Project Healing Waters Offers Support and Adventure For Wounded Warriors

By Allen GregorySports Writer / Bristol (TN) Herald Courier

The program, called Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing Inc., is an ambitious effort launched in 2005 by volunteers from various Trout Unlimited and Federation of Fly Fishing Chapters. PHWFF serves disabled active duty military personnel and veterans through fly-fishing and fly-tying education and outings. Read More

Trend worsening for pollutant in 16 national parks

By MIKE STARK - Associated Press Writer

Air quality data obtained by The Associated Press shows significant worsening trends for ammonium in several flagship parks, including Yellowstone, Mount Rainier and Utah's Canyonlands. At Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park, researchers have already seen subtle shifts in the alpine tundra, where some of the park's trademark wildflowers are being replaced by grass. Read more

State still struggles with water puzzle

By CHRIS WOODKATHE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN
The panel also heard a presentation on the study of a nonconsumptive needs - the water left in streams or added to benefit fish, wildlife and recreation - and learned that not all of the state’s nine basin roundtables are treating the information in the same way.

“I’m a little distressed there’s no quantification of needs in some basins,” said Melinda Kassen of Trout Unlimited, representing environmental interests. “Are you suggesting it won’t be done in every basin?”

CWCB staffers explained the municipal needs were only the first to be addressed and the other needs will be considered as well, as required by the statute that formed the IBCC.

Rep. Kathleen Curry, D-Gunnison, said the CWCB report appeared to be heavily weighted toward traditional water projects that remove water from one area to use in another. She asked if the same amount of study would be devoted to land-use and conservation issues.

How mining nearly killed 'the richest hill on earth'

by Daniel Terdiman CNET News

"Ground water, surface water, and soils are contaminated with arsenic and other heavy metals, including copper, zinc, cadmium, and lead. Silver Bow Creek and the Clark Fork River contain metals from the cities of Butte to Milltown. The tailings, dispersed along the creek and river, severely limit aquatic life forms and have caused fish kills in the river. Potential health threats include direct contact with and ingestion of contaminated soil, surface water, ground water, or inhaling contaminated air." Read more

Colorado River cutthroat story of isolation, unique genetics

By DAVE BUCHANAN/The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel Monday, July 13, 2009

These simply aren’t trout but rather Colorado River cutthroat trout, one of the state’s three existing native trout and special even beyond that.

“You figure this trout has been isolated up here for thousands of years and there’s no question it’s adapted to some unique environmental conditions, including higher water temperatures that would kill other trout,” said Corey Fisher, 30 minutes later as he quickly pulled a barbless fly from the jaw of a brightly colored 5-inch trout. “If these fish were lost, we’d lose genetics that took eons to develop.”

Which is one reason Fisher, energy field coordinator for the conservation group Trout Unlimited, and Hunt, with that group’s Sportsmen Conservation Project, talked two writers into clambering down a sage-covered cliffside into a jungle of riparian growth fed by Trapper and Northwater creeks that come together to form the East Middle Fork of Parachute Creek.

http://www.gjsentinel.com/rec/content/sports/stories/2009/07/13/070809_out_trout_www.html

Catching a Wave, Powering an Electrical Grid?

Electrical engineer Annette von Jouanne is pioneering an ingenious way to generate clean, renewable electricity from the sea By Elizabeth Rusch / Smithsonian magazine, July 2009

Von Jouanne recently towed her best-performing buoy—her 11th prototype—out through Yaquina Bay and one and a half miles offshore. The buoy, which resembles a giant yellow flying saucer with a black tube sticking through the middle, was anchored in 140 feet of water. For five days it rose and fell with swells and generated around 10 kilowatts of power. In the next two to three years, Columbia Power Technologies, a renewable energy company that has supported von Jouanne's research, plans to install a buoy generating between 100 and 500 kilowatts of electricity in the test berth off the coast of Oregon.     Read more

South Platte River sees rapid recovery

Healing itself from wildfire damage, it is going with the flow again.

By Karl Licis Special to The Denver Post
In a year of abundant rainfall on the heels of a decent winter snowpack, river flows up and down the South Platte have been above the long-term average. Below brimful Cheesman Reservoir, the volume approached 800 cubic feet per second the past few weeks, but has been gradually receding. The higher flows are expected to benefit the river and its fishery, and some of their effects may already be evident. Read more

Minturn resort may lose water bid

Melanie Wong - Vail Dailymwong@vaildaily.com

MINTURN, Colorado — It appears highly likely the developer of the proposed Ginn project in Minturn will have to find a plan B to provide water for the project. The city of Aurora was expected to vote late Monday night to buy 1,337 acre-feet of water from the Columbine Ditch near Leadville. Read more