherded through diversions that currently divert 100% of the river’s flow – creating dry up points on the river during winter.  The plan will use NISP deliveries to sustain base flows year-round and eliminate those dry up points.
• Fish passage. Retrofit of four cross-channel diversions on the Poudre that currently do not allow fish passage or sediment transport. The fish/sediment passage improvements will reconnect river habitat, as well as facilitating the base flow bypasses for the “conveyance refinement” plan.
• Habitat improvement.  Northern Water has committed to completing 2.4 miles of river channel and habitat improvements along the Poudre.  In addition, they will place another $5 million in escrow for use on other river improvement projects that are identified under a to-be-developed collaborative habitat improvement plan for the river. Another $1 million is allocated to support that planning and design process.
• Peak flows & ramping rates. CPW and Northern developed a decision-tree approach to peak flows under which different levels of peak flows will bypass the NISP diversion into Glade Reservoir depending on reservoir storage levels and snowpack conditions, as well as how recently the river has received a flushing flow.  The plan helps ensure that some flush is provided even in multi-year droughts, while including a bypass of the river’s full peak flow - however high it may be - for three days during wetter periods. Increasing releases to the peak flow, and decreasing them on the tail end of it, will be implemented with a gradual “ramping rate” to avoid harmful effects to fish (such as stranding of fish out of the baseflow channel if those areas are dried up by rapidly dropping flows).  TU had recommended changes to the original draft plans to incorporate ramping rates and to address flushing flows during multi-year dry periods; the final plan incorporated changes addressing both concerns.
• Adaptive management. Many elements of the plan (ramping rates, flushing flow program, habitat improvements) will be guided by a multi-stakeholder adaptive management process that will monitor conditions and help make adjustments where needed to ensure the effectiveness of the mitigation and enhancement measures. Similar to the “Learning by Doing” efforts in the Upper Colorado, this adaptive management program will ensure that efforts are informed by monitoring results and adjusted where needed. TU had recommended this program be maintained in perpetuity; the final plan calls for the program to continue for 20 years following full NISP operations (likely 25-30 years from original completion of the project) after which coordination would shift to a broader watershed coalition process that would incorporate partners and projects beyond just NISP.

“This is only the first step of several reviews that NISP must address and there are too many unanswered questions for us to yet support or oppose the project itself,” said CTU Executive Director David Nickum, “But we do support these plans and are pleased that they will assure a minimum base of protection for the Poudre’s fisheries should the project be constructed. We thank Colorado Parks and Wildlife staff for their diligence and Northern Water for their responsiveness to our and CPW’s recommendations.”

The low-flow measures are of particular importance for the Poudre’s trout fisheries from the canyon mouth through Fort Collins. “The conveyance flow program is significant to the fishery and aquatic life because it keeps water in the river on a year round basis,” said CPW biologist Ken Kehmeier.  Base flows of at least 20 cfs were recommended at Lincoln Street in Ft Collins under a River Health Assessment Framework developed for the Poudre. Under current baseline conditions (without NISP), that flow is met 52% of the time. With the proposed mitigation plan, that baseflow target will be met 97% of the time. “The conveyance flow will significantly benefit the aquatic life in the river during the low flow times of the year,” Kehmeier said.