Although tiny, these midge patterns will catch fish

"Griffith’s Gnat — Tied like a miniature Woolly Bugger to resemble midges, midge emergers and midge clusters. First tied by George Griffith, one of the founders of Trout Unlimited." http://www.gjsentinel.com/hp/content/sports/stories/2007/11/28/112807_OUT_patterns_WWW.html

By DAVE BUCHANAN The Daily Sentinel

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

As if you really needed to be reminded, all of us carry too many flies in our vests, even in the winter when nothing is hatching. Honestly, however, a handful of midge patterns chosen carefully for shape, color and size will catch 99 percent of the trout.

Your job, of course, is to decide which among the thousands of midge patterns available are the ones you want to carry. Your only advantage here is, well, midge patterns are tiny, aren’t they, and so you could carry thousands (well, hundreds, anyway) of your favorite pattern and still be assured of floating when you step into that big hole in the Gunnison.

One key is to have a range of fly patterns imitating the different stages of a midge development. Trout target specific stages and can switch preferred patterns with amazing speed. Somehow, you have to follow those changes.

Here are a few patterns gleaned from the vests and fly boxes of many different anglers, all of whom have been known to swear at and by these miniscule bits of steel, feather and thread. You might have other favorites.

Lees Ferry Midge — Phil Trimm of Western Anglers in Grand Junction said this is one of the more-popular regional pattern, “a simple pattern with a thread base and glass bead head, really easy to tie.”

Miracle Nymph — Also a Trimm suggestion, this has a floss body that becomes see-through when wet to match the underlaying thread. Some historians say legendary tier George Bodmer of Colorado Springs created this pattern for the trout in the South Platte near Deckers while others say it was tied for the Miracle Mile on the North Platte in Wyoming.

Zebra Midge — A favorite of Copi Vojta of Roaring Fork Anglers in Carbondale.

Brassie — Vojta also carries this, possibly another Bodmer creation, tied with a copper wire body and peacock herl head, initially conceived to fool the midge-finicky trout in the South Platte River.

Copper John — Maybe not always considered a midge, but tied in 18-22 it can be used as larva imitation.

Kimball’s Emerger — Originally designed by Mike Kimball, who earned this fly’s reputation when he was able to fool the evening sippers on Armstrong Spring Creek in Montana.

Griffith’s Gnat — Tied like a miniature Woolly Bugger to resemble midges, midge emergers and midge clusters. First tied by George Griffith, one of the founders of Trout Unlimited.

RS2 Emerger — Another South Platte pattern, this one designed by Rim Chung. This and the WD-40, developed by John Engler on the Fryingpan River, have been adapted to all Western rivers where midges appear.

Industry greets new state rules with skepticism

Dave Nickum of Trout Unlimited said he is concerned oil and gas development may de-water sensitive streams on the Western Slope, and he wondered if the COGCC rulemaking process will tackle how energy companies’ water use will be regulated. http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/11/28/112807_1a_COGCC_side.html

By BOBBY MAGILL The Daily Sentinel

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

DENVER — The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission’s proposal for how it will create new oil and gas permitting rules was met Tuesday with skeptical questions from the energy industry and concerns from conservationists.

During a series of meetings about the proposal Tuesday, attorney Ken Wonstolen, who represents the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, asked the COGCC’s acting director, David Neslin, if there is any indication the rules already in place aren’t adequate to assess environmental and public health impacts of energy development.

“The question is: Is that going to be a fiat rulemaking or based on administrative record?” he said.

“To the extent that there are disputes over draft rules, we will provide appropriate support as part of the rulemaking process,” Neslin responded, moving quickly to the next question.

Colorado Oil and Gas Association president Meg Collins said there were few surprises in the proposal, and she’s especially glad the COGCC is giving the industry two weeks to respond to it before it is widely released to the public.

But it’s too early to say what the meaning of the proposal is because the industry hasn’t had a chance to digest it, Colorado Petroleum Association President Stan Dempsey said. Most industry members had not seen the proposal before Tuesday morning.

Dempsey said he wants to be sure the commission isn’t duplicating other state regulations, such as those addressing odor control.

Parachute resident Sid Lindauer said he is concerned about how the proposal addresses noise and dust caused by oil and gas operators.

“From where I’m located, you can look often to the north and to the west 25 miles and see bunches of dust,” he said, adding he wonders how it might affect wildlife.

Neslin said no changes to the commission’s rules on dust are in the works. Division of Wildlife biologist John Broderick said the agency has no details on how dust affects wildlife, and the state has no recommendations for how the industry can minimize it.

Dave Nickum of Trout Unlimited said he is concerned oil and gas development may de-water sensitive streams on the Western Slope, and he wondered if the COGCC rulemaking process will tackle how energy companies’ water use will be regulated.

DOW Assistant Director John Bredehoft said that while the DOW has concerns about how the energy industry could deprive streams of their water, he said he couldn’t remember if the new rules will tackle that issue.

“We need to make note of that,” he said.

Kim Phillips of the Grand Valley Citizens Alliance in Garfield County told Neslin she is concerned the proposal may not require enough transparency about the chemicals that companies use in their drilling processes.

“We’re often introduced to the idea that we should just trust that those (chemicals) are safe,” she said, adding the public should have the right to know about the health effects of drilling.

“This is a potential win for industry,” she said. “We need to do testing on specific levels of specific ingredients that we know to be harmful to public health.”

Other concerned residents were less skeptical.

“I want to say this really is such an exciting thing for us,” Palisade-based home builder and Western Colorado Congress member Duke Cox said to Neslin, praising the proposal. “We’ve waited for this day for a very long time.”

Enviros up pressure on Ritter over the Roan

http://www.aspendailynews.com/archive_22917 David Frey - Aspen Daily News Correspondent

Fri 11/23/2007 11:00PM MST

Environmentalists and sportsmen's groups are calling for a "final push" encouraging Gov. Bill Ritter to seek more protections from energy development on the Roan Plateau. Their effort comes in the waning days of the review period the governor asked for to study the drilling plan put in place before he took office.

The effort is part of conservationists' two-pronged approach meant to keep gas rigs off the surface of the plateau to protect the landscape and habitat for species like deer and elk.

In addition to pressuring the governor to urge the Bureau of Land Management to ban drilling from the top, drilling foes are encouraging lawmakers to support language in the energy bill that would keep drilling off the Roan for at least a year. Reps. John Salazar and Mark Udall, both Colorado Democrats, succeeded in getting that language included in the House version of the bill.

"Success with both the legislature and the governor's review is going to be really important," said Clare Bastable, conservation director for the Colorado Mountain Club. "What they decide to do in Washington is equally as important as the plan itself."

Ritter's office isn't indicating what action the governor will take after the review period ends in mid-December. Spokesman Evan Dreyer said his options range from endorsing the current plan to making his own recommendations. But even if he offers his own plan, the BLM may not listen.

"There is nothing that obligates the federal government to pay any heed to us should we offer recommendations," Dreyer said, "so in short, it is all still a very unsettled picture."

THE PLAN The BLM has approved a plan that would allow gas drilling on top of the Roan, but with phasing intended to limit surface disturbance and protect wildlife. The plan was based largely on recommendations by the state Division of Natural Resources, which worried that drilling on the plateau could harm the species that call it home.

But that was under Ritter's predecessor, Gov. Bill Owens, a Republican. After Ritter, a Democrat, took office in January, he asked for a chance to review the project. The BLM initially refused until Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., brother of Rep. Salazar, threatened to withhold consideration of President Bush's nominee to head the BLM.

The energy industry is also stepping up its efforts to press for drilling on the plateau. Last month, the group Americans for American Energy released a study that claimed the state could reap $1.2 billion in the first year of drilling on the Roan Plateau, and that local and regional bodies would gain $6 billion in royalties and taxes over 30 years and $11 billion in industry investment. Environmentalists questioned those numbers.

"It only makes sense, I think, to go slow on developing resources like the Roan," said Bastable, who said most of the gas leases already approved haven't been drilled on yet. "We're in no danger of losing revenue."

In recent weeks, conservation organizations and hunting and fishing groups have organized phone banks, appeared in radio ads and have encouraged members to call Ritter and Sen. Salazar to encourage more protections for the Roan.

"Nobody's saying that you can't extract gas out of the ground," said Bill Dvorak, of the National Wildlife Federation. "We're just saying there's ways to do it that will leave the wildlife habitat intact."

Dvorak said he would like to see energy companies use methods like directional drilling to reach the gas under the plateau without drilling new wells. He said he worries not only about protecting the habitat on top of the Roan, but some of the remaining habitat below. That's important winter range, he said, but it's already been impacted by a "web" of wells and roads.

"We think eventually there will be ways to extract the gas," said Suzanne O'Neill, executive director of the Colorado Wildlife Federation, "but we have to have a little bit of patience so we strike the right balance and protect critical wildlife habitat."

In addition to species like deer and elk, the Roan is also home to some rare populations of native cutthroat trout. That has raised concerns among anglers.

"They're a pretty unique population of fish up there," said Ken Neubecker, vice president of Colorado Trout Unlimited. "Right now, while they've survived thousands of years in these small populations, a single accident up there, either from stormwater discharge or a tanker truck spill, could wipe these populations out. There's no need to rush into this and go after this gas."

The energy industry has said the gas could be extracted without harming wildlife. An estimated 8.9 trillion cubic feet of federally-owned natural gas is believed to lie 8,000 to 11,000 feet below, enough to heat 4 million homes for 20 years. Supporters believe that could be an important source of domestic fuel, from an area originally set aside for energy production.

Ritter's spokesman Dreyer said the governor's office hasn't seen a big increase in phone calls or correspondences from either environmental groups or drilling supporters, but that will likely change as the governor's deadline approaches.

Drilling opponents said they hope the governor will seek to keep gas rigs off the surface of the Roan, and the BLM will listen.

"He's the head of the state government and represents the people in Colorado," Neubecker said. "His voice, I hope, would be important in protecting the resources on top of the Roan in the face of, really, this juggernaut of oil and gas development in western Colorado."

Law prevents work to clear pollution

http://www.gazette.com/articles/water_30226___article.html/mine_law.html By R. SCOTT RAPPOLD

THE GAZETTE

November 27, 2007

In the mountains above the Keystone ski resort, a legacy of the past continues to pollute the future.

From the 1880s through the 1940s, the Pennsylvania Mine was one of Summit County's most profitable. Today, all it produces is acidic and metal-laden drainage water that poisons creeks, kills fish and confounds local officials.

For nearly 15 years, the federal law meant to clean sources of water pollution such as the Pennsylvania Mine has actually prevented work to improve the water.

A 1993 court ruling said that, under the Clean Water Act, anyone who tries to remediate water at an abandoned mine becomes legally liable for discharges there forever. The ruling halted efforts by the state to clean drainage from the Pennsylvania Mine and ensured that little water cleanup was done at any of Colorado's other 23,000 abandoned mines.

A decade of efforts to pass a socalled "good Samaritan" law, legal protection for groups and government agencies who want to clean up mines, has failed, mainly because of resistance from environmental groups. Both of Colorado's U.S. senators backed such a measure last year.

"The Clean Water Act was written and designed to clean up problems like this, and it's the only thing stopping us from doing it, and it's so unfortunate," said Elizabeth Russell, mine restoration coordinator for Trout Unlimited, which wants to be a good Samaritan at the Pennsylvania Mine.

A recent report on Colorado water quality pointed to abandoned mines as a major cause of heavy metal contamination in creeks running down from the high country. Most of the mining companies no longer exist, so there is nobody to hold responsible.

There are a host of nonprofit organizations, local governments and state agencies that would like to get involved in cleanup efforts, particularly in areas such as Summit County where dead, brown waterways like Peru Creek at the Pennsylvania Mine could be bad for tourism. But assuming the legal liability for all future discharges - in today's litigious society - is a risk none will take.

While it may seem a good Samaritan law may be a nobrainer, like most issues of environmental law, it is not.

When Colorado's U.S. senators, Republican Wayne Allard and Democrat Ken Salazar, backed a bill in 2006 to remove parts of the law that discourage cleanup, it drew opposition from environmental groups.

The groups worried changes could allow mining companies to come back into the mines and renew operations and not be responsible for discharges. The opposition was enough to kill the legislation, and it looks unlikely any will advance in 2007.

It's an issue dividing environmentalists.

Russell said she recognizes the concern other environmental groups have about weakening the law. But, she said, "We're the only ones out there trying to do the darn cleanup."

At the Pennsylvania Mine, the lack of legislation has forced cleanup advocates to get creative.

Plans are in the works to create a nonprofit organization, the Snake River Water Foundation, that will take over ownership of a water treatment facility outside the mine. The foundation will have little cash or assets, so it is hoped no one would bother to sue it under the Clean Water Act.

"Nobody's going to sue them because they don't have anything to be sued for. There's no money," Russell said.

Numerous groups, government agencies and ski resorts are involved in the effort, though not Denver Water, because there are no human health issues for Lake Dillon reservoir downstream of the mine, which serves the water supplier.

It's not the ideal way of doing cleanups - it's taken 15 years to reach this point, and plans for the treatment facility still haven't been drawn up. It will cost from $500,000 to $1.5 million, Russell said.

But, for now, it's the only way of cleaning up the polluted water rolling down from the mines of yesteryear.

Water park hits more snags

By GARY HARMONThe [Grand Junction]  Daily Sentinel Tuesday, November 20, 2007

It’s late November, and water levels in the Colorado River are dropping. It’s the perfect time to build in the riverbed, just as the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is doing upstream from town, Palisade Town Administrator Tim Sarmo said.  Sarmo, though, is stymied — again — in his plan to build a whitewater kayak park in the river.  Palisade had hoped to build a whitewater park immediately below the Price-Stubb Diversion Dam at the mouth of De Beque Canyon.

The $2 million price tag to hook onto the Reclamation project was prohibitive, and the town had to back out last summer, so the fish-passage project is moving ahead without it. Palisade officials didn’t give up, though. They found a likely spot above Riverbend Park and set to work, getting the backers who had pledged money for the original idea to stick with them for the next edition.  They got a new kayak-park design, let bids and gathered materials, including boulders gathered up and set down near the river, ready to be dropped in as the leaves browned and the Colorado River’s levels fell.

“If I could get my Army Corps of Engineers permit today,” Sarmo said, “I’d be in the river tomorrow.”

But Palisade must wait.  The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers completed the gathering of comments on Palisade’s project on Nov. 5 and is now evaluating them, said Scott Moore of the Army Corps of Engineers regulatory office in Grand Junction. The work on the whitewater park cannot begin without approval by the corps.

“I realize he’s in a rush” to get the permit, and “we’re trying to do it as quickly as we can,” Moore said of the permit application.  There is no deadline for that work, however, and “there are some natural-resource issues that are challenging” in connection with the whitewater park, Moore said.  The idea of dropping rocks into the river to create some eddies and give the river a bit more velocity in spots hardly strikes Sarmo as a major natural-resource issue, he said. “We are not building Hoover Dam,” Sarmo said, just putting some rocks in the river as part of a plan to make the big bend below 38 Road a bit of a recreational haven. Palisade’s plan calls for a $635,000 water park with vehicle access, parking and other stream-side improvements bringing the bill to about $1 million.

“I can’t think of a more innocuous, less intrusive project than this one,” he said.

Others, however, said they aren’t so sure.  The Grand Valley Irrigation Co. wrote to the Corps of Engineers demanding a full environmental review, and the Colorado Division of Wildlife said it was concerned the park might inhibit the travels of the Colorado pikeminnow and the razorback sucker up and down the river.

“A large influx of human recreation to this area may result in the modification of native fish species behavior as a consequence of human activities,” wrote Ron Velarde, northwest region manager for the wildlife division. “There is little information available that would serve to moderate our concerns for native-fish migration and their propensity to negotiate an area of significant water-based recreation.”

Wildlife officials aren’t opposed to the whitewater park, but they need more information, division spokesman Randy Hampton said.  The division’s concerns could be addressed by more information, he said.  Palisade has worked with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and has addressed its concerns, Sarmo said.  The whitewater park plan includes a triple option for the fish to get past the park, including swimming up the main channel, negotiating a small fish-passage alongside the main current and an entirely separate channel away from the whitewater park features.  He can’t think of anything else to do to meet concerns, Sarmo said. If anything, he said, the whitewater park would strengthen the rationale for releases down the Colorado from Green Mountain Reservoir because they would serve a municipal recreational use.

Sarmo said he appreciates that the federal government has spent more than $17 million to reopen the Colorado River above the Price-Stubb to endangered fish, but he said there is a limit.

“It’s really a very simple project,” he said.

Gary Harmon can be reached via e-mail at gharmon@gjds.com.

Western & Colorado Water Project Staff Notes

November 2007

This was a month of submitting reports & proposals, meetings w/ and letters to donors, and setting up more meetings w/ funders. This was also a month where we spent lots of time on year-end reviews and workplans. We did get a visit from TU's new lobbyist, and we talked about all the federal legislative issues that might come up out of work being done in Colorado and through the Western Water Project.

We presented on a Western Governors' Association meeting plenary panel on water and growth and participated in the rest of the meeting during which the group made recommendations for the WGA to adopt positions on sustainable water management. We also made a small presentation to the water group at CH2MHill, a big infrastructure contractor, about the possibility of their collaborating with TU on restoration and moving the CPR (conserve/protect/restore) agenda forward when they're working with western water suppliers.

We attended another IBCC meeting, where we worked to move the state forward on mapping and quantifying its non-consumptive (i.e., environmental and recreational river flow) water uses. We also worked on amendments to the guidelines and criteria for the state to pass out money for new water activities. We met, along with TNC staff, with the mediator of a large effort among Colorado River Basin water users and Front Range water diverters about future headwaters transbasin projects.

We obtained a favorable ruling from the Colorado Supreme Court in our appeal of the trial court decision in the Dry Gulch case. The ruling establishes a more stringent standard to be met by public utilities claiming water rights for future growth.

TU and the other parties to the Colorado water court proceedings to quantify the Black Canyon reserved water right are engaged in mediation. The court has stayed proceedings until middle of January to allow negotiations to continue.

Pollution control

Construction could begin next fall on a large sand trap called the “Basin of Last Resort” that is designed to catch sediment in Black Gore Creek before it reaches Gore Creek in Vail. The Colorado Department of Transportation is fully funding the $1.1 million project — good news for groups like the U.S. Forest Service and the Eagle River Watershed Council.

The basin already exists — it just needs to be cleaned out. It’s a deep and flat 3-acre stretch of Black Gore Creek around mile marker 183 in East Vail that’s been trapping sand and slowing downstream pollution ever since I-70 was built.

But more than 61,000 tons of sand have piled to the top of the basin pool and can more easily wash away and settle on the bottom of nearby Gore Creek.

The sand, used to keep icy and snow-packed roads safe in the winter, is now covering insect habitats and harming trout.

Environmental assessments on the project must be finished before it can start.

Tons of sand cleared from interstate

More stream-clogging sand was cleaned than used this year http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20071120/NEWS/71120003

By Matt Terrell eagle county correspondent November 20, 2007

EAGLE COUNTY - More than 13,200 tons of river-clogging traction sand was cleaned-up along Interstate 70 this year between East Vail and Shrine Pass.

That's around double the amount of traction sand actually put down by the Colorado Department of Transportation last winter in that area, said Ken Wissel, a deputy maintenance superintendent for the region.

The sand, which is used to keep icy and snow-packed roads safe during cold weather, has a profound environmental impact. It eventually seeps into Black Gore Creek below the highway, smothers insects, harms fish and eventually settles in Gore Creek, the trout stream that flows through Vail.

Much of the sand is caught in sediment basins along I-70 and Black Gore Creek. The basins though require regular cleaning, or else more sand will end up in the water where it does its damage.

"There's 30 years of sand out there, so there's plenty to clean up," Wissel said.

The sand is one of the major concerns of the Eagle River Watershed Council, a watchdog group that promotes river health in the valley. The council has criticized the Department of Transportation in the past for being sluggish in cleaning up traction sand, but members were impressed with the amount of sand cleaned-up this year.

Much of the cleanup work along the highway this year was done with the GapVax, a giant vacuum truck purchased this year by the department of transportation for the sole purpose of cleaning up sand.

If the Department of Transportation continues to pick up more sand than it puts down, the river is headed for a healthy future, said Arlene Quenon, a board member on the council.

In the worst areas, Black Gore Creek has nearly 40 percent of its bottom covered with sand. Ideally, only about 14 percent should be covered. There's already 150,000 tons of sand in the watershed.

And as sand is cleaned up, biologists will literally be counting bugs to determine if all these cleanup efforts are working.

The Forest Service will collect aquatic insects, measure how much sediment is on the stream bed and measure water pool depths to determine how well cleanup is working. All the measurements will be compared to several much healthier streams in Colorado, which are being used as guideposts in determining Black Gore Creek's quality standards.

The more insects, the better. The deeper the pools, the better. The more Black Gore Creek starts looking like these other rivers, the better.

Staff Writer Matt Terrell can be reached at 748-2955 or mterrell@vaildaily.com.

W. Slope rep calls for fair Roan study

Al White warns state officials against playing politics with a review of possibly lucrative gas drilling on the plateau. By Steve Raabe The Denver Post

Article Last Updated: 11/14/2007 04:05:49 AM MST

Colorado's ranking Republican on the legislature's Joint Budget Committee has joined the debate on drilling for natural gas on the Roan Plateau, warning state officials not to "play politics" with a pending study.

State Rep. Al White, whose western Colorado district includes the targeted drilling area, said the state could lose billions of dollars in needed revenue if a study by the Colorado Department of Natural Resources discourages development of the area.

White said he is undecided on whether the scenic plateau should be opened to large-scale energy development.

But he's concerned, he said, that the DNR study, ordered by Gov. Bill Ritter, may underestimate the value of the Roan's gas and the economic benefit to Colorado.

A politically motivated underestimate of the resource would "increase the perceived political risk of execution by the private sector and will actually end up reducing Colorado's future receipts," White said in a Nov. 1 letter to Harris Sherman, executive director of the DNR.

The pending study will be forwarded next month to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which has proposed a plan to open up about 52,000 acres on the plateau for development.

The issue has been highly controversial. Environmental groups have been critical of a report issued by the energy-industry-backed Americans for American Energy, which said lease payments and royalties from gas production in the area could bring revenue to Colorado of up to $6 billion over 30 years.

White said a BLM energy-lease sale last week that attracted a high bid of $26,000 an acre for a Garfield County parcel "seems to justify some of the higher-end (industry projections) as opposed to the lowball numbers the enviros are throwing around."

Environmental groups have said the revenue potential is as little as one-fifth of the industry's estimate of $1.2 billion in the first year of drilling.

Department of Natural Resources spokeswoman Deb Frazier said the agency's analysis "will be solid and thorough and based on defensible assumptions."

Steve Raabe: 303-954-1948 or sraabe@denverpost.com

The native dilemma

Hermosa Creek cutthroat project mixes opinions

On the whole, Durango's angling community is "divided" on the issue, according to Ty Churchwell, vice-president of the local Five Rivers Chapter of Trout Unlimited. http://www.durangotelegraph.com/telegraph.php?inc=/07-11-08/localnews.htm

by Will Sands

The push is on to go native in the headwaters of Hermosa Creek. The Colorado Division of Wildlife and San Juan National Forest are currently working to reverse the local decline of the native Colorado River cutthroat trout. However, the reintroduction effort, which focuses on the drainage's headwaters, has also drawn mixed reviews.

The Colorado River cutthroat, the only trout species native to western Colorado, was abundant in rivers through the mid-1800s. At that time, human settlement arrived in the San Juan Mountains, and the fish were over-harvested. Early residents of the area recognized the need to restore the balance in the Animas, San Juan, Florida and Pine rivers, and they imported rainbow, brook and brown trout from outside the region and began stocking them in the area's waterways. These fish, and particularly the brook trout, eventually outcompeted the native cutthroats, leading to the current situation. Only a few pockets of the original fish remain in the San Juans, and the cutthroats have been designated a Species of Special Concern by the DOW and a Sensitive Species by the Forest Service.

"When you have a combination of species, the brook trout typically outcompete the others," explained Mike Japhet, senior aquatic biologist for the DOW. "If we did nothing, the entire upper Hermosa Creek area would be completely populated by brook trout in a number of years."

The DOW is doing something in the upper Hermosa watershed, however. Faced with the threat of an "endangered" designation from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency is continuing its efforts to bring the native fish back to the San Juan Mountains.

"This project is certainly one that is a high priority," Japhet said. "The Forest Service and DOW have agreed that preventing the listing of this species as ‘endangered' is a good thing to do. It's a situation where an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure."

This ounce of prevention actually got under way in 1992 on the East Fork of Hermosa Creek. At that time, a hold-out population of pure Colorado River cutthroat trout was discovered in a remote stream within the Weminuche Wilderness. The DOW then identified that East Fork of Hermosa Creek, located near Purgatory, as an ideal stream to reintroduce the natives. More than a decade later, that population is now flourishing.

"The project on East Hermosa Creek is doing very well," Japhet said. "It's a very stable, very robust population of cutthroats up there."

That 1992 discovery also led to the creation of a Weminuche strain of Colorado River cutthroat trout. Spawn taken from that original discovery has been used to establish a brood stock at the Durango fish hatchery. Since 2005, fingerlings from that stock have been seeded into remote streams and high-mountain lakes throughout the region. Now the DOW plans to stock the native fingerlings into another stretch of Hermosa Creek - 4 miles of the stream's upper reaches above Hotel Draw.

Japhet explained that the upper Hermosa Creek drainage offers the DOW a unique opportunity to restore the natives in close proximity to the East Fork population. With the current project, the agency will reintroduce the fish into 4 miles of upper Hermosa Creek and 1 mile of Corral Creek. To accomplish this, the Forest Service recently built a five-foot waterfall barrier on the stream to isolate the new fish from other trout and potential predation.

Next summer, the stretches will be treated with rotenone, a short-lived botanical pesticide, to kill the existing, healthy population of mixed trout species. Widely used for the last 80 years, rotenone does not harm other species and breaks down completely within 48 hours. Thirty days after the application, the fingerlings will be introduced and special regulations will be implemented to protect the fledgling population.

Though the introduction is intended to be beneficial, it has drawn criticism and split the local flyfishing community. Some have criticized the DOW for destroying one population of fish to create another. Another group of anglers has said that the project will harm their ability to fish on a favorite stretch of water.

On the whole, Durango's angling community is "divided" on the issue, according to Ty Churchwell, vice-president of the local Five Rivers Chapter of Trout Unlimited.

"We can't even come up with a uniform opinion about the project amongst our board," he said. "We took a straw poll at our last meeting, and we don't have strong consensus in one direction or another and can't make a formal statement about the reintroduction."

However, for his part, Churchwell strongly advocates the reintroduction and restoring a local section of stream to the conditions of 125 years ago. "My personal opinion is that I am all for it," he said. "I'd like to see things restored to native genetics as closely as possible. This is a section that the public will be able to drive to, fish and catch a cutthroat trout that is as genetically pure as possible."

Churchwell and Japhet also disputed the claims that the reintroduction will damage the Durango fishing experience. They noted that local anglers have hundreds of miles of stream at their disposal and can readily fish the 23-mile stretch of lower Hermosa Creek as well as countless other similar streams.

"There are so many people who love to fish up there, and they don't care what kind of trout they catch," Churchwell said. "But there are also hundreds of miles of stream just like that in the San Juans, and we're talking about reintroducing natives on one little section."

Japhet added that the project is about reestablishing the viability of an animal species. He asked that anglers endure a temporary disruption in recreation to help accomplish a greater goal.

"We're certainly sensitive to the fact that people are concerned about impacts to their recreational fishing," he said. "But we feel like the short-term disruption will be far outweighed by the benefits of enhancing the habitat and creating a new area for people to fish for these natives. When you restore a native species, it's a win-win for everyone." •