Meet Our Award Winners!

Colorado TU honors those whose contributions to resource protection make them deserving of statewide acclaim. Congratultions to our 2012 award winners!

Trout Communications Award - Kirk Deeter

Kirk Deeter, newly appointed editor of Trout Unlimited's TROUT magazine and long-time outdoor writer for Field and Stream and other publications, was recognized for his focus on Colorado's Best Wild Places and for his ongoing support of TU in Colorado.

Trout Conservation Award - Grand County

Grand County Commissioner Nancy Stuart accepts the Colorado TU Trout Conservation Award for the county's ongoing efforts to ensure that the upper Colorado River system is protected and restored for future generations.

Exemplary Guide & Outfitter - Kerry Caraghar

The fishing manager for Orvis-Cherry Creek, Kerry is a respected guide and leader in the regional fly fishing industry. He was instrumental in establishing the "Orvis 101" program to introduce new anglers to fly fishing, and is now a regular fly tyer and speaker with regional TU chapters. Kerry also and helped secure corporate grant funding for the Golden Mile habitat restoration project on his "home waters" of Clear Creek.

Chapter Communications Award - The Denver Chapter

Denver TU was recognized for modernizing its email system with improved tracking, developing a high-quality online newsletter (“The Drift”), maintaining an attractive & useful website, and developing the "Spill or Kill Reporting Card" to engage anglers as eyes and ears on their home waters.

Youth Education Award - Collegiate Peaks Anglers

When Salida schools adopted a 4-day class schedule, Collegiate Peaks saw opportunity. Working with the school district, the chapter established "Stream Explorers" to introduce students to aquatic life and fishing. Using an “inquiry-based” approach, the program focuses on hands-on learning and experimentation rather than lectures.

Youth Education Award - Evergreen Chapter

ETU’s youth education efforts include: teaching entomology, conservation, fly tying and fishing to 6th graders at JeffCo Schools Outdoor Lab; an annual day-long “fish camp” with entomology, fly tying, and fishing for 30 kids; a July 4th fishing derby for 250 kids; and partnership with Camp Comfort, which hosts children who have lost loved ones; and regularly assisting with youth fishing clinics

Outstanding Chapter Project - West Denver

West Denver’s $300,000 Canyon Reach effort builds on its earlier "Golden Mile" in the city of Golden. The project includes 3 sections below the intersection of U.S. 6 and CO 116 and focuses on both public access and aquatic habitat. J-hooks, cross vanes, boulder clusters and toe-wood islands improved habitat, while pathways and safe-wading areas were created for young families and limited-mobility anglers.

Most Improved Chapter - Rocky Mountain Flycasters

Rocky Mountain Flycasters have strengthened their chapter significantly in recent years and just completed a banner year with successful membership recruitment, an improved email newsletter and website, doubled average meeting attendance, and an increased commitment to education and conservation which has led to an 85% increase in the chapter budget. RMF has also contributed more than 5,000 volunteer hours to a slate of youth education and stream conservation projects.

Exemplary Chapter - Cheyenne Mountain

Cheyenne Mountain TU celebrated its 25th anniversary by hitting on all cylinders - strong chapter communications, growing attendance at events, strong revenue from fundraising, and the completion of important conservation projects on Fountain Creek and the South Platte. CMCTU has expanded its youth education programs and boosted conservation awareness by working with a local brewery to introduce a "Bear Creek Porter" to support conservation of a local cutthroat trout stream.

Outstanding Volunteer - Glen Edwards, West Denver

Glen has been a long-time chapter volunteer leader with the West Denver Chapter and was honored for his tireless efforts on the successful Golden Mile and Canyon Reach restoration projects, as well as for his conservation leadership within West Denver.

Outstanding Volunteer - George Osborn, Gunnison Gorge Anglers

After BLM completed a study on modifying the Relief Ditch diversion to reduce impacts on stream habitat while helping irrigators, the concept seemed doomed to languish - until George stepped up to provide steady, dedicated leadership. Construction will begin this year. George personally helped raise more than $200K in cash and in-kind donations.

Outstanding Volunteer - John Ellis, Evergreen Chapter

John has served ETU as president 5 times and Youth and  Education Chair for 18 years. He helped develop the Mt Evans Outdoor Lab Program in partnership with Jeffco Schools, worked with Evergreen Parks & Rec to establish a 4th of July fishing clinic that attracts 250 kids each year, was a leader in the O’Fallon Park/Bear Creek restoration project and helped build key partnerships with Audubon, Denver Mountain Parks, and the Colorado Division of Parks and Wildlife.

Outstanding Volunteer - Dave Piske

As conservation chair for the Rocky Mountain Flycasters, Dave has brought a thorough knowledge of advocacy processes and strategy to the cause of coldwater conservatin, drawing from his corporate career experience.  He has represented TU in collaborative negotiations on the Halligan-Seaman Reservoir expansion, on Long Draw Reservoir reauthorization, and has helped establish partnerships with agencies from the National Parks Service to Larimer County Open Space.

Outstanding Volunteer - Fred Portillo, West Denver Fred was cited as a “Renaissance Man” (and all-around great guy) who has always been willing to step up to fill a need. He served the West Denver Chapter as president (2 yrs), Vice-President (2 yrs), Programs Director (2 yrs), Youth Education Programs Coordinator (1 yr), Fundraising Raffle Chair (2 yrs) and Chapter Picnic Coordinator (2 yrs).  Wherever he was needed, time and again, Fred was there.

It's Official: Drought

"The Denver Board of Water Commissioners is declaring a Stage 1 drought in recognition of low streamflows and projected low runoff. Anticipating the possibility of continued dry water, customers will be asked to voluntarily cut back on water use by 10 percent."

Read the full story at Summit County Voice.

Where Does Your Water Come From?

Hint: "The faucet" is not the correct answer.

If you live in Denver, Boulder and many other cities on the front range, at least some of your water comes from the upper Colorado River Basin on the other side of the Continental Divide. As you'll recall from 6th grade or thereabouts, that water is supposed to flow to the Pacific Ocean.

But the front range has been pulling water out of the upper Colorado for decades - and now water providers are planning to take even more. The question is - how much can you take before the river starts to die?

Tapped Out: The Upper Colorado on the Brink is a short documentary designed to make people think about the effect our water use in cities has on rivers and economies many miles distant.

Watch: Tapped Out

Sucking the River Dry

"How much water does a river need to stay alive? At what point does the upper Colorado cease to be a functioning river? We may be dangerously close to finding out."

Sucked Dry: Will State Leaders Help Defend the Embattled Colorado River?

By Drew Peternell, Trout Unlimited

If you’ve driven down the hill on I-70 recently, perhaps after an escape to one of Colorado’s West Slope playgrounds, you might have seen a billboard near Golden that warns, “Don’t Suck the Upper Colorado River Dry.”

It’s a blunt wake-up call to state leaders, water utilities, Front Range residents, and all Coloradans who care about the future of our state’s namesake river.

The Colorado River, from its headwaters in Rocky Mountain National Park down through Granby, Kremmling, Glenwood Springs and beyond, has long been a favorite destination for Front Range residents. Generations of Coloradans have fished, hunted, hiked, camped and floated along the waters of the Colorado.

But most Front Range residents don't realize that much of the water they use at home comes directly from the streams and rivers of the upper Colorado River basin. A spider-web network of dams and pumps and pipelines delivers water from the Colorado and other West Slope rivers to showerheads and sprinklers in Denver and surrounding areas.

Already Front Range utilities take about 60 percent of the water that originates in the upper Colorado River basin, draining Grand County to the point that many of its once pristine streams now run dry.

The Fraser River, a Colorado tributary where President Eisenhower spent summers fishing, is among the hardest hit.

The low stream flows take a devastating toll on river health. Studies show dramatic declines in the size and health of trout, and entire classes of aquatic insects have disappeared from the river. Because of low stream flows and high water temperatures, the Colorado and several tributaries are choked with silt and algae.

More Proposed Diversions

And now, Front Range water providers are planning to drain the Colorado and Fraser rivers some more.

Two proposed water-diversion projects -- Denver Water's Moffat Collection System Project and the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District's Windy Gap Firming Project -- threaten to push the Colorado and Fraser rivers and their tributaries past the tipping point. Combined, the projects could leave as little as 25 percent of native upper Colorado River water on the West Slope.

A river with one quarter of its natural flow. If present trends continue, the mighty Colorado River could someday be called Colorado Creek -- or the Colorado Trickle.

How much water does a river need to stay alive?  At what point does the upper Colorado cease to be a functioning river? We may be dangerously close to finding out.

The CPW Study

A 2011 report by the Colorado Division of Parks and Wildlife (CPW) underscores the poor ecological health of the upper Colorado River. Led by respected veteran CPW biologist Barry Nehring, the study documents a river in sharp decline, suffering from multiple maladies caused largely by water diversions to the Front Range (see sidebar).

The CPW study acknowledges that these problems are likely to worsen with additional water withdrawals. It outlines several measures needed to maintain the health of the Colorado River under the lower flow conditions that would result from the projects Denver Water and the Northern Water District are proposing.

The three key measures are: (1) preservation of higher spring flushing flows to help remove sediment that smothers fish and insect habitat; (2) stream reconfiguration to narrow the channel, so that the remaining water flows are deeper, cooler, and faster; and (3) construction of a bypass around Windy Gap Reservoir -- a source of silt, algae, thermal pollution, and the lethal rainbow trout whirling disease.

Current project plans do not include the protections the CPW report identified as necessary to maintain the health of the upper Colorado River under the increased diversions.

Insufficient Protections for the River

In a formal letter issued in February, the EPA listed a host of concerns about the river impacts of the Moffat and Windy Gap project proposals. Citing the CPW study at length, the EPA called for stronger protections than in the fish and wildlife mitigation plans the Colorado Wildlife Commission approved for the projects last summer.

But Governor Hickenlooper and other state officials responsible for protecting Colorado’s natural resources recently have distanced themselves from the CPW report, asserting that the present mitigation packages are sufficient to preserve the river -- notwithstanding the conclusions of state wildlife biologists and the EPA to the contrary.

There is no doubt that the Colorado Wildlife Commission and its staff reviewed the fish and wildlife mitigation plans carefully and secured as much protection for the Colorado and Fraser Rivers they thought they could. But state law -- as interpreted by the Colorado Attorney General’s Office -- limited the Wildlife Commission’s authority to demand broader protections. During the hearings, several wildlife commissioners publicly lamented that they could not do more.

Time for a Way Forward

Hickenlooper is rightfully proud of the so-called “Cooperative Agreement” he helped broker last year between Denver Water and a number of West Slope stakeholders. The agreement places some restrictions on future Denver Water projects that impact the Colorado River, and it requires Denver to increase its conservation efforts.

But let there be no confusion. The agreement does not address the Moffat and Windy Gap project proposals, and it does not fully resolve the problems facing the Colorado River.

Governor Hickenlooper has a golden opportunity to follow-up on his good work on the cooperative agreement. He should bring interested parties to the table to craft a final mitigation plan that fully addresses the impacts of the current water withdrawal proposals.

If state officials are unwilling or unable to join the effort to protect these important resources, they need to step aside and let the federal agencies do their job as they review the projects.

Much to Lose

No one would claim that finding a solution will be easy -- these are tough, complex challenges. But, with cooperation and leadership from the state, the project proponents and other interested parties, it should be possible to craft a way forward that supplies additional water to the Front Range while keeping the Colorado River healthy.

The West Slope rivers that we tap to deliver water to the Front Range are priceless. They are vital to the health of mountain communities, Colorado's $10 billion-a-year outdoor recreation economy, and the high quality of life Coloradans enjoy.

Given all we stand to lose, now is the time to find a solution that preserves the Colorado River as the state treasure that it is.

For more information and to add your voice to those calling for protection of the Colorado River, go to www.defendthecolorado.org.

A River on the Brink

A 2011 study by the Colorado Division of Parks and Wildlife found that water diversions to the Front Range have caused severe ecological damage to the upper Colorado River. The impacts to the river below Windy Gap Reservoir include:

• A 38 percent decline in aquatic insect life;
• A complete elimination of native sculpin fish -- a key indicator of stream health;
• An almost total loss of the population of giant stoneflies -- once the dominant aquatic food source on the river;
• An “armoring” of the river bottom from sediment and silt, destroying spawning habitat for trout and smothering aquatic insect populations.

The study concludes that additional water withdrawals from the proposed Moffat Collection System and Windy Gap Firming projects will make these problems worse.

Drew Peternell is director of the Colorado Water Project for Trout Unlimited, whose mission is to conserve, protect and restore North America’s coldwater fisheries and their watersheds.

Read this opinion piece by Drew Peternell, director of TU's Colorado Water Project at DenverPost.com.

And go to www.defendthecolorado.org to learn more and join the effort.