TU Report Shares Untold Story of LWCF & Flood Relief - UPDATE

On the one-year anniversary of floods that devastated communities along Colorado’s northern Front Range, and the fiftieth anniversary of the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), Colorado Trout Unlimited released a new report documenting the untold story of the connection between the two. UPDATE:  The TU report and release was featured in a story from the Public News Service - check it out by clicking here.  Senator Udall also specifically referenced the TU report on the floor of the US Senate as part of a speech calling for reauthorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

The report, “Land and Water Conservation Fund—A Source of Hope and Help in the Face of Disaster,” details how LWCF has played a vital role in local flood recovery efforts. Created by Congress in 1964 using royalties from offshore oil and gas revenue, LWCF conserves natural resources and enhances outdoor recreation opportunities, including a recent grant to help the town of Lyons in rebuilding the St Vrain Corridor Trail which was destroyed in the September 2013 floods.

At an event releasing the report and commemorating the one year anniversary of the 2013 floods, Colorado TU Outreach Director (and lead report author) Stephanie Scott and Executive Director David Nickum were joined by a distinguished group of speakers including US Senator Mark Udall (who serves on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee that oversees the LWCF program), Colorado Parks and Wildlife State Trails Program Manager Tom Morrissey (the State Liaison Officer for LWCF), Boulder County Commissioner Cindy Domenico, and Town of Lyons Parks Commission member Reed Farr.

“For 50 years, the Land and Water Conservation Fund has used a small fraction of royalties from offshore oil drilling to protect millions of acres, including parks, river access, and priceless open spaces for future generations,” said Udall. “The fund also played an essential role helping protect communities after the devastating Big Thompson Flood of 1976. Today it’s playing the same role helping communities like Lyons rebuild in the wake of the September 2013 flood. I will keep fighting to ensure Congress reauthorizes and fully funds the Land and Water Conservation Fund so it can continue to aid Colorado’s disaster-recovery work now and in the future, as well as preserving our nation’s priceless land and water resources.”

Lyons was especially hard hit by the floods of 2013, sustaining flood damages totaling nearly $50 million—a crippling amount for a community that operates on a budget of less than $1 million. The flood-swollen St. Vrain River devastated not only the town of Lyons, but also most of the major park facilities and the popular St Vrain Corridor Trail.  LWCF funds—leveraged with other grants and matching funds—will help Lyons to rebuild and extend the park and trail through the town, making connections to regional trails to Boulder and to Longmont.

 “The funds from the LWCF grant will be instrumental in giving us the resources needed to rebuild and extend the Lyons St. Vrain Corridor Trail,” said Farr. “For many Lyons residents and visitors, this trail system is a main arterial serving as a major source of connectivity to neighborhoods, schools, parks, businesses and nearby Boulder County Open Spaces. Having the trail restored and improved will really help bring Lyons back together both physically and emotionally.”

The Trout Unlimited report details past LWCF investments that helped avoid millions of dollars in property damage in the floods of 2013. Following the catastrophic 1976 Big Thompson flood, Larimer County used $1 million from LWCF as well as other matching resources, to acquire 80 key properties along the Big Thompson—compensating families for their loss of homes while creating new park lands and recreation opportunities along the river canyon. This foresight avoided some $16 million in estimated property damage that would have occurred had those homes been rebuilt after the disastrous flood of 1976, while providing outstanding fishing opportunities for an estimated 200,000 angling days each year.

“As our report shows, LWCF is an invaluable tool for communities wanting to enhance their outdoor recreation opportunities including in the face of floods and other natural disasters,” said David Nickum, executive director of Colorado Trout Unlimited. “Some 90 percent of Coloradans take part in outdoor recreation—and we want them to know how important LWCF is to preserving our state’s quality of life.”

Congress is in the process of reauthorizing the LWCF, and bipartisan voices are calling for full funding of the program. These case studies show why the LWCF program is indeed a wise investment that pays significant dividends for communities in enhanced recreation, economic vitality and quality of life.

CTU New Leaders Training Registration is Now Open!!

In Colorado there are 24 local Trout Unlimited chapters that are an essential piece to Trout Unlimted's mission of conserving cold water fisheries. Every chapter has its own leadership board, programs, dedicated volunteers and most of the time they raise their own money for operations. Running a chapter is extremely rewarding, but it can also be challenging. To help Colorado chapters be most effective, Colorado Trout Unlimited hosts an annual New Leaders Training for chapter leaders. This training is for both new and old chapter leaders who are eager to learn how to be more effective leaders and build stronger chapters. The New Leaders Training Weekend will have numerous trainings, networking opportunities, and each attendee will walk away with resources to help their chapter reach its full potential. The Colorado Trout Unlimited Council's Fall board meeting is also held this same weekend in between training sessions. All participants are encouraged to attend the board meeting to become more familiar with the council and what their responsibilities are in Colorado.

Registration for the full weekend is $70.00; however to show our appreciation for new participants all first time attendees get their registration fees waived. To show our appreciation even more, this year Colorado Trout Unlimited is also providing a $100 scholarship for the first 10 chapters to have a first time leader attend to help with travel expenses.

Please contact Stephanie Scott (sscott@tu.org) or 720-354-2647 to apply for one of the scholarships or for general questions about the training.

Follow this link to register for the New Leaders Training: Register Here

Registration Deadline is October 13, 2014.

ANIMAS RIVER CLEAN UP

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED!9:30 a.m. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 20th

SANTA RITA PARK  (Gazebo next to the Chamber of Commerce) Please join TROUT UNLIMITED/FIVE RIVERS CHAPTER in cleaning up the Animas River!  Every September we reach out and ask volunteers to join us and pick up trash along the beautiful Animas River.  We’ll hand out garbage bags and give everyone a specific area to collect trash. This casual event last only a few hours.

Questions call: 970.759.5877

Colorado TU earns national recognition

At the 2014 Trout Unlimited Annual Meeting in Santa Fe, NM, Colorado TU was recognized with the prestigious State Council Award for Excellence. The selection committee cited a variety of noteworthy accomplishments, but highlighted the organization's landmark victories on the Upper Colorado. Colorado TU President Rick Matsumoto proudly accepted the award on the organization's behalf, noting that this was a team award with many of the key players present. From L to R: Executive Director David Nickum, Vice President Marshall Pendergrass, President Rick Matsumoto, Outreach Coordinator Stephanie Scott, Youth Coordinator Garrett Hanks, and National Leadership Council Representative Tom Jones. Administrative Assistant Shannon Kindle and Immediate Past President Sinjin Eberle were also recognized.

When the State Council Award for Excellence was introduced 10 years ago, Colorado TU was the inaugural winner. Tom Krol was President at the time.

Outdoor Mentors - connecting kids with the outdoors

Young people today experience the world in a very different way than a generation previous. Time once spent exploring neighborhood fields, splashing in the creek down the street, and strolling through a nearby forest has been replaced by time spent navigating online worlds, diving into the latest season on Netflix, and scrolling through Facebook. Friendships and adventures now are built out of online interactions rather than shared journeys in nature. The people who care about and protect our fisheries and watersheds came to care about them by spending time in them with other people who also cared. If youth lose their connection to the outdoors, it has repercussions for our tomorrows which cannot be ignored even in our successes of today. Be it through a family member or a friend, it is likely somebody else introduced you to the magic of the natural world. That connection usually won’t come as a single moment of insight but rather as an ongoing path, eventually leading to the love of the places you have been and the desire to protect those places. Imagine what your life might be like had you not had such experiences. Colorado Trout Unlimited has developed a program to reach youth who otherwise might not have those experiences, and giving them the chance to fall in love with Colorado’s outdoors, fish, and rivers.

Outdoor Mentors is a coalition of conservation organizations, state agencies, youth development organizations, and other key outdoor recreation stakeholders coordinating their efforts to expand opportunities for disadvantaged youth to participate in outdoor recreation and learn the importance of our conservation heritage. Based on a successful model from Kansas, Outdoor Mentors in Colorado now involves multiple youth mentoring groups, from Big Brothers Big Sisters to Denver Kids Inc. With two large festivals held annually, as well as individual programs offered by sportsmen’s groups, Outdoor Mentors continues to get kids outside. Colorado TU’s participation includes fishing days, science camps, fly fishing day trips, and overnight outings.

On August 16, the coalition held its Outdoor Mentors Festival at Barr Lake State Park, drawing participants both from mentoring organizations and individual families. The event featured the brand new archery range at the Park. As hosts for the festival, and by providing a central point for sportsmen’s groups to coordinate efforts, Colorado Parks and Wildlife has been a leader in the ongoing success of Outdoor Mentors. At Barr Lake, kids and their mentors had the chance to try archery, birding, flycasting, fishing, geocaching, and target shooting.  The Park and the festival provided a great opportunity to showcase the fantastic outdoor resources on our public lands.

Fly fishing is just one way for kids to experience the outdoors. Colorado Trout Unlimited is hopeful that Outdoor Mentors will be the vehicle for many youth to find a new hobby or passion in our state’s wild places. Whatever it may be which interests a youth in your life, I encourage you to be a mentor in your own way. If you care about the amazing places in which you fish, hunt, and recreate, there is no better way to care for them than to pass on your passion.

For more information on the Outdoor Mentors Collaborative, to become a partner, or to volunteer as a mentor, please contact Garrett Hanks at ghanks@tu.org.

Keeping up with Hermosa

July was a very busy month for the ‘Sportsmen for Hermosa’ and TU’s efforts to protect one of Southwest Colorado’s favorite cutthroat fisheries, Hermosa Creek.  With the August congressional recess looming, and just a few months left in this congressional session, it was time to give the bill another big push from anglers and hunters.  Mid-month, a small group of Durango and Silverton supporters, including TU, went to DC to advocate on Capitol Hill.  Over the course of two days, a dozen Congressmen and women heard the praises of this very special piece of legislation.  The bill continues to be very well received and everyone in DC was supportive of moving the bill out of subcommittee and to the floor for formal votes.  Despite this push, Congress was unable to move the bill forward before the end of the month and the recess.  We’ll resume our efforts again in September. Later in the month, TU hosted a media trip into Hermosa’s interior to chase native cutthroats while experiencing Colorado’s largest unprotected roadless area.  The Denver Post’s Scott Willoughby accompanied TU staff and Emily Orbanek of Conservation Colorado on a three-day backpack trip eighteen miles down the main Hermosa trail. The group captured some fantastic images, and a bunch of nice trout, which are being shared on Facebook at www.facebook.com/sportsmenforhermosa.  Join us there.

Mr. Willoughby penned two fabulous articles for the Denver Post and we are grateful.  Enjoy them at: Hermosa Creek fishing is well worth the walk

Where wild things are:  Hermosa Creek among best

The Hermosa legislation continues to capture national attention as one of America’s best proposals to possibly move a wilderness bill through a very sticky Congress.  Since 2009 there has only been one wilderness bill enacted, and we hope Hermosa is next.  National Geographic magazine recently wrote of the backlog of wilderness bills and listed Hermosa as a top contender.  Read more here and here.

Willoughby: Roan deserves protection

For years, Colorado TU and our Grand Valley Anglers chapter have been working to protect and enhance habitat for native cutthroat trout atop the Roan Plateau.  From involvement in a legal challenge against a BLM oil and gas leasing plan that lacked adequate protections for watersheds, to volunteer work days with fencing and riparian restoration - from water quality monitoring and securing "outstanding water" protections, to construction of a fish barrier to secure native trout habitat from invasion by non-native brookies - TU has been, and continues to be, hard at work in protecting this unique place within Colorado. As part of a four-part series on some of Colorado's best wild lands and efforts to conserve them, Scott Willoughby of the Denver Post recently took notice of the efforts by TU and our partners on the Roan.  TU's Corey Fisher noted some of the challenges:  "Our Grand Valley chapter out of Grand Junction has been working on stream restoration projects up there for over 15 years, so our engagement up there in fisheries conservation goes back long before the oil and gas issue really got going on the Roan.  But those leases and areas that could be developed theoretically could cover the entire top of the plateau, including all the trout streams up there."

Read Scott Willoughby's full Sunday feature on the Roan here.

Meet Stephanie Scott, Outreach Coordinator in Colorado

Stephanie is the Outreach Coordinator for Colorado TU. She has been with CTU since January 2013 and has been kicking butt ever since!! As the Outreach Coordinator Stephanie has her hand in a little bit of everything both with Colorado TU and National TU projects in Colorado. One of her main responsibilities is working with the 24 local CO chapters to engage TU members and their surrounding communities in conservation. Each chapter is very unique which requires a lot of coordination between her and the individual chapters. Stephanie is also responsible for organizing and running most of the public policy projects across the state. She works very closely with Colorado TU's lobbyist, Jen Boulton during the Legislative Session to help connect TU members to the bills that Jen is working on. Stephanie also works closely with National TU staff on getting members engaged on Federal legislation such as the Browns Canyon National Monument designation and the Clean Water Act. Stephanie comes from the National Audubon Society where she coordinated their grassroots efforts and managed all of their conservation programs in Colorado. She graduated from Metropolitan State University of Denver with a BS in Biology with an emphasis in Zoology. During her undergraduate work she has also taken wildlife management courses in South Africa through the University of Pretoria, studied zoology and field research techniques in Australia at the University of Tasmania, and studied forest ecology in Costa Rica. For her senior research project she studied the correlation between climate change and the transmission rate of West Nile Virus in the raptor species of Colorado, and also designed a lab at her University to study mate selection behavior in Convict Cichlids; which students are still conducting research in today. She is also a certified Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Analyst. Stephanie lives in Thornton with her husband Tyler and their 95lb lap dog Roscoe.

Trout Unlimited Partners With the Forest Service to Restore

The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) along with residents, local governments, other agencies and many others, have a long road ahead of them to restore what was damaged during the 2013 floods in Northern Colorado. To begin this process the USFS needs to assess the damage of the rivers. They have turned to Trout Unlimited (TU) because we have an expansive network of dedicated volunteers that care about the watershed and want to make a difference.

This is the beginning of a multi year partnership to bring back the healthy river ecosystems in the South Platte Basin after the floods; and we already have volunteers trained and ready to get on the river!!

The USFS hosted the first training for TU members on August 20, 2013, and it was a huge success. Dan Cenderelli and Matt Fairchild from the Forest Service developed a unique scientific assessment aimed at gathering data to develop a prescription to restore the entire watershed. This assessment is unique in many ways, but the big one is that there is an app for it!! Yes, an app for your smart phone. TU volunteers were not only trained on the science of the assessment, but also how to enter the data into their phones and instantly submit their results into the USFS database.

TU and the USFS were very anxious to get this project going. Planning and developing this partnership began shortly after the floods in September 2013. We are excited that the first bunch of volunteers have been trained and are ready to get out on the rivers and be true citizen scientist.

Because of the high demand from volunteers we will be hosting another training. We are working on scheduling it and should have details ASAP. If you are interested in being a part of this ground breaking partnership then please let us know. Contact Stephanie Scott at sscott@tu.org or 720-354-2647 to learn more and get signed up.

Sportsmen Fly to DC to Protect U.S. Rivers

Beginning in 1972, all waters with a significant nexus to navigable waters were covered by the Clean Water Act (CWA).  While navigable waters has been an oft used phrase the EPA has also defined covered waters as Waters of the Unites States (WOTUS) that include territorial seas. This spring and summer the EPA has been working on a rewrite of definitions in answer to the suggestions by the Court.  Those efforts have caused a flurry of activity by many affected interest groups.  Some environmental groups are fully in support of anything the EPA can put in place to further define, protect or expand WOTUS.  Some Industry and Agriculture folk are vigorously opposed to a rewrite of regulations that in any way increases the reach of the federal government.  Some Municipalities are concerned that without well thought out language, new regulations could have a major and costly impact as they have to deal with both ends of the pipe – providing potable water and treating wastewater.  Finally, there is the pure politics of the issue.  There are those that want nothing more than to see the EPA’s rewrite efforts stopped for no other reason than to showcase it as a failure of the current administration.

On July 15^th and 16^th Dick Jefferies, President of the Rocky Mountain Flycasters Trout Unlimited chapter, joined13 other Sportsman representatives to discuss with elected officials the importance of not allowing politics to win out over sound and accepted procedure and policy.  Currently, any policy can be changed if consequences or outcomes realized from policy implementation cause harm.  There are many documented cases where provisions within the CWA have been successfully challenged.  There are also many cases whereby regulatory provision was upheld.  The simple fact of the matter is the process of challenging provisions that you disagree with cannot be considered if the definitions are not allowed to be created.  Thus we end up where we are at today.  Extremely muddled and ambiguous guidelines that are difficult and expensive to navigate through or use efficiently in project planning.

On March 25^th of this year the EPA and the Army Corp proposed a rule for public comment.  That proposal makes a strong effort to more clearly define what waters are covered and equally, if not more important, what waters are not covered.  However, the EPA needs to do an even better job of providing clarity in all of the descriptions, classifications and definitions.  Furthermore it is vital that flexibility be incorporated that allows for regional considerations.  Water issues and water law in the Western United States force us to address issues in ways that can be entirely different than those found in States that have an abundance of water and do not manage water through a prior appropriation system.

Allowing politics to win out by gutting the efforts to rewrite these definitions is the wrong approach and the worst outcome possible.  Let’s hope that common sense can overcome politics.  After all, it’s true that some things don’t change.  Take care of the water and it will take care of you!

The EPA needs to hear from you!! To comment on the proposed rule click here to tell the EPA to protect our streams and rivers!!