Headwaters Spring 2018 Public Lands

OUR WATER, OUR LAND CONVERGING TO RESTORE COLORADO’S PUBLIC LANDS

SPRING 2018

R A NCH ER. F I S H ER M AN. CON S ER VAT I O N I S T. Different Hats, Common Values

Watch A River’s Reckoning, a new film by American Rivers and Trout Unlimited, to learn how ranchers on the Upper Colorado River worked with conservation groups and other partners to improve the fishery and the ranchers’ access to irrigation water.

Colorado’s Water Plan encourages stream management plans to create similar partnerships in your basin. River Network can help through education and direct support.

Learn more and apply for assistance by April 15th at rivernetwork.org/smp

Photo by Russ Schnitzer.

Pulse Money For Mussel Control Colorado seeks funding to stop the spread of aquatic nuisance species.

9 One Step Forward, Into The Wind The Windy Gap Firming Project prepares to move forward.

10 Following Up: Piloting Water Tech Denver Water tests micro-hydro in its canals.

11 Coping With A Toxic Legacy A reinvigorated push to clean up orphan mines across the state and nation.

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Inside

Contents | Spring 2018

DIRECTOR’S NOTE

4 WHAT WE’RE DOING

WEco's upcoming events, reporting and more.

FROM THE EDITOR

THE PUBLIC LANDS ISSUE On Colorado’s public lands, climate change and a growing population pose new challenges: fire danger, funding gaps, source water protection, and the need to balance various interests. Yet myriad Coloradans are uniting to reimagine this land of many uses. Water management depends on working together.

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AROUND THE STATE

Water news from each of Colorado’s eight river basins.

13 MEMBER’S CORNER

Engage, volunteer and celebrate the impact of WEco’s work.

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F E AT U R E

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This Land is Our Land

The Water for Land Dilemma

Destination Water

Coloradans team up to preserve the many uses of public lands and to protect water.

Recent agreements meet the needs of water right holders and the land—putting aside skirmishes over federal reserved water rights.

A traveler tells the stories and management lessons behind the state’s recreational gems.

By Heather Hansman

By Krista Langlois

By Jerd Smith

On the cover: The Gunnison River cuts its way through the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park and Gunnison Gorge National Conservation Area.

The river has shaped this public landscape and its uses. Courtesy BLM Above: A hiker on the Continental Divide Trail. Courtesy BLM

DIRECTOR’S NOTE

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Jayla Poppleton Executive Director

Lisa Darling President

Jennie Geurts Director of Operations

Gregory J. Hobbs, Jr. Vice President

Stephanie Scott Leadership & Education Programs Manager Sophie Kirschenman Education & Outreach Coordinator

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ou’ve probably noticed that things look a little different around here. Following our rebrand in October, we set to work updating the look and feel of Headwaters. We published our inaugural issue of the magazine in 2003 and hadn’t changed our masthead since. You now hold our 44th issue in your hands!

Kudos to our graphic designer Chas Chamberlin for his outstanding work.

Over the past 15 years, we’ve covered everything from energy to land use to agriculture to recreation to ecosystems services and endangered species.

We’ve published river basin-specific issues and issues dedicated to the work of the State Engineer’s Office, the Colorado Water Conservation Board, and the Basin Roundtables. And we’ve built a dedicated readership who values our coverage. Now we’re working hard to grow that readership, and to make sure our audience recognizes the relevancy of our water reporting.

They say you can’t judge a book by its cover. But I think the cover tends to help. People sometimes need convincing that the product or service you proffer is worth their time and money. And so we’ve repackaged what we believe is an excellent product to ensure people, especially those new to us, see it that way.

We’ve also added a tagline to the magazine: “Colorado’s most pressing water issues, explained, weighed, animated, elevated.” This sums our approach to providing balanced and compelling coverage in Headwaters.

Headwaters’ redesign isn’t the only thing we’ve had brewing. We’re building a new website to introduce people in the digital space to our mission, publications and programming. Our new site will catch up with the modern era, and will become a tool for providing additional water news coverage online. We’ll aim to fill gaps in water reporting coming from other news outlets around the state and will be adding another journalist to our team to help accomplish this.

I couldn’t be more excited about our path. Not only will these steps help us increase our reach, but they will help us better achieve our mission.

According to the American Press Institute, the purpose of journalism is to “provide citizens with the information they need to make the best possible decisions about their lives, their communities, their societies, and their governments.” Water Education Colorado exists to do just that for matters related to our most precious natural resource.

Thank you for reading, and for all of your support on this journey!

—Executive Director—

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STAFF

Alicia Prescott Development Coordinator Caitlin Coleman Headwaters Editor & Communications Specialist Charles Chamberlin Headwaters Graphic Designer

Gregg Ten Eyck Secretary Alan Matlosz Treasurer Eric Hecox Past President Rep. Jeni Arndt Rick Cables Nick Colglazier Jorge Figueroa Greg Johnson Scott Lorenz Dan Luecke Kevin McBride Kate McIntire Reed Morris Lauren Ris Travis Robinson Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg Laura Spann Chris Treese Reagan Waskom

THE MISSION of Water Education Colorado is to promote increased understanding of water resource issues so Coloradans can make informed decisions. WEco is a nonadvocacy organization committed to providing educational opportunities that consider diverse perspectives and facilitate dialogue in order to advance the conversation.

HEADWATERS magazine is published three times each year by Water Education Colorado. Its goals are to raise awareness of current water issues, and to provide opportunities for engagement and further learning.

THANK YOU to all who assisted in the development of this issue. Headwaters’ reputation for balance and accuracy in reporting is achieved through rigorous consultation with experts and an extensive peer review process, helping to make it Colorado’s leading publication on water.

Copyright 2018 by the Colorado Foundation for Water Education DBA Water Education Colorado. ISSN: 1546-0584

What we’re doing

WEco RADIO

“On Deep Creek, neither the Forest Service nor BLM got any comments from any parties saying we think [wild and scenic] designation is a bad idea.”

—Roy Smith with the Bureau of Land Management speaking on our radio show, Connecting the Drops, about the possibility of designating Deep Creek as Colorado’s next wild and scenic river.

Listen online at yourwatercolorado.org/audio

Pedaling Urban Waterways Rio Grande Basin Tour Jump on the bus for our two-day Annual River Basin Tour June 11–12. Visit and learn at sites across the San Luis Valley, including: hh hh hh hh

Summitville Mine Superfund Site Platoro Reservoir Rio Grande State Wildlife Area 5 Ditches Restoration Project

Tour topics will include: Forest health, reservoir rehabilitation and timed releases, remote telemetry, compact compliance, ag practices, well rules and regulations, and much much more.

Reserve your spot at yourwatercolorado.org

Summer in Colorado means picnics, baseball, hiking 14ers, camping and Urban Waters Bike Tours! Our annual bike tours involve biking, meeting new people, learning about water, and having fun doing it. It doesn’t get more Colorado than that. Plus they're free! Bike with us this summer. We’ll pedal the Poudre River in Fort Collins May 24 and 25, then ride in Denver on June 5 and 6.

Learn more at yourwatercolorado.org

WEBINAR

#PublicationPopUp—We’ve been out and about in Colorado and have seen our publications in great locations! If you see our magazines or guides, take a selfie with them and post it on Instagram for a chance to win 50 percent off an upcoming workshop of your choice. Use the hashtag #PublicationPopUp, be sure to say which publication, where you saw it, and tag us in the post. E.g. #PublicationPopUpSpotted: @watereducationco Headwaters Magazines and Citizen’s Guides in Denver!

The U.S. Forest Service now spends more than half of its annual budget fighting wildfires, which takes funding away from fire prevention, forest health and watershed health work. Join us in April for a webinar where we’ll dig into the fire borrowing issue.

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What we’re doing

BYO(R)B (Build Your Own Rain Barrel) You probably know recreational marijuana use is legal in Colorado (since 2012), but did you know rain barrels were legalized in 2016? Join us at one of our interactive rainbarrel building workshops this spring, and you'll walk away a little more informed about Colorado water—and with a rain barrel to boot. Workshops will be held in Denver in April and Grand Junction in June. Space is limited to the first 30 builders per workshop.

Join our email list at yourwatercolorado.org/register to receive updates on dates and registration.

A conversation with…

LAURA SPANN

to discuss our area—are really important for seeing the broader vision for southwestern Colorado.

We caught up with Laura Spann, a Water Education Colorado board member, to hear more about public and tribal lands in her corner of the state. Laura is the program coordinator at the Southwestern Water Conservation District (SWCD), which works to protect, conserve, use, and develop the water resources of southwestern Colorado for the welfare of the district. Read the full interview at blog.yourwatercolorado.org.

How does SWCD interact with public lands and federal agencies?

Like much of the state, a majority of southwestern Colorado’s lands are public or tribal. In fact, Colorado’s largest wilderness area, the Weminuche, is located in the San Juan Mountains. SWCD values its relationships with federal partners in managing local watersheds for public and private use. Over its 77-year history, the district has been involved with many collaborative stakeholder processes addressing water management 6 • WAT E R E D U C AT I O N C O LO R A D O

on public lands. One such effort recently resulted in the successful passage of the Hermosa Creek Watershed Act. And how does SWCD interact with tribal lands?

The state’s only two reservations are located in southwestern Colorado. The Southern Ute Indian Tribe and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe are integral to the water equation in this region. Some people may not realize that Colorado is one of the only western states that has settled its tribal water right claims.

TIME ON THE WECO BOARD:

One year HOME:

Durango What makes southwestern Colorado unique?

One unique thing about southwestern Colorado that we try to highlight is that there are actually nine finger-like basins that flow into New Mexico and then into Utah. Processes like the roundtable—bringing stakeholders from each of those nine basins together

What's been your most rewarding experience at SWCD? I've had the pleasure of developing relationships with diverse stakeholders from Nucla to Pagosa, and Silverton to Towaoc. With all the doom and gloom of climate crisis, drought, and compact curtailment, our many committed, passionate local experts give me hope that southwestern Colorado, and the state as a whole, will come together to meet the challenges before us.

What have you learned about WEco since joining the board?

How does a staff of five have such a significant footprint across the state? WEco is lean and effective!

BY CODY WILLIAMS

Water Festival Coordinators Gathering Water festival season is coming up! With more than a dozen festivals scheduled in all reaches of the state, we brought festival coordinators together in February to learn from each other. It was a huge success!

What participants are saying about the workshop:

Loved it. I got much more out of it than I expected to and I have already sought out some new presenters based on what others are doing!

I was wowed.

ON THE BLOG Two Years In Colorado’s Water Plan is now more than two years old. While most of its goals may not be fully achieved until 2030 or 2050, the Colorado Water Conservation Board —which prepared the plan in 2015 — has been assessing implementation. In our recent blog series, Two Years In, we look at water plan implementation and funding.

Find it at blog.yourwatercolorado.org

FROM THE EDITOR

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n late January, Colorado welcomed thousands of people to the Colorado Convention Center for Denver’s first Outdoor Retailer + Snow Show.

The show wasn’t all about sales, gadgets and gear—it was also about public lands. The Outdoor Industries Association selected Denver for the 2018 show because of Colorado’s commitment to public lands and elevated that point throughout the convention with talks from political leaders, conservationists, and water leaders.

For the past 22 years, the show has been held in Salt Lake City, but in early 2017, organizers announced that it would be leaving Utah after clashes between the outdoor industry and Utah Gov. Gary Herbert over the state’s push to reduce the size of Bears Ears National Monument. Colorado with its public lands victories—including the legislature’s designation of the Colorado Public Lands Day holiday—won the show.

Although Coloradans continue to collaborate around public lands, national public land controversies have been heating. In December 2017, President Donald Trump announced his plan to reduce two Utah national monuments by about 2 million acres. Such cuts to protections reinvigorate old, divisive conversations around who should govern public lands—the state or federal government—and around the notion of privatization. Those rallying for shifts in land control say that privatization would limit federal costs and increase productivity and economic return.

Those lands were set aside as public banks of natural resources and are valued for multiple uses. In addition to mining, drilling, grazing, timbering, and water supply infrastructure, public lands offer irreplaceable ecosystems services such as water protection and are also important for recreation and tourism—all of these uses boost the economy. Colorado runs on water, which runs off its public lands.

In Colorado, individuals along with agencies, local governments, businesses and nonprofits recognize those values are not to be ignored. Together, they are working on how best to protect and restore our public lands and the water uses that depend upon them. Throughout this issue, we explore their stories of collaboration as well as some of the management challenges that stem from climate change, overuse, and myriad demands from varied stakeholders. As Gov. John Hickenlooper said during a workshop just before the Outdoor Retailer + Snow Show, “Clean air, clean water, public lands—that’s about the most nonpartisan position you can take.” Coloradans continue to work together to restore, protect and appreciate our water and our land.

—Editor—

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Come visit the Conservation Gardens at

Northern Water Gardens are open to public seven days a week. Tours are available by calling 800-369-7246.

Northern Water 220 Water Ave. Berthoud, CO

Sustaining a rural community is hard work.

Let CoBank handle the financing.

844-846-3135 • water@cobank.com www.cobank.com

Past, present and future: Water connects us all.

Learn about our 100th anniversary at denverwater.org

SGM

Healthy Forests Mean Healthy Water Resources

Life depends on water. water depends on you.

We deliver best fit solutions and responsive services for all your water resources planning, water rights and water quality needs in Western Colorado

w w w. s g m - i n c . c o m

9 7 0 . 9 4 5 . 1004

Glenwood S prings| Grand Junction A sp e n | Sa l id a | D u ra n g o | G u n n i so n | M e e ke r

Save the Date • 5. 11. 18 2018 President's Reception Please join Water Education Colorado for our annual awards event and fundraiser at the History Colorado Center.

Celebrate with friends and colleagues! RSVP at yourwatercolorado.org/awards.

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Pulse Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s Erin Gathright collects plankton at Green Mountain Reservoir to test for invasive quagga mussel larvae.

funding comes from Tier 2 Severance Tax. The Mussel-Free Colorado Act would stabilize funding for the program by continuing the Tier 2 funding, and also by creating a stamp on in-state and out-of-state boater registrations estimated to generate more than $2 million of the $4.7 million needed to fund the program.

Money for Mussel Control

BY SARAH HARVEY

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he Mussel-Free Colorado Act, introduced by state legislators in January 2018, intends to provide much-needed funding for Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s inspection program, which is tasked with the early detection and prevention of aquatic nuisance species (ANS).

Quagga and zebra mussels are two species that pose the biggest threat to Colorado.

Typically transported between bodies of water by boats, the mussels and their larvae can survive in any standing water that isn’t drained from a

Quagga Mussel Up to 0.8 inch

Zebra Mussel Up to 2 inches

Top: Hannah Leigh Myers; Mussels: Wikimedia Commons

watercraft’s ballasts, bait wells, engine or other compartments.

The mussels can also attach themselves to the sides of a boat, or hitch a ride on plants or mud. Once established, they reproduce rapidly, putting the state’s ecology and infrastructure at risk. Both mussel species grow on hard surfaces, and will multiply until they eventually clog water intake pipes. Once adult mussels become established, there is no known way of removing them.

Legislation would provide new funding for the inspection program. Currently, program

The bill would also increase fines for those who import mussels from other states and combine separate Colorado Parks and Wildlife ANS funds into one single fund. It would also update the legislative declaration to encourage the federal government to provide funding for inspection at federal facilities.

Despite the fact that mussels are now found in 33 of the contiguous U.S. states, adult mussels have never been detected in Colorado. But larvae have been tracked or suspected in eight different reservoirs across the state—most recently, quagga mussel larvae were confirmed in Green Mountain Reservoir in August 2017.

The Mussel-Free Colorado Act passed in the House of Representatives and was introduced to the Senate in early March. The Colorado legislative session is scheduled to end May 9, a vote on the bill is expected by then. H

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Pulse

A rendering depicts Chimney Hollow Reservoir, proposed southwest of Loveland. Part of the Windy Gap Firming Project, the reservoir will store water for 12 Front Range utilities.

One Step Forward, Into the Wind After more than a decade of negotiations and permitting, the Windy Gap Firming Project is preparing to move forward, despite pending litigation.

BY SARAH HARVEY

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urrently, the Windy Gap Project consists of a diversion dam and pump plant built in the 1980s. This system delivers water from the Colorado River to Lake Granby, where the water is stored before being piped across the Continental Divide to Front Range communities. In low-runoff years the water cannot be diverted because of Windy Gap’s relatively junior water rights, but wet years also pose an issue.

Since there is no storage for the project on the Eastern Slope, the pump plant is unable to operate once Lake Granby is full.

The Windy Gap Firming Project is a series of proposed updates to the existing system, and includes plans for a new East Slope reservoir. If the project moves forward,

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Chimney Hollow, the new 90,000 acre-foot reservoir, will be constructed southwest of Loveland to provide storage space for water diverted for use by 12 fast-growing Front Range communities, creating an annual yield of about 30,000 acre-feet.

Environmentalists have long been divided over Windy Gap. Conservation organization Trout Unlimited objected to the Windy Gap Firming Project at first, but ultimately collaborated with water managers on several settlements for the project. “When we evaluated the whole big picture and asked, ‘What's best for the Colorado River?’

The answer—reaching this agreement—was much better than fighting the project itself,” says Mely Whiting, legal counsel for Trout Unlimited.

One of the key settlement items, a bypass channel around Windy Gap Reservoir on the West Slope, will reconnect the Colorado River, allowing flows, fish and sediment to move unimpeded down the river. The channel will also expand riparian habitat and isolate the reservoir from the river so that problems with temperature, nutrients and algae don’t affect the Colorado River.

Others still have concerns about the project’s environmental impacts. In fall 2017 a coalition of environmental groups, including Save the Colorado and Save the Poudre—both led by executive director Gary Wockner—along with WildEarth Guardians, Living Rivers, and Waterkeeper Alliance, filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Corps of Engineers challenging their analysis of need for the diversion and sufficiency of environmental review. Since the filing, the Sierra Club has also signed onto the suit.

In the meantime, Northern Water is hoping to start construction by late 2018, or, more likely, early 2019. Construction is anticipated to take three to four years. H

Courtesy Northern Water

Following Up: Piloting Water Tech

BY SARAH HARVEY

In summer 2016, we reported on the unveiling of Emrgy’s micro-hydro technology. Now Denver Water is piloting these cutting-edge turbines with the hope of generating energy throughout its system.

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n summer 2017, Denver Water partnered with Emrgy, an Atlanta, Georgia-based micro-hydro company for a pilot project to test the potential of shallow, slow-moving canals to generate sustainable electricity. The Emrgy turbine runners are low-speed, with gearing and drive systems that use magnets instead of lubricants and oils that can potentially harm the environment.

For the pilot, ten 10-kilowatt hydropower generators were installed in the South Boulder Canal in a 9-mile-long section that extends from Gross Dam to Ralston Reservoir. The project, which cost about $330,000 or $33,000 per turbine, has the potential to generate 800 megawatt hours a year—enough to power about 70 U.S. homes on average.

Although the units are rated at 10 kilowatts, their actual output depends on water flow rates in the canal, which fluctuate over time. During the second half of 2017, Denver Water began evaluating the units and collecting data on flow rates; the agency plans to continue testing in 2018. Denver Water is working with students from the Colorado School of Mines to research the best way to use the energy created by the turbines. Once research is complete, the turbines could deliver power to Ralston Reservoir or to the electrical grid through a local provider. The power generated from the turbines during the study phase is not currently being used.

The full potential of this pilot project is much

Courtesy Emrgy

greater: Denver Water has more than 75 miles of canals in its system that could be harnessed to generate electricity. “Denver Water is installing these units with the hope of using this type of technology throughout our water collection, treatment, and distribution system in the future,” says Ian Oliver, Denver Water source of supply manager. “The study is about learning where to best utilize these units.” H

During the summer of 2017, Denver Water partnered with micro-hydro company Emrgy to place 10 small hydropower turbines along a shallow section of canal that extends from Gross Dam to Ralston Reservoir.

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Pulse

Lime is added to contaminated water after the Gold King Mine spill. The spill drew attention to the estimated 23,000 abandoned mines across Colorado and revived local, state and federal efforts to facilitate cleanups.

Coping With a Toxic Legacy

BY SARAH HARVEY

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he dangers of abandoned mines captured national attention in August 2015, when EPA crews working on the cleanup of the Gold King Mine near Silverton in southwestern Colorado accidentally caused the release of toxic wastewater into the Animas River.

Though efforts to pass federal Good Samaritan legislation were rekindled after the incident, no legislation passed in 2016. Good Samaritan legislation would have removed the liability from volunteers wishing to clean up orphan mine sites, making more mine cleanups possible—but

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some environmental organizations feared the risk of a loophole that could exempt a mining company from responsibility for a spill at a site it still owned.

The Hardrock Mining Reclamation Act of 2017, introduced last year by Senators Tom Udall (D-NM), Michael Bennet (DCO), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Edward Markey (D-MA) is the latest legislative attempt to facilitate the cleanup of abandoned mines.

The new legislation still aims to modernize hard rock mining laws that date back to the General Mining Law of 1872 (and which haven't been amended

since), but this bill drops the Good Samaritan language and focuses on funding for abandoned mine cleanup.

Enactment would provide resources to clean up thousands of abandoned mines in Colorado by imposing a royalty on hardrock mining, requiring companies to pay both an annual rent for claimed public land and a reclamation fee on extracted minerals to cover the cost of reclaiming old mines.

As of December 2017, Senator Udall says he will continue pushing the Energy and Natural Resources Committee to hold a hearing on this bill.

While legislation is pending, some Front Range communities are finding creative solutions to the dangers posed by abandoned mines while meeting their water supply needs. In January 2018, Aurora Water received approval from its city council to purchase groundwater from beneath the abandoned London Mine complex, west of Fairplay. The initial purchase could mean an additional 1,400 acre-feet of fresh water for Aurora residents.

If all goes well, Aurora Water is already looking at a second transaction, which could expand groundwater extraction at the site to up to 5,400 acre-feet a year. By pumping water beneath the mine, Aurora Water could help prevent the water from reaching exposed rock in mine tunnels, preventing further acid drainage while procuring new water supplies. H SARAH HARVEY is a Denverbased freelance writer and editor, and a Colorado native. When she's not hunched over a laptop, she enjoys exploring the state's hiking trails, bike paths, and brewery patios.

Eric Vance, Courtesy EPA

Around the state | BY SARAH HARVEY “We are no longer developing a resource.

We are learning how to share a developed resource.”

Former Colorado Supreme Court Justice Gregory Hobbs COLORADO RIVER BASIN

SOUTH PLATTE RIVER BASIN

Although Lake Powell ended 2017 with higher water levels than it had at the end of 2016, at 3,623 feet the reservoir was still 77 feet below full pool.

In conjunction with the four West Slope basin roundtables and Southwestern Water Conservation District, the Colorado River District is working on a Joint West Slope Roundtable Risk Study to understand how low levels in Lake Powell could affect the rest of the basin. This second phase of the study began in 2017 and is expected to conclude later this spring.

It will explore short-term actions that Colorado water users could take to protect reservoir elevations.

The South Platte Storage Study final report was issued by Stantec and Leonard Rice Engineers in December 2017. Commissioned by the passage of HB16-1256, the study looks at the potential for utilizing various storage strategies along the lower South Platte to capture approximately 250,000 acrefeet of water that currently crosses the Nebraska state line every year in excess of legal obligations.

Storage scenarios ranged from $7,400 to $78,200 per acre-foot per year, and included the use of new reservoirs, rehabilitated and enlarged existing reservoirs, and aquifer storage and recovery (ASR) between Greeley and the state line. The study authors say their work is only a starting point, and recommend conducting additional sitespecific feasibility analyses for hydrology, water treatment costs, compliance with the Platte River Recovery Implementation Program, and other variables that would help determine the path forward.

YAMPA/WHITE RIVER BASIN The Yampa River was the only river in Colorado to receive an “A” on its report card from Conservation Colorado last year. Flow, water quality, major dams, and the amount of water diverted out of the basin all affect the grade any river receives, as well as other factors such as data collection, history, and ecology. The Yampa’s “A” grade is helpful for groups like Friends of the Yampa who are working to keep the river as wild as possible.

NORTH PLATTE RIVER BASIN Stop into Walden’s River Rock Cafe and you might walk away with a bookmark served up alongside your steak dinner.

The North Platte Basin Roundtable is distributing bookmarks to encourage people to watch an educational video and engage with Colorado’s Water Plan.

Bookmarks are distributed at events and locations around the basin, making an especially big hit with tourists dining at local restaurants.

GUNNISON RIVER BASIN Throughout the lower Gunnison, modernizing irrigation delivery and on-farm irrigation systems is a priority. This year, more than $26 million will be awarded to projects in the region from the Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Program for applications submitted in 2017.

Salinity money, in combination with money from federal grants, has allowed a number of ditch companies to upgrade and improve open-ditch conveyance systems, which date back to the early 1900s, with pipe. New pipe systems minimize water loss, preventing salts from leaching into rivers and improving delivery to farms.

ARKANSAS RIVER BASIN The Arkansas River: From Leadville to Lamar, an hour-long documentary, will explore the economic and social benefits of the Arkansas Basin, including the perspectives of the basin's many diverse stakeholders.

The documentary will air on Rocky Mountain PBS later this spring, and a live showing is scheduled for the Arkansas Basin Water Forum on April 12. Several complementary webisodes will also be available online at pepoarkbasin.com.

SAN JUAN/DOLORES RIVER BASIN Riparian areas downstream from dams have a decreased resistance to climate change and invasive species, according to a recent study on the effects dams have on the ecology of southwestern Colorado rivers.

The two-year study compared sites on the Dolores River, dammed at McPhee Reservoir, with sites on the free-flowing San Miguel River.

Researchers from Colorado State University found lower functional diversity in plant traits along the Dolores downstream from the dam.

RIO GRANDE BASIN A permanent radar system is coming to the Rio Grande Basin this year, which will be installed at Alamosa airport, to measure snow accumulation across the entire basin—including previously unmeasured wilderness areas.

An accurate measurement of snowpack is especially important in the Rio Grande Basin, where the amount of water that needs to be sent downstream to fulfill interstate compact obligations is based on a percentage of what crosses the basin's upper river gauges in the calendar year.

This will be the first time radar has been used to measure snow accumulation anywhere in the country. The basin's conservancy districts, water conservation districts, and the Colorado Department of Transportation are collaborating to build an intergovernmental agency to manage the radar program. They hope to have the system installed by fall 2018 so that data can be used to forecast streamflow and weather conditions by the winter. H H E A DWAT E R S S P R I N G 2 0 1 8

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THIS LAND IS OUR LAND Partnerships form to protect water on public lands

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BY HEATHER HANSMAN

ust north of Breckenridge the Swan River flows into the Blue River, which runs into Dillon Reservoir, one of Denver Water’s major storage pools. It’s a local fly fishing hotspot, but rock dredged up by mining in the late 1800s blocked the river’s flow, altered habitat, and disconnected three upstream forks of the river, forcing the water underground. In 2009, Corey Llewellyn, the thenfisheries biologist for the Dillon Ranger District in the White River National Forest suggested restoring the Swan’s natural corridor and floodplain to reconnect the river, rebuild cutthroat trout habitat, and provide space for recreation.

But the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) couldn’t do it alone.

There were many stakeholders to invite to the table— Summit County and the City of Breckenridge had property rights and water rights in the Swan, private landowners abutted the stream, and advocacy groups felt strongly about the area’s future. Those users, along with Colorado Parks and Wildlife, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Trout Unlimited, the Blue River H E A DWAT E R S S P R I N G 2 0 1 8

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Watershed Group, and others began conversations around how to restore the ecosystem.

The USFS made a commitment to the project when it undertook a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review process in 2012, which assessed the environmental impacts of proposed work on federal lands. “Summit County put together an implementation plan for public space, including the Forest Service land, the watershed group made a plan for the private land, and in 2013 we coalesced the two plans,” says Jason Lederer, a resource specialist with the Summit County Open Space and Trails Department who helped wrangle the project.

Bill Jackson, district ranger for the White River National Forest’s Dillon Ranger District, says that although the USFS was dedicated to watershed health in the Swan River Basin, work didn’t really start until the county came on board to lead the first phase of the restoration work. Collaboration was crucial in every step, from deciding PRECEDING PAGE: By early fall 2017, thousands of freshly planted native grasses, willows, shrubs and other flora revealed a newly verdant section of the Swan River. Photo courtesy Ecological Resource Consultants 16 • W A T E R E D U C A T I O N C O L O R A D O

“You go back there and it’s totally different, there wasn’t a river before. I think actually having a lot of stakeholders can help because you have a lot of vested interest.

People care.”

—Sarah Barclay, fly fisher

what to prioritize to finding funding, Jackson says. Through the county, the Swan River Restoration Project received $975,000 from the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB)—the largest Water Supply Reserve Fund grant ever awarded for a project of this type. The USFS and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service both contributed funds, as did the town and several local nonprofits, which also rallied volunteers.

With funding and a plan in place, partners began restoration work on the first mile of the Swan River project in 2016.

By summer 2017, volunteers helped revegetate 16 acres of the adjoining floodplain and upland environment—the planned first phase of the project. The river began to settle into its new path, which includes a 65-foot-wide riparian corridor. Local fly fisher Sarah Barclay says she cried the first time she visited the site. “You go back there and it’s totally different, there wasn’t a river before,” she says. “I think actually having a lot of stakeholders can help because you have a lot of vested interest. People care.”

Collaborative watershed management among federal agencies, state agencies, and

local groups responsible for public lands is increasingly common—and important.

Although boundaries surround public lands, the waters that cross them are unbounded. That water serves many purposes. Locally, it sustains wildlife habitat, diverse plant communities, and countless opportunities for recreation, along with tourism-based economies. But on a broader scale, our public lands serve as source watersheds for the vast majority of the state— 80 percent of Coloradans drink water that flows out of national forest land alone. Healthy forests prevent erosion, filter contaminants, enhance soil moisture storage, can affect the timing of runoff, and reduce the likelihood of flooding. That Zach Mahone

LEFT: Work was underway to reconstruct the Swan River in September 2016. Partners transformed the river from an underground trickle and ditch into a meandering stream. ABOVE: Swan River restoration wasn’t a solo effort. Stakeholders partnered to plan and direct the

project while volunteers helped do the work. This Rocky Mountain Youth Corps crew installed 350 plantings in June 2017.

high-quality water reaches beyond the state’s borders. Four of the country’s major rivers— the Colorado, Platte, Arkansas and Rio Grande—begin as melted snowpack in Colorado’s mountains, providing supplies to 19 states and Mexico.

But Colorado’s public lands and forests, which are managed for various uses, aren’t all pristine. And a growing population and changing climate bring new management challenges to the state’s public lands. In June 2017, for example, state parks saw a 10 percent increase in yearly visitation. More Coloradans also means more people living in Colorado’s wildland urban interface, or WUI, where development meets nature.

According to a June 2017 report by the CWCB and Colorado Jason Lederer

Our public lands serve as source watersheds for the vast majority of the state— 80 percent of Coloradans drink water that flows out of national forest land alone.

State Forest Service, “Forest Management to Protect Colorado’s Water Resources,” more than 2 million Coloradans live in the WUI, where they’re more vulnerable to wildfire. The risk of catastrophic fires, in turn, has been exacerbated by a warming climate, which scientists believe has had a major hand in turning large swaths of our forest into tinder, in some places comprised largely of beetle-kill pine.

Fighting fires isn’t cheap, and land managers struggle to meet all of their objectives as more and more of their funding goes toward firefighting and mitigation and less is available for other work like restoration, maintenance and visitor services. At the same time, people who depend on public lands

directly or advocate for their environmental or recreational attributes have strong interests in ensuring that the lands are managed to meet their needs.

This amalgamation of interest, voice, risk and the need for funding is spurring Colorado’s stakeholders and land managers to work together to rethink management tools and find collaborative solutions to manage public lands.

Evolving Management

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ore than a third— nearly 36 percent—of Colorado is federal land. The USFS is responsible for 14.5 million acres of the state and the Bureau of Land H E A DWAT E R S S P R I N G 2 0 1 8

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Management (BLM) takes care of another 8.4 million acres.

There are also national parks and monuments, national recreation areas, and national wildlife refuges, as well as state forests and local parks, all with different management objectives, layers of protection, or permitted uses. Sportsmen, ranchers, natural gas and mining companies, loggers, farmers, and municipal water providers all depend on those lands, both for the resources available on-site, as well as for the water originating there. Many other stakeholders look to public lands for recreation, or value their environmental, historical and cultural attributes.

The directive given to the USFS from the get-go was to manage resources, including water, for multiple uses.

Federal forest reserves were first set aside from the public domain as far back as 1891, when some began to worry about forest conservation. The Organic Administration Act of 1897 then provided guidance for the management of these lands for forest and watershed protection, water flow, and timber production. The USFS took over forest management when it was formed in 1905.

A decade later, new conservation lands were set aside with the formation of the National Park Service through the 1916 Organic Act. By 1946, the BLM formed to manage land from the General Land Office and U.S. Grazing Service. Throughout the 20th century, additional laws expanded the missions of both the USFS and BLM to include oversight of grazing, recreation, fisheries and wildlife, mining, and minerals.

Now, in the 21st century, the agencies have further expanded their understanding of watershed protection to include the concept of ecosystem services, 18 • W A T E R E D U C A T I O N C O L O R A D O

like those provided by healthy watersheds.

“One hundred years ago, the West was being developed, the [USFS] agency was doing a lot of mining and timber harvest.

It’s a good example of how our values change over time,” says Polly Hays, water program manager for the USFS Rocky Mountain Region. She says the agency’s attitude has changed from emphasizing resource development to also prioritizing how to maintain natural hydrologic function.

All federal land management agencies must balance development, conservation and water use. When any new use, like drilling or grazing, is considered on federal land, the user goes through the federal NEPA process to assess the potential environmental impacts of the project. “In every project, from grazing to recreation, we look at water quality and quantity,” says BLM spokesman Jayson Barangan. Agencies rely on science-based best management practices to avoid impacting water quality and watersheds.

Those practices vary by activity, whether that be fishing or forestry, so the agencies work at the local level to gather input and fit the approach to each situation. “As public land managers, we respond to societal needs,” Hays says.

To maintain water resources, land management agencies focus on both legacy restoration and on protecting ecosystem function—that takes working across forest boundaries, Hays says. Especially when the budget is limited, the agency depends on water utilities, environmental organizations, and other groups who have a shared interest in the watershed.

“Moving forward, partnerships across land ownerships are so critical in accomplishing what we all want,” Hays says.

Partnership on Hermosa Creek

36%

of Colorado is public land

58%

of public land in Colorado is national forest

68%

of Colorado’s forests are federally managed

80%

of Colorado’s drinking water supply is sourced from national forest land

T

hose cross-boundary partnerships can be fraught and tricky to come by. That’s why a mediator, Marsha Porter-Norton, presided over the parsing of the Hermosa Creek Watershed Protection Act, a collaborative land and water use partnership in southwestern Colorado, for which it took stakeholders years to find consensus.

The act was spurred by a draft land management plan published in 2007 by the San Juan Public Lands Center, a joint planning venture between the USFS and the BLM, which recommended segments of Hermosa Creek and other rivers in the region as eligible for inclusion in the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System.

After future study, the federal agencies upped their interest by recommending Hermosa Creek, as well as sections of the Animas, the San Juan, Los Pinos, and the Piedra rivers as suitable for wild and scenic designation—suitability is just one big step away from wild and scenic designation.

Wild and scenic designation aims to preserve rivers deemed to have outstanding natural, cultural and recreational values in a free-flowing condition and to protect those outstanding values on federal lands. It can be a powerful tool for safeguarding rivers, but also has the potential to preclude future water development or dams on protected stream segments.

Wild and scenic designation hasn’t been popular with all stakeholders in Colorado, and while rivers can only be designated by Congress or the Secretary of the Interior with the state’s approval, stakeholder support is a crucial component of river suitability. Thus

A longtime rancher along Hermosa Creek, Ed Zink was actively involved in the Hermosa Creek River Protection Workgroup.

far, only 76 miles of one river, the Cache La Poudre, have been designated. However, the USFS and BLM have found stretches of other Colorado rivers, including the Upper Colorado, the Crystal, and Deep Creek, among others, eligible for either wild, scenic or recreational designation.

On Hermosa Creek, locals felt that wild and scenic designation would be too restrictive, says Ed Zink, a rancher who has been involved with land management designation in the area since the 60s. Zink’s family has ranched on Hermosa Creek for 100 years, but he also ran a mountain bike shop and guiding outfit—all businesses dependent on Hermosa Creek and the use of surrounding lands. “The community said ‘we like it the way it is, but by gosh we need to protect that water,’” Zink says.

The sentiment on the other Jeremy Wade-Shockley

“People were willing to trade some of their priorities for that sense of permanency, particularly for water.”

— Ed Zink, rancher

suitable rivers in the region was the same, so stakeholders undertook an alternative to wild and scenic designation and formed the River Protection Workgroup. Through this river protection work, stakeholders on each wild and scenic suitable river worked together to agree on local values and protections along their river, then entered regional discussions to determine how to approach all of the suitable rivers as a package in the southwest part of the state. The group aimed to prioritize use and development on certain stream segments, while perhaps others could be designated as wild and scenic. “It was a broader discussion of ‘how do we deal with protection of the waters and outstanding values, while allowing for development to continue in some areas,’” says

Bruce Whitehead, executive director of the Southwestern Water Conservation District.

On Hermosa Creek, the San Juan Citizens Alliance and the Southwestern Water Conservation District brought together representatives from Sen. Michael Bennet and Rep. Scott Tipton’s offices, Purgatory Ski Area, and the Wilderness Society, along with local ranchers, snowmobilers and mountain bikers to decide how to best manage their watershed while maintaining its wild and scenic values. The group wanted to account for historical uses while at the same time considering future needs, including the potential for water storage to adapt to drier conditions in the future.

After two years of monthly meetings followed by five years of conceptual drafting, the Hermosa Creek stakeholder H E A DWAT E R S S P R I N G 2 0 1 8

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TOP: Looking south down Deep Creek BOTTOM LEFT: Lower section runoff BOTTOM RIGHT: Wildflowers along

Coffee Pot Road, the main road to Deep Lake

Will Deep Creek Soon be Colorado’s Second Wild and Scenic River?

By all accounts, Deep Creek is a special place. Dramatic canyon walls rise more than 2,000 feet above the river, limiting human access and housing one of the largest complex of caves in the West. From top to bottom, Deep Creek drops 4,500 feet, displaying nearly the full range

of Colorado’s ecosystems.

A 1995 joint report by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) found Deep Creek eligible for wild and scenic designation.

Further review yielded a 2015 suitability decision on two segments of Deep Creek totaling

10.77 river miles. Suitability on Deep Creek felt different than previous studies on other rivers in Colorado—there wasn’t substantial opposition to the idea of protecting Deep Creek as a wild and scenic river. “We seemed to have an agreement of opinion that this might be a good

addition to the system,” says Roy Smith, wild and scenic rivers lead for the BLM in Colorado.

After the suitability finding was published, stakeholders pulled together to air concerns and discuss river protections.

Some neighbors worried that wild and scenic designation could limit the use of nearby land, says Ken Neubecker with American Rivers. Terrain above the canyon is used for grazing and ranching, while pilots from a nearby HighAltitude Army National Guard Aviation Training Site (HAATS) fly through it for training. To address concerns, they’re workshopping a set of guiding principles that all parties agree should be followed to maintain their use while protecting the river. The group is also working with the USFS, BLM and Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) to quantify flows needed to maintain riparian health in the canyon.

Once flow needs are identified, stakeholders will pursue a state instream flow water right with the CWCB, rather than risk the uncertainty of a federal reserved water right. Eventually, once the principles are complete, the group will transform them into legislative language and work with Congress to designate the creek as wild and scenic. H

50 Years of Wild and Scenic Rivers In 1968, Congress passed the landmark Wild and Scenic Rivers Act—making 2018 its 50th anniversary—to “preserve selected rivers with outstanding natural, cultural and recreational values in a free-flowing condition

20 • W A T E R E D U C A T I O N C O L O R A D O

for the enjoyment of present and future generations.” To date, 12,734 miles of streams across the nation are protected as wild and scenic rivers.

Colorado boasts just 76 miles of one wild and scenic

river, the Cache La Poudre, designated in 1986. The state doesn’t lack eligible rivers, but the act precludes the damming of designated rivers.

On most rivers in Colorado, concerns around future water

shortage and storage needs have led stakeholders to look for alternatives to wild and scenic designation. However, negotiations on Deep Creek indicate that the state could soon tally two wild and scenic rivers.

Top: Ecoflight; Bottom: Ken Neubecker

THE TYPICAL PATH TO WILD AND SCENIC A river can be adopted into the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System in two ways: by the Secretary of the Interior or by Congress. Congress designates most rivers. Here's how it works:

1

INITIAL STUDY

Conducted by a federal land management agency. → The prompt? The agency’s planning processes or the National Rivers Inventory.

2

ELIGIBILITY

The agency deems the river eligible if the river is free flowing and possesses at least one “outstandingly remarkable value” (ORV), which includes scenery, recreation, geology, wildlife, history, culture and other values.

The agency also classifies segments of the river as wild, scenic or recreational.

3

SUITABILITY

A second study determines whether the eligible river is suitable for designation. The suitability study considers social and economic values, local support, effects on other resources, and effects on surrounding lands and users. → The prompts? Strong local or congressional interest in designating the river, or a project proposal that would alter the free-flowing river.

4

LEGISLATION

5

MANAGEMENT PLAN

Stakeholders draft legislation and Congress designates the river, including it in the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System.

Once designated, the federal agency drafts a land management plan to protect the river's ORVs.

fluent water fact

Less than 0.0025 percent of the 3.6 million miles of U.S. streams are protected through the National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.

group came up with federal legislation that mostly satisfied everyone’s needs. “We decided, if we get this done and we get a law, we’re not looking over our shoulder for the next 50 years,” Zink says. “People were willing to trade some of their priorities for that sense of permanency, particularly for water.”

When the Hermosa Creek Watershed Protection Act was finally signed in 2014, it designated a 40,000-acre wilderness area and a 70,000-acre special management area (SMA). Wilderness designation offers the highest level of conservation protection for federal lands— typically motor vehicles, roads and structures are prohibited to preserve that wild character.

The special management area, a more flexible designation, allows for a broader range of activities. Porter-Norton says the management area allowed them to broker consensus and add things like potential future diversions. “If we got in some horrible crisis in 100 years and needed that dam, they could go build one,” she says. Once legislation passed, stakeholders collaborated with land managers to draft a more detailed management plan. The final Hermosa Creek Watershed Management Plan was released in late January 2018.

Collaboration doesn’t solve every problem. Zink says they decided on a land management approach that also protected Hermosa Creek, but couldn’t agree on how to protect and manage rivers on a regional scale. After five years of discussions throughout southwestern Colorado, the River Protection Workgroup came to an impasse and disbanded. “We did not reach consensus on alternative protections in other watersheds in the region, which may have allowed for wild and scenic designation on Hermosa Jeremy Wade-Shockley

Marsha Porter-Norton facilitated the Hermosa Creek workgroup.

“Those who wanted full-blown wild and scenic designation didn’t get it, but the wilderness and SMA [special management area] protects a lot” — Marsha Porter-Norton, mediator of the Hermosa Creek Watershed Protection Act

Creek,” Whitehead says. The regional water protection package was not successful, though the effort could still be revived in the future. “Those who wanted full-blown wild and scenic designation didn’t get it, but the wilderness and SMA protects a lot,” Porter-Norton says.

Such processes to find consensus among myriad stakeholders bound together by a shared interest in water on public lands continue to evolve across Colorado. In the works still is an alternative management plan for the Upper Colorado River, which

is being drafted with input from a stakeholders group that formed in 2007, when the BLM found nearly 55 river miles, from Gore Canyon to No Name Creek, eligible for wild and scenic designation. The group recommended against moving forward with wild and scenic designation, but the agencies have maintained the river’s eligibility. Stakeholders are now working to develop indicators to track whether the outstanding values of the river are being maintained—and citizen involvement is still as strong as ever. “There are 40-plus people in the room every time we H E A DWAT E R S S P R I N G 2 0 1 8

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ABOVE: Christina Burri with Denver Water stands at the Hayman Fire burn scar, where the water provider spent millions of dollars reacting to the 2002 blaze.

BELOW: Working with Denver Water through Forests to Faucets, the U.S. Forest Service burns fuel on the White River National Forest to lessen fire risk.

have a governance committee meeting,” says Ken Neubecker, Colorado projects director with American Rivers. While such a high level of engagement should mean wide buy-in on any consensus the group reaches, it’s slow getting there. “It’s not hard to agree. It’s hard to come to a point of agreement,” Neubecker says.

Source Water Protection and Fire

I

n 1996, Colorado’s Buffalo Creek Fire tore through almost 12,000 acres. Then in 2002, the Hayman Fire ravaged another 138,000 acres of forested watersheds southwest of Denver and northwest of Colorado Springs. Fires in forests where utilities source their water can load rivers with nutrients and toxins, but the

22 • W A T E R E D U C A T I O N C O L O R A D O

biggest threat to water quality is sediment. In the wake of the fires, heavy rains washed more than 1 million cubic yards of sediment into Denver Water’s Strontia Springs Reservoir, where the South Platte River is dammed and water is diverted to the Foothills Water Treatment Plant. Denver Water spent $27.7 million reacting to the historic fires and dredging the reservoir. The Colorado State Forest Service estimates that the Hayman Fire cost nearly $230 million. Nearly $37 million was spent on fire suppression, with Colorado shouldering about $7.3 million and the USFS accountable for about $32 million. More was spent rehabilitating the devastated watershed. The American Planning Association estimates housing losses totaled more than $42 million.

“We’ve experienced the

“We’ve got a large system with some flexibility, but there’s the threat that we could get a large-scale fire that crosses both [collection] systems and we’d have no water.”

—Christina Burri, Denver Water

Top: Matthew Staver; Bottom: Courtesy Denver Water

cost of being reactive [to wildfires],” says Christina Burri, watershed scientist with Denver Water. Starting in 2010, Denver Water, which sources water from 2.5 million acres of watershed, more than half of which is national forest land, initiated a partnership with the USFS. They called it the Forests to Faucets project and each entity committed $16.5 million to fire treatment and restoration across 50,000 acres of the Pike, San Isabel, Arapahoe, Roosevelt and White River National Forests.

Forest to Faucets requires the cooperation of many different stakeholders, all working to mitigate the risk of high-intensity fires by thinning trees that could fuel a wildfire and planting new vegetation in burn zones to reduce runoff. The USFS teamed up with a range of local, on-theground partners including the Colorado State Forest Service, county open space managers, nonprofits, and local volunteer coalitions, who were often the ones doing the tree thinning or restorative planting work. “It’s important to be proactive to prevent another high-intensity fire,” Burri says. “We’ve got a large system with some flexibility, but there’s the threat that we could get a large-scale fire that crosses both [collection] systems and we’d have no water.”

Wildfires continue to roar across national forests and other public lands, blazing through the West with increasing severity across larger areas and for longer seasons.

A 50 to 200 percent increase in the area burned in Colorado each year is projected by 2050, according to “Forest Management to Protect Colorado’s Water Resources,” a report by the Colorado State Forest Service and CWCB. Recent Courtesy Denver Water

Years after the Hayman Fire, although vegetation is reestablishing above Denver Water’s Cheesman Reservoir, the water provider continues to work with the U.S. Forest Service and local partners on new plantings to stabilize the slopes.

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“Public water providers typically don’t own the land that filters the water before they get it into their treatment plant, and we, as the regulatory agency, don’t have ultimate control of what happens on the land.”

—John Duggan, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment

voracious blazes like the Waldo Canyon Fire, High Park Fire, and West Fork Complex Fires have charred Colorado’s public lands. Those uncharacteristically catastrophic and hot burns demand more resources than ever to contain, fight and mitigate. Climate change plays a large role in the increased frequency of fires, but decades of suppression and fuel buildup have augmented their intensity.

More than 50 percent of USFS costs are going toward fire management—that’s money that would have funded trail maintenance, interpretation, restoration work, or other USFS duties but is instead being “borrowed” for fire management. “We find ourselves in a predicament now—not being able to keep up,” says Steve Lohr, director of renewable resources for the USFS Rocky Mountain Region. While the agency is talking with Congress to repair the funding situation, they’re also working more closely with others. Partnerships like Forests to Faucets can make a big difference.

State agencies and water 24 • W A T E R E D U C A T I O N C O L O R A D O

providers are also collaborating in the name of healthy watersheds, addressing source water issues other than fire.

“Public water providers typically don’t own the land that filters the water before they get it into their treatment plant,” says John Duggan who runs the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s (CDPHE) source water protection efforts. “And we, as the regulatory agency, don’t have ultimate control of what happens on the land,” he says.

CDPHE is incentivizing water providers to complete source water protection plans through a grant program. It’s a way to combine forces so that each involved entity can use its biggest lever to push for clean water.

CDPHE’s source water protection program is voluntary.

But many have seen the payoff and the reach these local plans can have over public lands and across a range of stakeholders.

Fires, mine drainage, agriculture, changes in the timing of runoff, or reduced inflows due to climate change—the list of potential impairments and threats to Colorado’s water-

sheds is long and growing. Duggan says one of the challenges of protection plans is looking at future risks and what might change over time. For instance, in 2009, when oil and gas drilling was on the rise, leases were proposed on BLM land in Meeker and Rangely. Both communities had source water protection plans in place. Water providers identified specific priority areas to protect and worked with the BLM to make sure the agency knew where the water resources were. The BLM came back and withdrew some of the leases to maintain clean water.

Such cases, where federal agencies work with utilities and local community members and adjust management plans accordingly while still allowing for development, provide a balanced approach to planning for the future. “If you do nothing, you have no risk of contaminants, but we also need to have an economy and balanced recreation,” Duggan says. “[The agencies] want to harness the resource—and we need it—but how can we do it effectively so we don’t impair the resource that we drink?”

That’s why projects like Forests to Faucets are important.

Because it has been so successful, in 2017 Denver Water reinvested an additional $16.5 million to extend the program for another five years. This time the utility will partner with the USFS, Colorado State Forest Service, and Natural Resources Conservation Service to make a collective investment of $33 million in forest treatments to restore another 40,000 acres.

Other water providers like Colorado Springs, Northern Water and Aurora Water are investing in similar source water protection restoration projects in their priority watersheds.

Back in the Dillon Rang-

er District, partners in the Swan River project still hear concerns about traffic, wildlife impacts, and water quality, says Jason Lederer. For instance their plan to reintroduce native cutthroat trout has been postponed because of questions about how the trout would impact other species. But they’ve seen the river channel readjust, and overall they consider it a success. There’s more to come in the 2018 season. Once new vegetation is firmly established, partners will weave public access trails through the area and look upstream of the remediation site to address additional segments of the river within the White River National Forest and on private parcels for which the USFS has obtained easements.

What has been the lesson from all these collaborative projects to protect water on public lands? They take working together, and they’re most successful when all stakeholders’ voices have value, there’s buy-in, and everyone’s clear about the process. “If you want to achieve landscape-scale true change you can’t just piecemeal it,” Burri says. “Water doesn’t stop on land management boundaries.” H HEATHER HANSMAN is a freelance writer and editor who focuses on science, adventure and culture.

She's currently working on a book about water management and the Green River, which will be published by the University of Chicago in 2019.

TAKE THE NEXT STEP Celebrate the value of public lands with Colorado Public Lands Day, observed the third Saturday in May each year. Find an event or register your celebration at copubliclandsday.com.

The Water for Land Dilemma

S

tand quietly among the high grasses of Pawnee National Grasslands, or on the slopes of Rocky Mountain National Park, or the sprawling hills of the Sand Dunes, or amongst the ruins of Mesa Verde, or dozens of other scenic places in Colorado and you will be standing on federally managed public land.

The federal government controls roughly 36 percent of Colorado’s lands.

With that terrain theoretically comes the right to vast water resources, some of which originate on public land, such as the headwaters of the Colorado River in Rocky Mountain National Park, or which simply flow through it, such as the Yampa River in Dinosaur National Monument.

When land is reserved for a federal purpose, water needed to fulfill that purpose may also be reserved. Otherwise, state law controls the establishment of water use rights.

But decisions over how much water is contained in those federal reserved water rights and how they are to be used Courtesy BLM

The pull between federal and state water rights on public lands have been the subject of court battles across the West for more than 100 years.

Most such controversies have developed over agencies seeking to protect natural resources by reserving instream or environmental flow water rights within already over-appropriated systems.

Colorado’s well-developed state water rights system has gone head-to-head with the federal government routinely over the past century. At times, those negotiations have taken decades to settle the quantity and beneficial uses of water claimed by the federal government, as

BY JERD SMITH

well as where those rights fall within the state’s prior appropriation system. But recent creative agreements reveal that there is a more collaborative path forward.

THE MAKING OF RESERVED WATER RIGHTS

T

he Winters decision was one of the first to help determine how water would be set aside for federal purposes.

The case came about in 1888 when the Empire Cattle Company along with other irrigators in Montana sought to stop the Gros Ventre and Assiniboine Indians at the Fort Belknap Reservation from diverting from the Milk River, the same stream the farmers were using.

But in 1908, the court said the tribes at Fort Belknap were entitled to water because when the reservation was created, it was implied that water was reserved along with the land to sustain the tribes through irrigated agriculture. The case set a powerful precedent for the federal government to claim water for its lands, H E A DWAT E R S S P R I N G 2 0 1 8

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sometimes with a more senior date than other existing uses.

The Winters Doctrine would play a major role over the next 50 years of legal decisions as development across the West increased and the federal government’s tribal claims had to be evaluated and integrated into each state’s system of existing water rights.

In 1952 another landmark legal development, the McCarran Amendment, was passed. It provided a waiver of sovereign immunity, allowing state courts to adjudicate federal water rights. Since then, Colorado has adjudicated federal and tribal reserved water rights, which the state administers in priority, alongside state-based rights.

The court took another major step that widened the federal reserved water rights doctrine in Arizona v. California in 1963, saying that the doctrine could apply not just to Indian reservations, but to other federally reserved lands, including national forests, national recreation areas, national parks, and national wildlife refuges.

While water rights can be reserved to accompany many different types of federal lands, they aren’t easy to come by. The amount of water reserved must be quantified in a federal or state court or through legislation. Water can only be reserved if the primary purpose of the reserved land would be “entirely defeated without the claimed water.” In a 1978 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court found that national forest creation can reserve the use of water only for the uses articulated in the original 1897 Organic Act, which focused on forests, timber and “favorable” conditions of water flows. State water law applies to forest reservations, and national forests cannot reserve water for secondary uses such as recreation, aesthetics, the environment, or wildlife preservation.

A COLLABORATIVE FUTURE

F

ederal reserved water rights are viewed with hope and skepticism in Colorado.

Disputes are common where claims for federal reserved water rights have come into conflict with rights and claims held by private landowners and local governments.

PRECEDING PAGE: A combined federal reserved water right and state-based right, quantified and approved in Colorado Water Court in 2008, maintains flows through the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.

26 • W A T E R E D U C A T I O N C O L O R A D O

Biologists collect greenback cutthroat trout eggs from the wild to raise through a captive breeding program.

Eventually the greenbacks will be transplanted into native habitat, like on the Poudre River as part of a 2017 agreement that avoided a reserved water right.

In Colorado, most of the reserved water rights cases based on historic reservations have been resolved. However, one case remains open in southwestern Colorado’s San Juan National Forest where claims have been pending for 40 years.

But in other parts of the state, negotiations have been able to satisfy federal and local water needs. When the Dominguez-Escalante National Conservation Area near Gunnison, which includes the Dominguez Canyon Wilderness, was created by the 2009 Omnibus Public Lands Management Act, neighbors worried that a federal reserved instream flow water right might accompany it.

Colorado stakeholders helped draft the authorizing legislation and required that the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture coordinate with the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) to secure instream flow water for the wilderness area. However, if the CWCB was unable to allocate sufficient water for the wilderness, the secretary could adjudicate a federal reserved water right. So the group set out to establish a state instream flow for the project. Colorado officials wanted to provide the water through a state water right because it was easier to integrate into the state system, and the BLM agreed, says Linda Bassi, chief of the CWCB’s Stream

and Lake Protection section, which runs the state’s instream flow program.

In 2010, the instream flow, which allocated a fixed amount of water to upstream water users through their existing water rights as well as some additional water for future needs, then sends all remaining water downstream— regardless of volume—was approved by the CWCB in an unopposed action. The new instream flow right for the DominguezEscalante National Conservation Area came with a date of May 19, 2010, and by 2011 it was approved in water court.

“There was a lot of interest in this,” Bassi says, “but once we got the negotiating done, there was very little opposition and a lot of support.”

That negotiation is now held out as an example of how states, local water agencies, and the federal government can work administratively to appropriate water in ways that meet the needs of federal lands without jeopardizing water right holders and without decade-long court cases.

Another recent agreement holds hope for more productive collaborations among federal, state and local water interests.

In April 2017, Trout Unlimited, Colorado water users, and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) notched an important victory in the Poudre River Basin when they signed Emma Brown

LEGISLATION FOR LOCAL PROTECTION In 2011, a contract dispute over water rights between the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and the ski industry morphed into a lawsuit. A 2016 resolution allowed ski areas to retain their water rights, but tensions remain between state water rights and federal land management laws.

Colorado water users, some mistrustful of federal agencies, worried that it could happen again.

So after years of drafting and negotiating legislation, Colorado legislators passed the Colorado Water Rights Protection Act in 2016, designed to prevent state water right holders on federal land from having their water rights tied to federal water claims.

an agreement that ended nearly 20 years of litigation. The agreement provided critical conservation benefits to native greenback cutthroat trout populations— federally listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act—allowed the USFS to meet its habitat protection responsibilities, and did not require local water users to give up water.

The project dates back to the 1990s when Trout Unlimited sued the USFS after the federal agency issued an Environmental Impact Statement for a permit that would allow the Water Supply and Storage Company to expand its Long Draw Reservoir at the headwaters of the Cache La Poudre River. The original lease was issued in the early 1900s, but a federal law passed in the 1970s now requires that the USFS’ lessees do more to protect habitat on land they rent.

When the lease was renewed, Trout Unlimited sued, saying the new lease did not do enough to protect greenback cutthroat trout habitat in the headwaters.

Fast-forward through 20 years of court battles to 2017 when Trout Unlimited and the USFS agreed that a far-reaching restoration project, spreading across 40 miles of streams and several lakes, would do more to restore native trout populations than restricting the water rights of the Water Supply and Storage Company. Restoration work will involve installing fish barriers to prevent non-

native trout from invading the area.

Biologists will remove non-native fish and once confirmed free of invasive trout, they’ll restock native greenback cutthroat trout populations. It will likely be another 10 years before restoration is complete, but the end result will be the largest such restored native trout habitat in Colorado, according to Trout Unlimited.

The Water Supply and Storage Company has agreed to provide $1.25 million in funding as part of the USFS cooperative effort, and the USFS will conduct the restoration work. At the same time, Trout Unlimited has launched a fundraising effort to cover any additional costs.

Colorado Trout Unlimited executive director David Nickum estimates the group may need another $500,000 to finalize the project.

“The broader lesson is these types of issues are fundamentally local and site specific,” Nickum says. “There are folks who believe the federal government has no business interfering with state water rights. And on that issue you’re not likely to reach an amicable solution.

“But if you look at what works operationally, and what is meaningful, you can find solutions.” H JERD SMITH is a freelance writer and editor with an interest in water and conservation issues.

A Northwestern University grad, Smith is an avid hiker and cross-country skier.

The conflict also triggered action in Washington, D.C. In 2017, Colorado Congressman Scott Tipton introduced the federal Water Rights Protection Act. While still pending in Congress, if passed, it would seek to stop federal agencies from requiring a transfer of state water rights in exchange for federal lease or permit approvals. H — JERD SMITH

Top: Adobe Stock; Bottom: Courtesy BLM

Water needs for the Dominguez-Escalante National Conservation Area, established in 2009, are met with a state instream flow water right, held by the Colorado Water Conservation Board.

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Destination Water

A traveler tells the stories behind the state’s most popular escapes

BY KRISTA LANGLOIS

Famous among locals and tourists alike, Colorado’s public lands feature a number of world-renowned attractions.

While millions carve through the powder on major ski hills like Aspen, Vail and Crested Butte, the Arkansas River boasts the title of most popular commercial rafting spot in the country. Others flock to national parks and monuments, national wildlife refuges, national forests, and other federal lands for hiking, biking, hot springs soaking, fishing, and countless other uses. But water fuels the magic of these places. Krista Langlois visits some of Colorado’s favorite escapes to explore the water stories and management lessons behind them.

LOVED TO DEATH

Conundrum Creek The trail along Conundrum Creek seems challenging enough to weed out all but the most committed hikers. Nine miles of steady uphill take you through the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness near Aspen, Colorado, to an elevation of 11,000 feet, where a natural hot spring has been corralled into a pool of 102-degree water.

My husband had been to Conundrum years earlier, and recalled a quiet night soaking beneath a starry sky.

But when he and I visited Conundrum the summer of 2014, the atmosphere was more spring break party than backcountry solitude. Along the trail, we saw hikers unprepared for the weather the Rocky Mountains can dish out: people clad in head-to-toe cotton carrying feather pillows, fuzzy blankets and cases of beer.

When we finally reached the springs, they were packed elbow-to-elbow, people waiting on nearby rocks for a space to open up.

According to the U.S. Forest Service, use at Conundrum skyrocketed from 1,395 overnight visitors in 2006 to 5,372 in 2015. Other well-known destinations, like 28 • W A T E R E D U C A T I O N C O L O R A D O

Conundrum’s popularity led to limits on the number of overnight visitors allowed at the site.

Hanging Lake near Glenwood Springs, have seen similar spikes. And popularity comes at a cost. Bears and other wildlife can become dangerously habituated to humans. The wilderness can get trashed.

In 2016, rangers carried 136 pounds of garbage and 237 piles of unburied human feces out of Conundrum.

Now land managers are limiting the number of people who can camp at Conundrum. Starting this year, hikers will have to register for a permit via an online reservation system, capped at 100 people per night and likely costing $10

per group. The plan comes after years of data collection and public input.

Permit systems are gaining traction in Colorado and other states confronting backcountry overuse. Six of Colorado’s 44 wilderness areas either already have or soon will require permits, along with destinations like Rocky Mountain National Park. While they can be effective at mitigating environmental damage, such permit systems also highlight the challenges of managing the ever-growing number of people who want to visit Colorado’s public lands. H Courtesy Flickr User Wanderstruck/Creative Commons

CO-EXISTING

Crested Butte It was the perfect winter day. An overnight storm had dumped two feet of snow at Crested Butte Mountain Resort, and the following morning dawned clear and blue. As I rode the chairlift past the spires of spruce trees, I saw gray jays hopping from branch to branch and bobcat tracks weaving through the powder below.

Sandhill cranes migrate through the San Luis Valley each year.

QUENCHING A THIRSTY REGION

The San Luis Valley The San Luis Valley covers 8,000 square miles between the Sangre de Cristo and San Juan Mountains—a flat, high-altitude desert that receives about 7 inches of rain a year. What the valley lacks in precipitation, though, it makes up for with a prolific aquifer that’s helped sustain generations of farmers. Water from the aquifer and Rio Grande together supply irrigation for 90 percent of Colorado’s potato crop, barley for Molson Coors Brewing Co., and a variety of meat and produce.

Yet water in the San Luis Valley is over tapped. Up to 95 percent of the Rio Grande is diverted during irrigation season, and in the early 2000s, the aquifer within the valley’s closed basin—a drainage area north of the Rio Grande—became severely depleted.

The water table dropped so low that a Bureau of Reclamation pump called the Closed Basin Project, which pulls groundwater from the closed basin and delivers it through a 42-mile channel to help replenish the depleted river and also supply water to the Alamosa National Wildlife Refuge, and reduce the amount of curtailed water rights, started to run dry.

So the Rio Grande Water Conservation District tried an experiment Adobe Stock

endorsed by the Colorado Legislature: for the first time, water users would pay for groundwater by the acre-foot and, by 2021, take 40,000 acres out of irrigation. Although the transition was tough, farmers agreed, and today the aquifer is rebounding. Irrigators in one of the Conservation District’s subdistricts, Subdistrict No. 1, have reduced water consumption by a third since 2006.

That’s good news for future generations of farmers—and for the 27,000 or so sandhill cranes that pause in the Alamosa National Wildlife Refuge as they migrate through the San Luis Valley each year. On spring evenings, you can hear their rattling calls as they soar over the grid of farmland. H

Snowpack is important to both wildlife and skiers in Colorado, where 22 ski resorts operate on land managed by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS). These resorts—including Crested Butte, Vail, Aspen, Telluride, Steamboat Springs and Beaver Creek—have worked hard to be sustainable, with Aspen steadily reducing its carbon emissions over the past decade and Vail aiming for “zero operating impact to forests and wildlife habitat,” in part by donating $1 million to protect public lands. But in an era of warming winters, ski resorts also need reliable water for snowmaking—water that’s also vital for fish and wildlife.

In 2011, a dispute over water rights between the USFS and the ski industry morphed into a lawsuit and proposed legislation. Environmental groups and high-altitude counties feared the legislation could undermine river health on public lands, while federal agencies and others worried it would undermine their authority and contracts. A 2016 resolution eventually allowed ski resorts to retain their water rights while ensuring they’re used responsibly.

Still, as ski areas expand into year-round destinations, minimizing the effects on wildlife and rivers remains a challenge.

Studies show that even quiet recreation can impact the survival of songbirds, bobcats and other animals. But if the bobcat prints and fresh ski tracks running side-by-side at Crested Butte are any indication, businesses that operate on public lands can be successful and sustainable. H H E A DWAT E R S S P R I N G 2 0 1 8

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PERMANENTLY PROTECTED

Browns Canyon

It’s the kind of moment that many people who engage in outdoor sports face. You find yourself on the cusp of something just beyond your skill level, with no choice but to do it anyway.

Water released from McPhee Reservoir in 2017 drew boaters to the Dolores River.

REINVIGORATED

The Dolores River The shadow of our four-seater Cessna flew for half an hour across the bleached desert of southwestern Colorado until we caught sight of McPhee Reservoir, its blue water spread over the land like a mirage.

From the reservoir, the waters of the Dolores River tumble through a series of canyons that stretch 190 miles to the Utah border. Their geologic formations, rambunctious whitewater and rich riparian habitat rival those of the Grand Canyon.

Most years, though, the Dolores doesn’t have enough water to support the multi-day river trips the Grand Canyon is known for. In 1983, it was dammed to provide irrigation for the farmland around Cortez, making it possible for farmers, including the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, to grow food and raise livestock in this arid land, and providing an economic driver for surrounding communities. Yet over the past 17 years, drought and climate change have shrunk runoff so severely that the Dolores is often reduced to a low stream. Boatable days have dropped by half, and some species of native fish have struggled to survive.

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Now, the Bureau of Reclamation, Bureau of Land Management and other federal managers are working with boaters, farmers, the tribe, and conservation groups to ensure that when there is enough snowmelt, releases from McPhee Reservoir meet the needs of all river users. Thanks to strong snowpack and an agreement that took years to hammer out, 2017 was a banner year: A big release from McPhee meant that the river briefly ran at 4,000 cubic feet per second, its highest level in a decade. Some 22,000 rafters and kayakers paddled the release, compared to zero boaters on that stretch of river in 2014, and scientists scrambled to collect data on fish habitat, set to be published this spring.

Which is why I found myself in a tiny plane flying over the Dolores River last May. Celene Hawkins, The Nature Conservancy’s Western Colorado Water Program manager, pointed out oxbows where biologists were monitoring some species of native fish, and once-dry channels that were being refilled by the high water to create pools capable of supporting fish through the summer. As the pilot flew over the vertical red walls of Slickrock Canyon, we glimpsed another sign of the renewed life below: a single yellow raft bobbing in the current. H

My moment came in Browns Canyon on the Arkansas River, when I took the lead in a group of kayakers and unwittingly charged into a class IV hole.

I emerged unscathed and upright on the other side, exhilarated with not just the rush of adrenaline, but the beauty of the canyon: tawny boulders plunging into clear pools, sunlight sparkling on the current, a channel of blue sky above.

The combination of natural beauty, thrilling whitewater, and well-timed flows between upstream and downstream reservoirs, thanks to the region’s Voluntary Flow Management Program, has helped make Browns, the Royal Gorge, and other nearby runs on the Arkansas River the most popular place in the country for commercial rafting. Some 240,000 people float the Arkansas each year, bringing an estimated $55 million to towns like Salida and Buena Vista. In 2015, President Barack Obama designated 21,000 acres around Browns Canyon as Colorado’s newest national monument.

So far, the national monument designation hasn’t changed the way the river is run, says Rob White, manager of the Arkansas Headwaters Recreation Area. But a new management plan will soon give White and other public land officials greater flexibility to adjust the number of rafts and kayaks allowed on a certain stretch of river. Better parking, restrooms, signage and access to information are also in the works, and rangers will continue to monitor the river corridor to respond to boating accidents and ensure public safety. The new plan also factors in stand-up paddleboarding—a sport that didn’t exist when the last management plan was written.

Altogether, White thinks, these and other management changes have created a river corridor that’s safer and healthier than it was a few decades ago. H KRISTA LANGLOIS is a freelance journalist writing for publications including High Country News, Outside, National Geographic News, and Smithsonian.com. She lives in Durango.

Krista Langlois

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IN THE SPOTLIGHT

Our members move mountains T his issue we’re celebrating Jody Williams, Water Education Colorado’s longest-standing individual member. Jody joined in 2003 when WEco was a fledgling organization and the membership program had just launched. Jody practices water law with Holland and Hart in Salt Lake City. While she also formerly practiced water law in Colorado, she now focuses on Utah and the greater Colorado River Basin. She has had extensive influence in Utah, collaborating with an advisory team to develop strategies for Utah’s 50-Year State Water Plan, educating the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce on water as an economic driver, and serving on several presidentially appointed commissions, including the Utah Reclamation Mitigation Conservation Commission and Bear River Commission. When asked about the value she gains from supporting WEco as a member, Jody shared, “Colorado is at the forefront of water innovation and education. Utah doesn’t have a water education publication like Headwaters magazine. I’ve ordered a whole bunch of copies of your magazine and distributed them to the policy makers in Utah and it’s had some effect. We’re moving toward something

MISSION: IMPACT Water Education Colorado is the leading organization for informing and engaging Coloradans on water.

Through leadership training, educational resources, and programming, we are working toward a vibrant, sustainable and water-aware Colorado.

941 Number of people who attended WEco in-person programs in 2017

like Colorado’s basin roundtable process.

There is no question that the information I got from your articles has been influential in the policy decisions being made here.” Wow! We couldn’t be more pleased that Jody is part of our community of committed members!

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