“Your home water eventually gets under your skin and begins to define you as a fisherman. If nothing else, the skills it takes to fish it are the ones you use the most.” -John Gierach, speaking of his beloved Saint Vrain River
By Royce Walton, Conservation Committee Chair and Chapter Treasurer
Like many watersheds in the western US, our beloved Saint Vrain River Watershed suffers from the cumulative impacts of abandoned historic mines, heavy angler pressure, climate change (including increasing water temperatures and catastrophic wildfires), and increasing municipal and agricultural demands.
However, it is with great excitement that I am happy to announce that our chapter recently received a Colorado Rivers Grant award from Colorado Trout Unlimited (CTU), which will go a long way towards helping us preserve, protect, and restore our local waters.
In 2018 our chapter joined with community stakeholders/partners to develop the St Vrain & Lefthand Watershed Stream Management Plan. Significant historical data was used to analyze the current state of the watershed, identifying four focus areas: Flow, Habitat, Water Quality, and Water Management. As part of these goals, we identified a need to build capacity and implement adaptive management which includes addressing data gaps, expanding stream monitoring, and expanding citizen science and community learning groups.
The $8,000 we received from Colorado Trout Unlimited will allow us to collect data from various priority sites, selected to complement existing monitoring efforts. Specifically, we used the funds to purchase four EnviroDIY Monitoring stations that will bring more ongoing, comprehensive, actionable, and thorough data on water quality and trout habitat viability. The four sites will inform future management action related to mine reclamation, wildfire impacts, and fuel spills.
We received the monitoring stations (aka: Mayfly Sensors) this fall and we’re working through the setup and design of our site-specific set ups now. This spring we’ll train several volunteers on their operation, maintenance procedures, and data collection so they can become “site owners” who regularly check up on the devices and download data.
This citizen science project, led through the partnership of Saint Vrain Anglers chapter of Trout Unlimited and The Watershed Center, will allow us to collect data on trout habitat, benthic macroinvertebrate populations, and other metrics at each of the monitoring stations. The Watershed Center (a local non-profit with full-time scientists on staff) will be the main “customer” using the data for analysis and public dissemination via their annual watershed reporting.
Our four sites include locations on the following creeks in our watershed:
James Creek
Left Hand Creek
South Saint Vrain Creek
North Saint Vrain Creek
While we’ll be focused on these four sites in 2023, we’re excited about the potential to expand the project to provide a comprehensive network of monitoring devices distributed throughout the entirety of our watershed.
I look forward to sharing more information on our progress this spring.
If you would like to be involved in this volunteer-run monitoring effort, please be in touch via the chapter email address: stvrainTU@gmail.com