Restoring Fish Passage at Canyon Creek

Canyon Creek flows from the Flat Tops and is a spawning tributary to the Colorado River located near New Castle - but much more of the stream could be available to fish coming up from the Colorado were it not for an existing box culvert structure under Interstate 70 that restricts fish passage into 10+ additional miles of available upstream habitat.

Now, spawning fish will have the chance to return to Canyon Creek thanks to a collaborative project developed by TU with in-kind assistance from Wright Water Engineers (WWE). Using a design for baffles and hemispheres to be placed along the floor of the culvert, the newly installed structures provide velocity shelters for spring-spawning fish making their way upstream at higher flows, and increase depth for those fall spawners moving upstream during lower flows.

This collaborative project was made possible thanks to technical and logistical assistance from Colorado Parks and Wildlife and the Colorado Department of Transportation, and generous financial support from the Colorado Water Conservation Board, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Colorado River Water Conservancy District, Trout and Salmon Foundation, and Trout Unlimited donors including the Eagle Valley Chapter.

Check out this video showing the project from pre-construction through design and to post-construction conditions, produced by our partners at WWE.

Youth Camp Applications Open!

Colorado Trout Unlimited will host the 17th annual River Conservation and Fly Fishing Camp for teen youth at AEI Base Camp in Taylor Park, Colorado, June 12-18, 2022. Since 2006, youth from across the state and beyond have gathered to complete a week-long program of STEM-based conservation education and instruction in the art of fly fishing. Youth 14-18 are eligible to apply for camp, chapters statewide provide scholarships to campers in need. In parallel with Orvis, we are working to achieve 50/50 gender diversity at camp.

This camp provides an unique immersive experience for teens interested in the outdoors, fly fishing, and potential conservation-related career paths. Campers participate in hands-on conservation activities and receive one-on-one and group instruction in the art of fly fishing. Their experience is enriched as they make lifelong relationships, "finding their people" and bonding with peers of similar interests. The program exposes campers to the complexity of water management in the west and its nexus with recreation. The diversity of the conservation program is designed so that participants can envision multiple education and career paths that align with their personal passion for the outdoors.

This summer, 22 upcoming youth leaders will come together to camp, fish, and explore. They will create a memory that will impact their lives for the decades to come. The words of Sam Goldstein, 2010 Alumni, encapsulate his experience: The opportunity to attend Trout Unlimited’s Fly Fishing Youth Camp came when I was at a crossroads in my life. I had been making poor choices as a young man and a very dear friend of mine took me fly fishing, presumably so the rivers might help straighten me out. As a result of his tutelage and kindness, I was awarded a spot in the upcoming Trout Unlimited Youth Camp. Being delighted to partake in the retreat, I soon learned many lessons that would stick with me through my years of fishing and adulthood alike. I have very fond memories of everything from learning different casting methods, tying basic fly patterns, and the joy that comes from showing off your catch! I will always be grateful for experiencing the fly fishing community through the Youth Camp the way I did. The biggest takeaway for me will always be learning how to take care of our rivers whilethey in turn, take care of us.

For more information or to apply for the 2022 River Conservation and Fly Fishing Camp, or if you are an adult and interested in volunteering with the camp, please visit our Youth Camp page here. Applications are due by April 10, 2022.

New Senate legislation to boost abandoned mine cleanups

Last Thursday (February 3, 2022), a bipartisan bill that would help address the chronic problem of pollution leaking from abandoned hardrock mines was introduced in the U.S. Senate. Lead bill sponsors Senator Martin Heinrich (D-NM) and Senator James Risch (R-ID) were joined by Colorado’s senior Senator Michael Bennet (D) as an original cosponsor, as well as Senators Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Steve Daines (R-MT), Jon Tester (D-MT), Mike Crapo (R-ID), and John Barrasso (R-WY). 

The Good Samaritan Remediation of Abandoned Hardrock Mines Act of 2022 would help address an estimated 500,000 abandoned mines - mines with no one remaining that is responsible for clean-up – 33,000 of which are known to be causing environmental damage. More than 110,000 miles of streams are listed as impaired for heavy metals and/or acidity, and abandoned mines are a major source of these impairments due to acid-mine drainage with toxic metals, such as mercury, lead and arsenic.  

“Abandoned mines represent the least addressed and greatest threat to water quality in the nation,” said Chris Wood, President and CEO of Trout Unlimited. “There is no constituency for abandoned mines and orange water, and we’re excited for Congress to take bipartisan action that will allow organizations such as TU to help protect our communities and clean our rivers and streams.”  

Under current law, Good Samaritan parties can and do voluntarily undertake projects to clean up “non-point-source” abandoned mine pollution, such as moving contaminated waste rock piles away from streams. However, under the Clean Water Act, groups wanting to take on “point-source” mine cleanups—where toxic drainage is discharging directly from the mine opening —face daunting obstacles, including complicated permitting and long-term legal and financial liability for any remaining mine pollution.

The Good Samaritan cleanup bill would establish a pilot program for a permitting process administered by the Environmental Protection Agency that would enable qualified nonprofit groups and other third parties to tackle cleanups of abandoned mine sites, in part by providing targeted, limited liability protection for these so-called “Good Samaritan” groups. State and federal governments have spent billions cleaning up leaking abandoned mines where current law allows, but there is much more work to do. Good Samaritan legislation would help get a handle on the problem by providing an alternative to relying solely on federal Superfund cleanups, which suffer from a lack of funding and capacity. Additionally, Superfund is not well-suited to address the tens of thousands of isolated, smaller mines that would not likely qualify as Superfund sites.      

The challenge of abandoned mines is very significant for Colorado. After the Gold King mine spill in 2015 that impacted the Animas River, numerous Federal and State agencies placed a greater emphasis on quantifying the scope and scale of draining mines in Colorado. A study by the State Division of Reclamation Mining and Safety showed over 250 draining mines in Colorado with 148 likely degrading downstream water quality.

“From the San Juans to the Mosquito range, Colorado’s mountains are dotted with abandoned mines that pollute many of our headwater streams,” said David Nickum, Executive Director of Colorado TU. “Under current law, watershed stewards who could help solve the problem instead would face long-term liability for problems that they had nothing to do with creating. We are grateful to Senator Bennet, and to lead sponsors Senator Heinrich and Senator Risch, for bringing forward common-sense, bipartisan legislation to empower Good Sams to start the important work of cleaning up these abandoned draining mines.”

Newly introduced federal legislation can help Good Samaritans tackle the pollution caused by abandoned mines in Colorado and throughout the West.

Coming Soon: A Home for Greenbacks in the Poudre Headwaters

This first major construction work for the Poudre Headwaters Restoration Project was largely completed just before the end of 2021. Contractor L4 Construction installed a fish barrier at the terminus of the Grand Ditch by La Poudre Pass. The barrier will isolate the planned Greenback cutthroat trout recovery area in upper La Poudre Pass Creek and Long Draw Reservoir from western slope waters intercepted by the Grand Ditch.

The Poudre Headwaters Restoration Project is an ambitious multi-year effort to create a stronghold for Greenback cutthroat trout in the headwaters of the Cache la Poudre River on the Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forests and Rocky Mountain National Park. The project includes establishing permanent barriers to safeguard the native trout recovery waters from invasion by non-native species, as well as temporary barriers to help break up the nearly 40-mile total project into smaller manageable pieces for reclamation and reintroduction of greenbacks. With completion of the Grand Ditch barrier, the first phases of fish reclamation to remove existing non-native fish can proceed in 2022-23 in collaboration with Colorado Parks and Wildlife, and then stocking of Greenback cutthroat trout can proceed in a first section of recovery habitat that will include Long Draw Reservoir and Neota Creek.

Installation of the Grand Ditch barrier created some real challenges as winter weather began to set in at the project site over 10,000 feet in elevation. L4 crews had excavated the area for the barrier installation to specifications from US Forest Service engineers who designed the barrier. Pouring the concrete for the barrier - in a series of three different pours for different portions of the structure - required both keeping the work area dry by blocking inflow above the site and pumping water, and maintaining temperatures for the concrete to cure properly by building a large tent over the site and using large heating units to blow warm air into the tent. Plowing snow to keep road access to the site safe for work crews and trucks delivering the concrete was another challenge.

Work on the concrete barrier was ultimately completed in the final week of December. Additional channel work is planned in 2022, and efforts will also begin on other aspects of the larger Poudre Headwaters Restoration Project. In addition to the Forest Service, Rocky Mountain National Park, and L4, key partners and funders for the barrier installation included Water Supply and Storage Company’s Long Draw Reservoir Mitigation Trust (providing mitigation funding for impacts of their reservoir), the Colorado Water Conservation Board, and the Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s Outdoor Fund. Partners in the broader project also include Colorado Parks and Wildlife and the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Colorado TU is grateful to all of those who are making this ambitious native trout recovery program possible.

Images below show the tented area and construction process, culminating in backfill material placed behind one of the wing walls for the new fish barrier.

Farewells to TU stalwarts

As 2021 wound to its close, Colorado TU lost two committed long-time volunteer leaders, both recipients of the prestigious Silver Trout award. In December, Michael McGoldrick and John Trammell passed away - but both left important conservation legacies.

Michael McGoldrick first engaged with Trout Unlimited in the midwest near his then-home in Chicago, but once settled in Colorado he stepped up and served as Colorado TU’s treasurer for multiple terms including at a critical juncture - through the market crash and recession of 2008. Michael’s background in finance equipped him well to provide leadership, and having earlier in his career seen financial debates distract other nonprofits from their core mission, he worked hard to ensure that CTU’s finances were stable and not a source of disruption from the organization’s mission. His wise and thoughtful financial stewardship ensured that CTU did not see its assets undermined by the market crash of 2008.

Michael had diverse charitable interests from the arts to conservation, and his most lasting legacy with Colorado TU was in creating a stronger culture of philanthropy. With his encouragement, the annual auction was upgraded into a Gala with a greater emphasis on charitable support, sponsorships, and celebration of leaders in river conservation.

Michael was also a founder of CTU’s charitable donor society for those giving $1000 or more, the River Stewardship Council. From its humble beginning with Michael’s initial contribution, the River Stewardship Council has grown into a key sustaining funding source for trout conservation work in Colorado. Michael encouraged the RSC program to offer opportunities for donors to connect and engage, building a deeper connection with the work they supported through activities such as tours and fishing trips to experience waters benefiting from CTU’s work. He was a regular participant in RSC activities, and from his contribution as the first RSC donor through all of the years following, he remained a committed donor and conservationist.

Michael’s kindness and good spirits made him a well-loved presence through all of the many TU programs in which he took part. As his long-time partner Terry Galpin-Plattner said, he lived a life that was lively, loving, and curmudgeonly.

Michael McGoldrick - photo courtesy of Terry Galpin-Plattner.

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Over three decades, John Trammell provided volunteer leadership at all levels of the Trout Unlimited organization - from his local Grand Valley Anglers chapter to the National Resource Board providing the grassroots voice on TU’s national conservation agenda.

John’s professional background was as a geologist, and he brought a science-based approach to his efforts as a conservation volunteer and advocate. A prime example was the stream characterization study he conducted with his friend and colleague Dan Powell on West Creek in Unaweep Canyon – a highly detailed assessment that proved invaluable baseline data when a truck spill led to a fish kill in the creek some years later. His scientific knowledge and approach similarly helped inform a wide range of TU advocacy efforts.

John had a special passion for native trout. As an angler, he set out to catch all of the west’s native trout subspecies and add them to his ‘lifetime list’. As a volunteer, he worked tirelessly on projects to help restore Colorado River cutthroat trout in nearby home waters on the Grand Mesa and the Roan Plateau. From fencing and riparian planting projects along Trapper Creek to installing Whitlock-Vibert boxes in a converted refrigerator to jump-start cutthroat populations on the Grand Mesa, he brought commitment and creativity to native trout recovery.

In all that he did as a conservation leader, John worked with good humor and a kind spirit that earned the confidence and affection of all those who were fortunate enough to cross his path. He will be deeply missed, but his legacy lives on in the memory of those he helped inspire – including his daughter, native fish biologist Melissa Trammell – and in the home waters where his efforts helped secure native trout for future generations.

You can see some reflections on John’s involvement with TU native trout conservation in the short film Decades (available here) issued on Colorado TU’s 50th anniversary.  The segment featuring John and Melissa begins at 6:30.

John Trammell with a greenback cutthroat trout from spawn-taking at Zimmerman Lake.

One Step Forward in Protecting the Denver South Platte

Local residents and advocates for the Denver South Platte received an early holiday gift last week, as the Colorado Water Quality Control Commission agreed to set a hearing in September 2022 to reconsider its 2020 decision rejecting a strengthening of water quality protections for the improving Denver South Platte and lower Clear Creek. A coalition of groups from Green Latinos to Denver Trout Unlimited to Conservation Colorado joined in requesting the re-hearing of this issue; their petition was approved by the Commission last week. (You can read more coverage with the Colorado Sun here.)

Many of the community and conservation partners who petitioned for this rulemaking also took part in an earlier statewide rulemaking, where they defeated a broader proposal to weaken “antidegradation” protections for a range of Colorado waterways. While the Commission rejected the rollback proposed earlier this year, they did not at that time agree to revisit the standards applying to the Denver South Platte and Lower Clear Creek - even though the level of protection on those reaches was inconsistent with the Commission’s statewide policies.

The issue arose in 2020 when the Commission rejected antidegradation protections for the reaches, despite them qualifying under the statewide rules and being recommended by staff. Community members and allies were particularly upset by the Commission’s rationale which said such water quality protection was appropriate for “pristine mountain waters” – raising significant pushback from urban river advocates and local communities on environmental justice grounds.

“So much work has gone into improving the Denver South Platte – with even more to come – and it makes no sense to allow weakened water quality protections to jeopardize all that progress,” said Sam Agnew, President of Trout Unlimited’s Denver Chapter. “We’re grateful that the Commission recognized the need to take a fresh look at this issue and hope the new rulemaking will give the river the stronger protections it deserves. Denver TU will stay vigilant in monitoring this issue in 2022 and any other plans that arise that could possibly negatively impact our home water.”

The new Winter 2022 issue of High Country Angler is live!

Check out the new Winter 2022 issue of High Country Angler e-zine! Featuring these stories:

• DENVER FLY FISHING SHOW BY BENNETT J. MINTZ

• Q&A WITH LANDON MAYER BY THE ARTICULATE FLY

• CLARKS FORK OF THE YELLOWSTONE BY BRIAN LARUE

• OF ELK, ICE, AND ANGLING BY HAYDEN MELLSOP

• TROUT HEALTH BEYOND THE WATER’S EDGE BY NANCY JOHNSTON BRAMLETT

• WINTER FLY FISHING HOT SPOTS BY PETER STITCHER

• STREAM GIRLS RETURN TO THE WATER BY BARBARA LUNEAU

• FIT TO BE TIED BY JOEL EVANS

• A CONVERSATION WITH EMMA BROWN BY HCA

• THE LAST CAST BY JOHN NICKUM

December Currents: A voice for Colorado's Rivers!

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

Infrastructure bill a win for Colorado land, water

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.

Bill will benefit fish habitat

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.

Improving water security

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.

Reducing wildfire risk

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.

Colorado River District Celebrating Partnerships & Innovation

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.