Check your inboxes! This month’s Currents newsletter includes stories such as:
Thank you for your support during Colorado Gives Day!
RareWaters Membership Gives Back
Cabin Creek Aquatic Organism Passage Project
Get Hooked on Winter Fishing in Colorado
Improving the Canyon Creek Fish Passage
Repost from the Daily Sentinel
By MATT MOSKAL
Last month the American people and Colorado sportswomen and men got a big and long-awaited win with the signing of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. This truly bipartisan infrastructure legislation makes major investments in helping the nation and our state create high-paying jobs, invest in our rural communities and address the impacts of drought on our coldwater fisheries.
Thanks to the critical leadership of Senators Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, we have the single largest investment in our nation’s physical infrastructure and waterways in more than a generation.
In a big state like Colorado, it is easy to see just how desperate the need is for strong investments in our infrastructure. Colorado anglers, thank Senators Bennet and Hickenlooper for their foresight and initiative in getting this legislation across the finish line.
Colorado Trout Unlimited lauds provisions of this legislation that will deliver major benefits for coldwater fish and their habitats, including abandoned mine restoration, removal and rehabilitation of obsolete dams, forest and watershed restoration, replacement of old culverts and fish passage barriers and increased efficiency of water management and transport systems.
It reflects the understanding that our rivers and streams are as much a fundamental part of the nation’s infrastructure as bridges and dams.
The infrastructure bill also comes with commonsense solutions for climate and drought impacts to our fish and wildlife. For instance, it funds the Legacy Roads and Trails program. This program provides millions in dedicated funding for repairing, upgrading and sometimes removing 375,000 miles of roads, 12,000 bridges and 143,000 miles of trails managed by the U.S. Forest Service, in the service of reducing sediment or fish barriers in our public waters.
This is a high priority for us due to the widespread adverse impacts of poorly maintained roads and trails on wild and native trout streams. By reducing habitat fragmentation, investments through this program will also make fishery habitat more resilient in the face of climate challenges.
The agreement recognizes the critical role of our water infrastructure and watershed health in improving water security as climate change makes conditions hotter and drier. It invests $400 million in the WaterSMART program, $100 million of which is dedicated for watershed restoration projects, and dedicates another $250 million for aquatic ecosystem restoration and protection projects.
Another $100 million supports local action through funding watershed groups’ planning and project development, to help ensure the infrastructure bill’s funding makes possible the best multi-benefit projects for improving watershed health, fish and wildlife habitat, and clean drinking water for Coloradans for generations to come.
The deal also helps reduce wildfire risk in Colorado by investing in risk reduction and ecosystem restoration. It includes $3.37 billion for projects that reduce wildfire risks on U.S. Forest Service lands, with $100 million of that funding allocated for collaborative, science-based ecosystem restoration projects.
Another $2.13 billion is dedicated to ecosystem restoration, with $80 million specifically for a collaborative, aquatic-focused, landscape-scale Aquatic Restoration Program to restore fish passage or improve water quality on federal and non-federal land through voluntary, cooperative agreements.
These provisions will help Colorado mitigate the risk of catastrophic wildfires while also ensuring that our valuable coldwater fisheries can prepare for, withstand, and recover from fires.
The far-reaching provisions of the infrastructure bill help protect Colorado’s water resources in the face of hotter summers and drier winters. And, it will help secure the fishing and outdoor heritage of many working-class Colorado families.
Thanks to bipartisan leadership from pragmatic House and Senate members including Senators Bennet and Hickenlooper, we have an actual governing win for the American people.
Matt Moskal is the President of Colorado Trout Unlimited and is based in Denver. Colorado Trout Unlimited is a member of the Water for Colorado Coalition.
Ballot Measure 7A passed with bi-partisan support in November 2020, and the Community Funding Partnership began. It was great to see voters joining together to support our Western Slope waters and the River District’s vital role in sustaining them. And Trout Unlimited is proud to have been a part of those efforts in building common ground around healthy and productive rivers and watersheds across western Colorado.
Now with $4.2 million in grant money available for Western Slope water projects every year, the Colorado River District has worked hard to identify multi-benefit projects, streamline the application process, and get your tax dollars right back to work in the community. Over $3 million has already been awarded this year to 23 diverse projects! Learn more about the Community Funding Partnership and awarded projects here.
The video above previews a few of the outstanding projects which have been awarded grant funding through the Community Funding Partnership. Stay tuned for more videos in the year to come as the Community Funding Partnership shares project stories that showcase Colorado's beautiful West Slope.
We have a new look coming to your inbox! This month’s Currents newsletter includes stories such as:
Reconnecting the Colorado River
Your voice matters for Colorado's rivers - DEADLINE IS NOVEMBER 15, 2021
A work of art for river conservation
5 streamer fishing myths
COLORADO GIVES
And upcoming events across the state!
This is a repost from the CBS News 60 minutes segment all about the Colorado River. The Colorado River has been hitting record low volume as seven states and 30 Native American tribes lying in the Colorado River Basin prepare to make hard choices as water levels plummet due to a 22-year drought. Bill Whitaker reports. Check out the full video segment below.
This is why it's so important to be involved in Colorado's Water Plan, as the Basin Implementation Plans are being updated and we need YOUR input right now thru Nov. 15. It’s time to make your voice heard: What do you think needs to happen in your local watershed for the health of your local rivers, the environment, and water supply?
Repost from TU.org by Kara Armano
What is so important about a connected river? Well, to trout, there is an obvious answer: connectivity gives them the ability to survive when adversity strikes. To anglers, there is also an obvious answer: a healthy fishery translates into a better experience on the water. But there is much more to a connected river, and the Colorado River, near its headwaters, is just about to be reconnected. It’s been a long time in the making.
The Colorado River Connectivity Channel is an effort by Trout Unlimited and many other partners to reconnect a mile of the river near its headwaters. Also known as the Windy Gap Bypass Project, TU and partners aim to improve this section of river near Granby, Colo., for the benefit of trout and aquatic insects, the community and its recreation-based economy. Anglers, will also enjoy the fruits of the project, and the river will be more resilient to the impacts of climate change and wildfires along the way.
The Windy Gap Reservoir blocks the movement of fish and other aquatic organisms and degrades the downstream habitat. The health of the river below this reservoir has declined continuously since it was built in the mid-1980s, with documented losses of 38 percent of macroinvertebrate diversity — including the complete loss of giant stoneflies, the loss of native sculpin populations and the decline of trout biomass in this state-designated Gold Medal trout fishery.
The upper Colorado River flows into Windy Gap Reservoir inhibiting a healthy ecosystem and a strong fishery, but the Colorado River Connectivity Channel will repair that and reconnect the river for a multitude of benefits.
Owned and operated by Northern Water, the Windy Gap reservoir collects water high in the Colorado River drainage and delivers it across the Continental Divide to provide water for more than half a million customers on Colorado’s northern Front Range. With partners across the divide and years of working to find solutions to the many problems with this system, conservation groups, local governments and local businesses among many others, took the challenges to heart to realize how this channel project will benefit many.
The goal of the CRCC is to establish a natural river channel around Windy Gap reservoir to reconnect the river and eliminate the reservoir’s negative impacts. The channel is the lynchpin connecting multiple restoration efforts including removal of fish barriers, $6 million worth of channel improvements upstream of the reservoir and floodplain reconnection projects downstream, and a series of projects designed to restore both irrigation and aquatic habitats in the town of Kremmling. These projects are expected to benefit over 30 miles of Colorado River, and they couldn’t be realized without many partners, including agricultural producers as well as the efforts of Grand County’s Learning By Doing.
Over $26 million has been committed to the project from various sources, including Northern Water, the Colorado Water Conservation Board, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, Grand County, the Colorado River Water Conservation District, GOCO, National Fish & Wildlife Foundation, Gates Family Foundation, Colorado River Alliance, and corporate and private donors. Trout Unlimited and its partners are working hard to raise the additional funds and expect to see construction starting soon and last through summer of 2023.
When complete, the project is expected to restore lost and declining aquatic species and improve the river’s resiliency in the face of increasing water diversions and climate change. The channel will be open to the public, providing over a mile of Gold Medal trout quality waters for public fishing, providing significant economic benefits to the small Grand County communities that rely on recreation.
We’ll be sharing photos and information along the progress of this massive undertaking, so be sure to follow along for updates on the project.
Our team wanted to understand the crucial challenges facing our watersheds, and what steps anglers can take to protect our fisheries.
Anchor Fly has recently had the honor and great fortune of sitting down with Dr. Helen Neville, Trout Unlimited’s senior scientist. Helen is a leader in conservation science for native trout and in April of 2020 was recognized by the Western Division of the American Fisheries Society (AFS) with the Award of Merit.
Q: What do you see are the top threats facing our watersheds?
A: Climate change, non-native species (here for their impacts on trout in particular) and the cumulative impacts of on-going habitat destruction and degradation.
Q: If you had the resources to implement one solution tomorrow—what would that be?
A: Halt and reverse the impacts of climate change, yesterday
Q: Besides educating oneself and offering donations, what are things an average angler can do to help with the problem of climate change, habitat degradation or other overarching conservation efforts?
A: There are several prongs to this in my view.
First, anything we can do to reduce our legacy of habitat degradation improves life for us all, and the ability of fish to handle climate change – so generally restoring habitat condition and connectivity is key.
This could involve things like joining on with restoration projects to restore flows, reconnect streams to their floodplains, reduce runoff, re-vegetate stream banks, and reconnect streams through culvert or other barrier removals so fish can get to different habitats they need. Some of those are pretty big endeavors, of course, but simpler actions like participating in riparian tree plantings help on various fronts: riparian vegetation provides shade that reduces stream temperature and restores structure and food sources for the stream (wood, leaf litter, terrestrial bugs, etc). It also stores carbon.
There is also no doubt that we simply need to reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide and methane – and the latest science shows we need to do it urgently. There are things we can do as individuals to reduce our own carbon footprint, of course, like reducing energy use, driving less, eating less meat, etc.
But, the bottom line is that to get where we need to be will take broad-scale policy and legislation. We all need to be pushing on that front, including by public education and outreach on the issue. Anywhere we can communicate our observations or help influence someone to think more directly about climate change, helps.
So, I think we all need to talk about it: have conversations with other anglers when you’re out fishing about what you’ve observed, talk to your family and friends, and talk to your representatives!
One of our (TU’s) Climate Change Working Group members recently asked his Congressional representative what degree of outreach he needed from his constituency to take action on an issue; the representative responded that if he hears from around 100 people, that’s meaningful and elevates an issue to him.
That was remarkable to me, 100 people! That’s not many, it’s something we can all organize around as a personal or group goal.
Also, do recognize that the voices of anglers (and hunters), in particular, go a long way with politicians. TU has action sites where you can voice your concern, and we’ve also aligned with the Citizen’s Climate Lobby, a national non-profit with local chapters, that is pushing timely legislation on carbon pricing.
Q: How do non-native species including non-native trout impact current fish populations?
A: This is a really important one, as it’s a tough issue for anglers I know. But you’re right in asking about this, in that non-native trout can have real, negative impacts on native trout.
Luckily, where you are in North Carolina these non-natives don’t breed with brook trout and present a hybridization threat, like some do for our cutthroat trout out west. But rainbow trout and brown trout compete with your native brook trout for resources like food and spawning sites – and there’s been some good recent research showing they can push native brook trout out of cold-water habitats as well. So while non-native trout have been considered a conservation threat to native trout for a long time, they should be an even greater concern with climate change.
Q: Do you think it’s too late to save certain waterways from climate change and habitat degradation?
A: Hmmm, that’s a tough one. I’d hate to say it’s too late generally, as it depends on your scope. There will always be benefits to restoring habitats for various reasons, including to improve the situation for all types of fish and wildlife (and humans!). Anything we can do to reduce stream temperature, sediment and other pollutants, attenuate flooding effects, and restore summer flows to reduce effects of drought (as both flooding and drought will be increasing under climate change, in NC and elsewhere) – that’s all good for all of us, no matter what. But yes, I think (based on the science) in the future there will be some places that unfortunately will no longer sustain trout.
Q: Can you talk a bit more about how habitat destruction and degradation impacts watersheds?
A: That’s a broad one! But it’s a good question, as it is important to think about things at a watershed level, because things upstream ultimately impact what happens downstream, and vice versa. So, allowing development that erodes stream condition upstream, through adding sediment or other pollutants, increasing temperatures, etc, will impact conditions downstream, too – and in a cumulative fashion. That is, the footprint of each impact might be small, but when there are many impacts throughout a watershed their collective effect can be big. This is why broad protections even for the smallest of streams, like through the Clean Water Act, which we at TU work on a lot, are so important.
When downstream habitats are eroded – so where mainstem rivers have lower flows, are full of sediment, are warmer, contain non-native species, etc., – they can become inhospitable for trout. And these downstream habitats are important for trout, as you know, for growing and overwintering – even if they spawn in the tributaries. Losses there can mean populations upstream become more disconnected from each other, which is bad for their long-term survival.
Basically, it’s all interconnected. From a trout perspective, the more trout can access all types of different, healthy habitats, the better they will do.
Q: Do you have any pets?
A veritable farm: 2 guinea pigs, a snake and a dog …
Q:What is your favorite winter activity?
Skiing! We love to ski and are lucky to have great access to it here in ID
Q: What is the last book you read? Or what are you currently reading?
I’ve been choosing books lately through a diversity, equity and inclusion lens.
I just finished one of the most impactful books I’ve read in a long time, one of those books that just changes your entire world view: a collection of essays called Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer. She’s a botanist and professor, member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, and a mother, and I am grateful that she wrote this book (and others I have yet to read), allowing me and all of us to access her multi-faceted wisdom and world view – highly recommended!
Join Dr. Neville And Get Involved With Trout Unlimited’s Programs
Helen has been with Trout Unlimited since 2006 and now serves as the organization’s Senior Scientist. She received her undergraduate degree in biology from Brown University, a Master’s degree in Ecology, Behavior and Evolution from the University of California, San Diego, and her Ph.D. in Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Biology from the University of Nevada, Reno.
Helen specializes in applying genetic tools to improving our understanding of the ecology and conservation needs of salmon and trout. She especially loves collaborating with her TU colleagues and outside science partners with entirely different skills on a broad array of conservation needs, including understanding impacts and planning opportunities related to climate change. Within TU she is also working to increase science capacity, improve connections among TU science staff, and deepen science integration across the organization. Helen lives in Boise, Idaho, with her husband and two daughters, and loves having wonderful, wild Idaho as her backyard.
Repost: https://www.skyhinews.com/news/cpw-surveys-fish-gears-up-for-movement-study-around-windy-gap/
For the fifth year in a row, Colorado Parks and Wildlife biologists, technicians and volunteers waded along the Colorado River with electrified poles and fishnets in hand.
The group followed a roughly 600-foot stretch of the Colorado River behind River Run RV Resort on Tuesday. The poles sent a field of electric current into the water, stunning the fish and making them easier to scoop up into nets.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife Aquatic Biologist Jon Ewert explained that since Granby purchased the section of river in 2016, CPW has been conducting fish population surveys for two spots on the Colorado.
There is a similar survey on the Fraser River. Trying to control for variability, the annual surveys occur at the same time each year.
While Ewert is interested in the fish population for any given year, the work also documents long-term trends.
“(A trend) really only becomes obvious once you’ve been doing it for several years and you have kind of a baseline data set established,” he said.
A CPW biologist collects captured fish along the Colorado River on Tuesday. Once all the fish along the 600-foot sample have been collected, the scientists collected population data and then implanted electronic tags for a separate study on fish movement.
Amy Golden/Sky-Hi News
Ewert does not have any reason to expect a major population difference this year, but he’s being extra vigilant following the East Troublesome Fire. He said that reach of the Colorado has been “off color” all year because the water coming through Willow Creek Reservoir has carried material from the burned area.
“One thing I will be watching for is, did we have less successful reproduction? Are there fewer juvenile fish?” Ewert said. “That’s the place I would expect to see that, is if there’s fewer juvenile fish as a result of the extra sediment in the water. I don’t know if that’ll be the case, but that’ll be one thing I’ll be looking closely at.”
Ewert added that he won’t know the results of this year’s population survey until he crunches the numbers later this year.
That’s not all the surveyors were doing Tuesday, though. After catching hundreds of fish and recording the data, the CPW scientists implanted each one with an electronic tag.
Separate from the population study, CPW is beginning work on a large-scale fish movement study for populations around the Windy Gap Reservoir in anticipation of the Colorado River Connectivity Channel.
The channel would loop around the reservoir and be capable of passing water, fish and sediment, thereby reconnecting miles of the Colorado and Fraser rivers, according to Northern Water.
Antennas have been installed in beds of rivers at different places, along with hundreds and hundreds of tags placed in the bodies of fish. The antennas will detect when fish pass, both before and after the planned Windy Gap bypass is installed.
The Windy Gap dam has been a barrier to fish movement since it was built in the 1980s. The bypass as envisioned will slightly shrink the size of the Windy Gap reservoir and allow for a river corridor to reconnect between the Colorado and Fraser rivers east of the reservoir and the Colorado River west of the reservoir.
The long-anticipated connectivity channel is expected to be built in the next few years.
“We’re very excited about the Colorado River Connectivity Project,” Ewert said. “We think it’s going to be a huge benefit to the ecological health of the Colorado River in Grand County. When you reconnect a habitat that’s been fragmented, that’s a huge benefit to all the critters that live in the river.”
The study will record fish movement all around the Windy Gap, establishing a baseline of patterns as they exist now to compare to the movement following the creation of the bypass.
“Hopefully what we’ll be documenting is a lot more fish movement,” Ewert said.
See the full article here: https://www.skyhinews.com/news/cpw-surveys-fish-gears-up-for-movement-study-around-windy-gap/
As leaders across the state in nine "Basin Roundtables" work to update their local water and river management plans, or "Basin Implementation Plans (BIPs)", they're taking public comment from community members. It’s time to make your voice heard: What do you think needs to happen in your local watershed for the health of your local rivers, the environment, and water supply? To help you do this, Water for Colorado is collecting comments, which will then be submitted on your behalf to your local Basin Roundtable once the public comment period ends on Nov. 15.
WATER FOR COLORADO HAS COMPILED SIX KEY RECOMMENDATIONS YOU CAN USE IN YOUR COMMENTS:
Ensure healthy, flowing rivers
Prioritize resilient watersheds
Center equity
Support for irrigated agriculture
Include water conservation and efficiency
Plan for sustainable Funding
Learn more about these recommendations here.
Get to your your river basin here.
The wait is over! The custom Colorado Trout Unlimited hand-sculpted, bronze belt buckles are available for presale. There are two versions, one featuring a cutthroat trout and the other an Adams dry fly. Both are custom pieces made by local sculptor, Dave Richardson. A portion of the proceeds will go directly to support Colorado Trout Unlimited. Click the button below to order your own or purchase it as a gift! Thank you for your support of local businesses and river conservation in Colorado.
The artist, Dave Richardson, is a native Coloradan, a dedicated fly angler and a professional full time sculptor. Learn more about Dave and his work here.
Watch to learn more about the story behind the belt buckles and the artist, Dave Richardson.
