Low streamflows are endangering the survival of the Rio Grande River cutthroat trout #COdrought

From the Summit County Citizens Voice (Bob Berwyn):

Some of southern Colorado’s Rio Grande cutthroat trout are likely living on the edge of the climate cliff and will have a hard time surviving as global temperatures rise.

Flows are already very low in many streams where the rare fish live, so even a small change in flow could push some populations into the abyss. The long-term global warming forecast by most climate models could render many mainstem, connecting habitats unsuitable for the fish, which survive best in a narrow temperature range, according to a new study by U.S. Geological Survey scientists.

Rio Grande cutthroat trout now live in only about 12 percent of its historical habitat, as non-native fish introductions, water diversions and other impacts degraded the species’ habitat in the past few decades. Most of the sampled streams with Rio Grande cutthroat trout have base flows of less than 1 cubic foot per second, making them vulnerable to drought.

More endangered/threatened species coverage here.

CU working on saving only Greenback cutthroat population from extinction

From The Pueblo Chieftain (Larry Lopez):

How much do Coloradans really know about their state fish?

Did you know, for example, that there are only an estimated 750 of them in the hundreds of miles of state waters.

In case you didn’t know, the greenback cutthroat trout was designated Colorado’s official state fish of Colorado in 1994, to recognize a true Colorado trout. Previously, the state fish was the rainbow trout — a fish that had been imported into Colorado in 1882.

Originally considered indigenous to many small streams and rivers throughout the Arkansas and South Platte river basins in Colorado, the greenback eventually wound up on the verge of extinction at the time of its designation, as loss of good habitat and the introduction of additional species of trout took a toll.

The recent release of a new research by scientists at the University of Colorado noted that the last surviving population of true greenbacks in Colorado is limited to Bear Creek, a tiny stream on the slope of Pikes Peak west of Colorado Springs.

“We’ve known for some time that the trout in Bear Creek were unique,” said Doug Krieger, a senior aquatic biologist for Colorado Parks and Wildlife Service.

“But we didn’t realize they were the only surviving greenback population,” Krieger added.

The findings of the CU researchers, Jessica Metcalf and Andrew Martin, were startling, said Theo Stein of the service’s Denver office.

“It opened the window of this fish that surprised a lot of people. We didn’t know we’re one stream away from extinction of the state fish,” Stein said.

The number of greenback living in the four­mile reach of Bear Creek was estimated from fish sampling completed in 2011. However, the actual number could vary as sampling in these type of headwater streams can be difficult.

The study also found that a previously undiscovered San Juan Basin cutthroat and the yellowfin cutthroat trout (which was originally found in the upper basin around Leadville) also are extinct.
It has meant a change in the service’s thinking on management of the greenback.

To complement the new research findings, the Greenback Cutthroat Trout Recovery Team has begun working with Colorado State University to reexamine the physical characteristics of Colorado cutthroats. When completed, scientists will compare results from physical examination with the genetic analysis in hopes of further clarifying the evolutionary relationships among native cutthroat trout.

In the meantime, Colorado Parks and Wildlife and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have begun growing a broodstock of greenback in two hatcheries with hopes of transplanting a new population back to the wild by 2014. Krieger is optimistic about the future of greenback cutthroats and suggests that, “This fish was found in many streams before settlers came to Colorado, and we hope to expand greenbacks to more places so that people can enjoy this legacy once again.”

More endangered/threatened species coverage here.

Restoration: Cutthroats were recently seen doing backflips from joy in their restored habitat at Woods Lake

From The Telluride Watch (Gus Jarvis):

Once the population is established at Woods Lake, the habitat will provide the broodstock, which will eventually assist in cutthroat conservation efforts throughout the Dolores and Gunnison river basins. To make sure a healthy population of cutthroats survive at Woods Lake, Kowalski said, biologists will go back to the lake in the summer of 2013 and release several thousand fry, which, along with the spawning adults released in 2012, will make for a healthy and diverse population.

“We’ll do that to give us multiple age classes of fish and to provide good genetic diversity,” Kowalski said. “The biggest thing for us now is getting the population built up, so there’s plenty of fish for anglers to catch. The cutthroat should do great in this habitat. The lake has been fishless for two years and the aquatic invertebrates have exploded, so the lake is full of food for them. Essentially we have taken these fish confined to a tiny little stream and placed them into a wide, open habitat with no competitors.

“They should have excellent growth up there.”

Kowalski said anglers can expect to start catching cutthroat trout in the summer of 2013 from Woods Lake, but it will be a couple of years before there are large numbers of older-age fish to catch. Anglers are encouraged to release all fish they catch for the next couple of years to allow the population to grow. Fishing in the lake and streams above is restricted to artificial flies and lures only.

More restoration/reclamation coverage here.

Restoration: CPW reintroduces cutthroats to Woods Lake

From The Telluride Daily Planet (Collin McRann):

Colorado Parks and Wildlife stocked the lake with 250 cutthroat trout last week as part of an ongoing project to restore the species to its native habitat. Transporting the fish was done via horseback and truck from a small stream on the Uncompahgre Plateau the same day. The cutthroat will take around two years to create a sustainable population in their new home, according to CPW. The reintroduction plan ultimately calls for more than 2,000 fish to be stocked into the lake and its surrounding tributaries — the next stocking is planned for the spring of 2013. “We’ll do [the spring relocation] to give us multiple age classes of fish and to provide good genetic diversity,” said Dan Kowalski, an aquatic researcher with Parks and Wildlife in Montrose, in a release.

The 24-acre lake is located off of Forest Service Road 618 west of Telluride and was chosen for a number of reasons — mainly its pristine condition and remote location. But its natural barriers also prevent non-native species from gaining access…

In Colorado, there are three species of cutthroat trout in different regions of the state. Colorado River cutthroat trout live in drainages west of the continental divide, Greenback cutthroat trout are in the South Platte and Arkansas River drainages, and the Rio Grande cutthroat trout are found in streams draining into the San Luis Valley, according to Parks and Wildlife.

Efforts to restore the species have been ongoing since the early 1970s, when Greenback trout was listed as endangered. Greenbacks currently have a lesser-threatened classification.

According to Parks and Wildlife, another cutthroat restoration project is ongoing in the upper Hermosa Creek drainage near the Durango Mountain Resort in San Juan County. When that project is completed in about five years, more than 20 miles of Hermosa Creek and feeder streams will be home to native cutthroats.

More restoration coverage here and here.

Pure strain of greenback cutthroats found southwest of Colorado Springs

Here’s the release from the University of Colorado at Boulder (Jessica Metcalf/Andrew Martin/Jim Scott):

A novel genetic study led by the University of Colorado Boulder has helped to clarify the native diversity and distribution of cutthroat trout in Colorado, including the past and present haunts of the federally endangered greenback cutthroat trout.

The study, led by CU-Boulder postdoctoral researcher Jessica Metcalf, was based largely on DNA samples taken from cutthroat trout specimens preserved in ethanol in several U.S. museums around the country that were collected from around the state as far back as 150 years ago. The new study, in which Metcalf and her colleagues extracted mitochondrial DNA from fish to sequence genes of the individual specimens and compared them with modern-day cutthroat trout strains, produced some startling results.

The biggest surprise, said Metcalf, was that the cutthroat trout native to the South Platte River drainage appears to survive today only in a single population outside of its native range — in a small stream known as Bear Creek that actually is in the nearby Arkansas River drainage. The strain from Bear Creek is thought to have been collected from the South Platte River drainage in the 1880s by an early hotelier who stocked the fish in a pond at the Bear Creek headwaters to help promote an early tourist route up Pikes Peak.

“We thought one way to get to the question of which cutthroat trout strains are native to particular drainages was to go back to historical samples and use their DNA as a baseline of information,” said Metcalf of the chemistry and biochemistry department and a former postdoctoral researcher at the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA. “Our study indicates the descendants of the fish that were stocked into Bear Creek in the late 1800s are the last remaining representatives of the federally protected greenback cutthroat trout.”

A second, key set of data was all of the Colorado cutthroat trout stocking records over the past 150 years, a task spearheaded by study co-author and fish biologist Chris Kennedy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Between 1889 and 1925, for example, the study showed that more than 50 million cutthroat trout from the Gunnison and Yampa river basins were stocked in tributaries of all major drainages in the state, jumbling the picture of native cutthroat strains in Colorado through time and space.

Originating from the Pacific Ocean, cutthroat trout are considered one of the most diverse fish species in North America and evolved into 14 recognized subspecies in western U.S. drainages over thousands of years. In Colorado, four lineages of cutthroats were previously identified: the greenback cutthroat, the Colorado River cutthroat, the Rio Grande cutthroat and the extinct yellowfin cutthroat.

The museum specimens used in the study came from the California Academy of Sciences, the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia and the Harvard University Museum of Comparative Zoology. Colorado cutthroat trout specimens were collected by a number of early naturalists, including Swiss scientist and former Harvard Professor Louis Agassiz and internationally known fish expert and founding Stanford University President David Starr Jordan.

The new study, published online today in Molecular Ecology, follows up on a 2007 study by Metcalf and her team that indicated there were several places on the Front Range where cutthroat populations thought to be greenbacks by fish biologists were actually a strain of cutthroats transplanted from Colorado’s Western Slope in the early 1900s.

Other co-authors on the new study included CU-Boulder Professor Andrew Martin and CU-Boulder graduate students Sierra Stowell, Daniel McDonald and Kyle Keepers; Colorado Parks and Wildlife biologist Kevin Rogers; University of Adelaide scientists Alan Cooper and Jeremy Austin; and Janet Epp of Pisces Molecular LLC of Boulder.

“With the insight afforded by the historical data, we now know with a great deal of certainty what cutthroat trout strains were here in Colorado before greenbacks declined in the early 20th century,” said Martin of CU’s ecology and evolutionary biology department. “And we finally know what a greenback cutthroat trout really is.”

Metcalf and her colleagues first collected multiple samples of tissue and bone from each of the ethanol-pickled trout specimens, obtaining fragments of DNA that were amplified and then pieced together like a high-tech jigsaw puzzle to reveal two genes of the individual specimens. The tests were conducted on two different continents under highly sterile conditions and each DNA sequencing effort was repeated several times for many specimens to ensure accuracy in the study, Metcalf said.

Roughly half of the study was conducted at CU-Boulder and half at the Australian Center for Ancient DNA at the University of Adelaide, where Metcalf had worked for two years. “By conducting repeatable research at two very different, state-of-the-art laboratories, we were able to show the Bear Creek trout was the same strain as the cutthroats originally occupying the South Platte River drainage.”

The Bear Creek trout strain is now being propagated in the Colorado Parks and Wildlife hatchery system and at the USFWS Leadville National Fish Hatchery.

In addition to identifying the Bear Creek cutthroat trout, Metcalf and her colleagues discovered a previously unknown cutthroat strain native to the San Juan Basin in southwestern Colorado that has since gone extinct. The study also confirmed that the yellowfin cutthroat, a subspecies from the Arkansas River headwaters that grew to prodigious size in Twin Lakes near Leadville, also had gone extinct.

Fortunately, most fish preserved by naturalists before 1900 were “fixed” in ethanol, which makes it easier for researchers to obtain reliable DNA than from fish preserved in a formaldehyde solution, a practice that later became popular. Prior to the new study — which included DNA from specimens up to about 150 years old — scientists working in ancient DNA labs had only performed similar research on ethanol-preserved museum vertebrate specimens less than 100 years old.

“One of the exciting things to come from this research project is that it opens up the potential for scientists to sequence the genes of other fish, reptiles and amphibian specimens preserved in ethanol further back in time than ever before to answer ecological questions about past diversity and distribution,” said Metcalf, who conducts her research at CU’s BioFrontiers Institute.

Funding for the study was provided by agencies of the Greenback Cutthroat Trout Recovery Team, including the USFWS, the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service and Trout Unlimited.

“I think in many cases success depends less on the application of a new technology and more on the convergence of people with shared interest and complementary skills necessary for solving difficult problems,” said Martin. “Our greenback story is really one about what can be discovered when dedicated and talented people collaborate with a shared purpose.”

“We’ve known for some time that the trout in Bear Creek were unique,” said Doug Krieger, senior aquatic biologist for Colorado Parks and Wildlife and the Greenback Cutthroat Trout Recovery Team leader. “But we didn’t realize they were the only surviving greenback population.”

The decline of native cutthroats in Colorado occurred because of a combination of pollution, overfishing and stocking of native and non-native species of trout, said Metcalf. “It’s ironic that stocking nearly drove the greenback cutthroat trout to extinction, and a particularly early stocking event actually saved it from extinction,” she said.

From The Denver Post (Bruce Finley):

“We’ve known for some time that the trout in Bear Creek were unique,” said Doug Krieger, senior aquatic biologist for Colorado Parks and Wildlife, who led the team. “But we didn’t realize they were the only surviving greenback population.”

Greenback cutthroats — the official state fish — are native to the South Platte River basin. The Bear Creek population, currently estimated at about 750 of the state fish, survived in headwaters of the Arkansas River basin because, according to the study, they apparently were stocked there in the early 1880s by a hotel operator hoping to promote a tourist route up Pikes Peak.

CU authors of the study identified six cutthroat lineages native to Colorado — two, the yellowfin from the Arkansas and a lineage from the San Juan, are believed extinct. Biologists say the findings may lead to an overhaul of scientific understanding of the fish.

Restoration: Colorado Parks and Wildlife stocks Hermosa Creek with Colorado River cutthroat #coriver

Here’s a look at restoration efforts on Hermosa Creek, from Dale Rodebaugh writing for The Durango Herald. Click through for the Herald video taken on Wednesday at the headwaters. Here’s an excerpt:

Colorado Parks and Wildlife biologists and volunteers, including Trout Unlimited, planted 11,000 fingerlings about 3 inches long and 200 10-inchers in the main stem of Hermosa Creek upstream from Hotel Draw. Fish were carried in bags from trucks and emptied into Hermosa Creek at various points. If the fish had to be carried any distance, they were transported in super-oxygenated water to ensure they arrived in good condition.

Michael Martinez, a fish culturist at the Parks and Wildlife hatchery in Durango, brought the fingerlings Tuesday from the Rifle Falls hatchery in Garfield County…

Native cutthroat trout don’t compete well with other species, so efforts to increase their population – they occupy only 14 percent of their historic habitat – focus on giving them exclusive use of certain waters…

In pre-Columbian times, the Colorado River variety was found in all cool-water habitat above present-day Glen Canyon…

More restoration coverage here and here.

Restoration: Woods Lake fish are going to get a dose of Rotenone to pave the way for expanded cutthroat habitat

From The Telluride Daily Planet (Collin McRann):

Over the past year, the lake and its tributaries — located off of Forest Service Road 618 west of Telluride — have been the subject of a Colorado Parks and Wildlife project to eliminate non-native trout, mainly brookies and browns, to make way for native cutthroats. Though the project was supposed to be complete by this summer, an assessment revealed brooke trout are still living the lake.

“Last year we treated the lake and tributaries and then they went back this summer, and we found mainly young of the year — brooke trout,” said John Alves, a Senior aquatic biologist with Colorado Parks and Wildlife. “It looks like some of them might have spawned before we got the project going last year, so there’s some that we have to go hit again this year, that’s going to happen next week.” The lake will be treated Aug. 14-16 with a chemical called Rotenone. Alves said the treatment will focus on areas of the lake where the brooke trout were found.

Another assessment will be done after the treatment via electro fishing and gill netting. If it is then determined the lake is ready for a transplant of cutthroat, the fish could be transported into the area as soon as this fall. If not, the lake will be left barren until next year…

The transplant will involve at least 2,000 cutthroats a year, which will be taken from different brood stocks and hatcheries around the state. Though no specific source for the fish has been determined, Alves said Kelso Creek in the Uncompahgre National Forest is a likely candidate.

More restoration/reclamation coverage here and here.

Poose Creek concrete fish ladder planned to aid Colorado River Cutthroat recovery

From Steamboat Today (Tom Ross):

The fish ladder will be part of an ongoing effort to support spawning of native Colorado River cutthroat trout. It would be built in an existing box culvert beneath an unpaved road that crosses the stream. The culvert prevents spawning and trout reproduction in the upper reaches of the stream.

Poose Creek flows off the flanks of Dunckley Pass in Rio Blanco County before flowing into Vaughn Lake. Routt County residents who drive to Trappers Lake in the Flat Tops Wilderness Area via Phippsburg are familiar with Vaughn Lake.

A document released by the U.S. Forest Service this week reports that Yampa District Ranger Jack Lewis would sign an environmental assessment required before construction of the fish ladder could go forward.

Cutthroat trout, named for the pair of crimson streaks beneath their lower jaws, spawn successfully in late spring in the northern Colorado Rockies. However, Forest Service documents state the culvert under Rio Blanco Country Road 8 where it crosses Poose Creek prevents spawning by the Colorado River cutthroats. They are a native species whose populations are not as numerous as they once were.

More endangered/threatened species coverage here.

It must be spring: Parks and Wildlife is stocking fish all over Colorado — cutthroats above Aspen

From The Aspen Times (Janet Urquhart):

The agency’s 2012 stocking schedule calls for the addition of 260,500 fish to Ruedi Reservoir east of Basalt, but most are of the “sub-catchable” variety — they’re only a few inches long. The Ruedi total includes 11,000 3-inch rainbows that were scheduled for stocking in April; 200,000 2-inch kokanee salmon to be stocked this month, 28,000 5-inch lake trout to be added to the reservoir throughout the summer and 31,500 10-inch rainbows, also to be stocked in batches through early August. The lake at Chapman Campground in the upper Fryingpan Valley will see the introduction of 1,500 10-inch trout over the course of the summer, according to the schedule. “The 10-inch fish is our typical stocker,” said Mike Porras, Parks and Wildlife spokesman. “We stock them in areas where fishing is a little more popular.” It’s the expectation that those fish will be kept when they’re caught.

In addition to the 10-inchers are the unexpected lunkers — brood fish that have been reared in state hatcheries specifically for egg production rather than introduction into lakes and streams. They’re typically big fish, and some will be culled from hatchery populations and added to popular fishing waters. Maroon Lake near Aspen, for example, has been the occasional repository of brood fish in past seasons. This year’s schedule calls for putting only 2-inch cutthroats (25,000 of them) in the lake, but that doesn’t mean some brood fish won’t find their way there.

The agency’s stocking strategy, however, is about more than emptying a tank of hungry trout into the water for eager anglers to take back out. “It’s much more complex than, we want people to catch fish and enjoy them,” Porras said.

In addition to the plans for Ruedi and Maroon Lake, roughly 100,000 fish are scheduled to be stocked in other high-mountain lakes and streams this summer, in quantities that range from 100 fish to 1,000 or several thousand.

The Bureau of Land management is constructing a fish barrier in East Parachute Creek to isolate Colorado River cutthroats

From the Glenwood Springs Post Independent:

BLM is also working with Colorado Parks and Wildlife, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and Trout Unlimited to install a fish barrier in East Fork Parachute Creek as part of an effort to maintain native Colorado River cutthroat trout in this drainage.

The Colorado River cutthroats on the Roan Plateau are considered some of the most genetically pure, but non-native brook trout introduced many years ago into the East Fork Parachute Creek are threatening that drainage’s cutthroat population.

“If we don’t take action now, we expect the cutthroat to be completely gone from the East Fork in one to three years,” said BLM West Slope Fisheries Biologist Tom Fresques.

The concrete fish barrier will be installed near the confluence with Third Water Gulch. It will prevent brook trout from moving upstream, which will allow biologists to begin reclaiming the cutthroat population upstream of the barrier.

More endangered/threatened species coverage here.

Restoration: Colorado Parks and Wildlife have relocated 300 or so Rio Grande Cutthroat trout from Medano Creek to Placer Creek

From the Summit County Citizens Voice (Bob Berwyn):

Biologists wanted to preserve the genetics of the Medano Creek cutthroats, so they captured 300 of the wild fish, and after testing them in an aquatic lab, restocked them in Placer Creek, a stream off La Veta Pass. “It’s one of our core conservation areas for Rio Grande cutthroat trout,” said Colorado Parks and Wildlife biologist Josh Nehring, explaining that the cutthroats are protected from other trout by a fish barrier. Nehring said he’s planning to visit the stream in the near future to see if the cutthroats have started reproducing naturally in their new home. Some of the adults that were transplanted have been spotted by biologists doing other work in the area, he added.

Cutthroat are the most diverse trout species in North America, with a historical distribution covering the broadest range of any stream-dwelling trout on the continent. As they evolved in remote drainages, that isolation gave rise to 14 different sup-species, including four in Colorado: The Colorado River cutthroat trout in drainages west of the continental divide, Greenback cutthroat trout in the South Platte and Arkansas River drainages, and the Rio Grande cutthroat trout in streams that drain into the San Luis Valley.

In addition, the yellowfin cutthroat trout was historically found in Twin Lakes at the headwaters of the Arkansas drainage. Unfortunately, this predator that grew to more than 10 pounds, is now extinct.

More restoration coverage here.

Restoration project on Swan River involves mitigating the effects of dredge piles and the introduction of cutthroats

From the Summit Daily News (Janice Kurbjin):

Because the Swan River is “a pretty good opportunity to restore a metapopulation of native Colorado cutthroat trout,” the Forest Service is tackling the project with its partners. Summit County and Breckenridge have been working on their Swan River properties since 2007, but with Forest Service technical support, they and the other partners aim to hire a project design firm and begin implementation as soon as possible — but there’s a long way to go. The idea is to re-introduce the cutthroat in different, but connected, habitats.

“We want them to mingle and mix and from a genetic perspective, that’s good,” [Forest Service district fisheries biologist Corey Lewellen] said, adding that part of the reintroduction effort includes relocating as many brown trout as possible and eliminating the rest to prevent them from again out-competing the cutthroat.

The project will likely be expensive, at several millions of dollars funded by grants and other revenue managed by the Blue River Watershed Group, but it will be worth it, Lewellen said.

“There are 17 miles of habitat we can reconnect if we fix this two miles of dredge,” he said, later adding, “We want to promote healthy fish populations on all our lands… We can’t do that without restoring this.”

But that’s just part of it. The Forest Service is involved in the stream project because it’s part of a broader look at the Swan River watershed — an area covering roughly 20,000 acres. It’s also associated with the agency’s revised mission to get “better bang for our buck,” Lewellen said, by focusing resources more directly instead of haphazardly across the national forest.

More Blue River watershed coverage here.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife and the U.S. Forest Service are embarking on a project to restore Colorado River Cutthroat trout to a 15 mile reach of Big Dominguez Creek

From The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel (Dave Buchanan):

The plan, which biologists say might take up to eight years to complete, would remove non-native fish, including rainbow trout, from a 15-mile expanse of Big Dominguez and La Fair creeks on the Uncompahgre Plateau. Once the cutthroat trout are restored, a fish barrier will be placed at the bottom of the restored stretch to prevent a reintroduction of non-natives, including rainbow and brook trout. The project is a cooperative effort between the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forest and Colorado Parks and Wildlife. The Forest Service is providing the funding for the project and doing needed preliminary work. Colorado Parks and Wildlife will be the lead in the removal of non-natives and the stocking of cutthroats.

“(Colorado Parks and Wildlife) and us had this list of projects but they didn’t have the money for this one,” said Matt Dare, an aquatic biologist for the GMUG. “For native cutthroat trout this is the best sort of proactive management we can do to restore more populations of cutthroat trout.”[...]

The plan includes poisoning La Fair Creek and a stretch of Big Dominguez Creek above and below its confluence with La Fair to remove non-native fish prior to restocking with cutthroat trout. La Fair meets Big Dominguez at Carson Hole. From there, it’s about two miles to the Big Dominguez Wilderness Area, which is on Bureau of Land Management land. Once the non-native fish are removed, a fish barrier will be built on Big Dominguez Creek near the wilderness boundary.

More restoration coverage here.

Durango: Hermosa Creek cutthroat restoration open house July 13

From the Pagosa Daily Post:

The project will be explained to the public at an open house from 4-8pm, July 13, at the Durango Recreation Center’s Windom Room.

What: Open house to explain Colorado River cutthroat trout restoration on Hermosa Creek
When: 4-8 p.m., July 13
Where: Durango Recreation Center, Windom Room
Information: Jim White, (970)375-6712; j.white@state.co.us.

“Upper Hermosa Creek offers an excellent location for a native trout recovery project,” said Jim White, aquatic biologist for the Division in Durango. “The area is a big, complex network of tributaries and a main stem river with excellent water quality and trout habitat. The limestone geology is favorable for trout and the area is easily accessible to field crews and anglers.”

Wildlife biologists identified the Hermosa Creek area as a prime spot for restoration about 20 years ago. In 1992, a similar project restored native cutthroats on four miles of the creek’s upper East Fork.

More restoration coverage here.

Craig: Willow Creek cutthroat habitat expansion planned for August

From the Craig Daily Press (Brian Smith):

Currently there is a pure, core conservation population of trout located in northern sections of the creek, but as the river winds toward Moffat County Road 38, the DOW found a mixed population of Brook trout and Yellow trout hybridizing with the cutthroat, DOW representative Boyd Wright said. “We have a conservation strategy for Colorado River cutthroat trout with an agreement between multiple state and federal agencies with the goal to not only protect those populations, but also to expand them where there are opportunities,” Wright said.

The DOW will start the project in August when the water is at its lowest flow. A barrier will be installed first to prevent other trout from entering the area. The project is estimated to cost $15,000. Willow Creek, a catch and release, fly and lure only stream, will see no change in fishing regulations as result of the project.

More endangered/threatened species coverage here.

Center for Biological Diversity files lawsuit to gain protection for the Colorado River cutthroat

From the Courthouse News Service (Sonya Angelica Diehn):

The Center for Biological Diversity challenges a Bush-era policy under which the government considers only the current range in consideration of endangered status, which the Center calls “effectively chopping protection off at the knees.” It claims the Interior Department and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also dismissed the threats of non-native trout; persistence of only small, isolated cutthroat populations; and the cutthroat’s particular susceptibility to a parasitic disease, to deny it protection.

The Colorado cutthroat trout needs clean, cool mountain streams to survive. But 87 percent of this habitat has been lost to livestock grazing, logging, water diversion and dams, among other factors, the Center says. Steady introduction of non-native trout allows the sport fish to compete with local species for resources, eats the native young and threatens local trout by interbreeding, weakening the native population’s highly adapted ability to survive, the plaintiffs say. The species used to flourish in parts of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and extreme northern New Mexico and Arizona. With 58 percent of the remaining range degraded, the cutthroat now survives only in small, fragmented populations. The species is particular susceptible to whirling disease, a transmittable parasite that causes nerve and bone damage and deformation, making infected fish swim in an erratic, corkscrew-like pattern…

[Plaintiff Noah Greenwald], who has a master’s degree in riparian ecology and submitted the petition to the Fish and Wildlife Service after studying the Colorado cutthroat trout for a year, added, “We hope the Obama administration will revoke the damaging Bush policy on ‘significant portion of range’ language, which misinterpreted the law in order to hobble protection, and reconsider listing the trout.” Lead counsel for the Center is James Dougherty of Washington, D.C.

More endangered species coverage here.

Center for Biological Diversity files lawsuit to gain protection for the Colorado River cutthroat

From the Associated Press via the Vail Daily:

The federal lawsuit filed Tuesday in Washington, D.C., by the Center for Biological Diversity challenges a 2007 decision that kept the fish off the endangered species list. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decision said there was evidence of an increased number of populations of the fish. But Noah Greenwald of the Portland-based Center for Biological Diversity says the trout is gone from 87 percent of its historic range, which included parts of Arizona and New Mexico.

More endangered species coverage here.

Cutthroat Chapter of Trout Unlimited Annual Conservation Auction November 17

From Colorado Trout Unlimited:

The Cutthroat Chapter of Trout Unlimited will hold its Annual Conservation Auction on Tuesday, November 17. The doors will open at 6:30 pm. Admission is free. The event will help raise funds for the chapter’s conservation activities such as Cheeseman Canyon trail maintenance, help fund a graduate fellowship at Colorado State University Department of Fish Biology and Wildlife, and the chapter’s stream improvement activities. More than 150 items will be available for bid through a silent auction and a traditional verbal auction. Items to auctioned include fishing trips, fishing equipment, professionally tied flies, art items, and much more. The event will be held at Terrace Gardens, 13065 East Briarwood Avenue in Englewood (just south of Arapahoe Road, 2 miles east of I-25). Please contact Bill Richards at 303-909-1375 or go to http://www.cutthroatctu.org for more information or directions.

More conservation coverage here.

Hermosa Creek: Prime cutthroat habitat

From The Durango Herald (Paul Shepard):

The Hermosa Creek basin has two outstandingly remarkable values: recreation, and fish and wildlife. Virtually all outdoor recreation activities are allowed including mountain biking, hunting, fishing, camping, off-roading, horses, hiking, climbing, kayaking, skiing, snowshoeing and recreational vehicles. The basin also supports local agriculture with grazing allotments. To build on the outstandingly remarkable value of fish and wildlife, the Colorado River cutthroat trout reintroduction program is under way, with the Division of Wildlife working with the Forest Service…

Hermosa Creek is considered to be the top location in Colorado because it meets the criteria needed for success, including a waterfall on the East Fork to act as a barrier. If a waterfall is not available, a man-made one must be built. The barriers are needed to keep invasive trout from moving upstream and compromising the native-only populations. Barriers cannot be built just anywhere. Available geologic features must include sufficient gradient and a pinch-point. Additionally, a road must be near for equipment and stocking trucks. Such a road exists in Hermosa Park…

Nearly two decades ago, the Forest Service began this process by acquiring Purgatory Flats on the East Fork of Hermosa via a land swap. In 1991, the Division of Wildlife turned this reach into a cutthroat-only fishery above Sig Creek falls. Two years ago, a man-made barrier was built on the main stem at Hotel Draw, and the reintroduction is ongoing. Once the main stem is completed, this will create two separate populations. Thus far, the cutthroat reintroduction program is considered to be a success. However, the ultimate goal is to connect these two populations, allowing for movement between drainages and promoting population diversity. The Hermosa Park private parcel is the limiting factor to complete success. This is because the confluence of these two sections resides on this private property and is out of the jurisdiction of the Forest Service…

Two years ago, Hermosa Creek received the designation of “Outstanding Waters” by the Colorado Water Quality Control Commission. The creek has such high water quality that, by law, it can’t be compromised. Hermosa Creek is the only stream in Colorado with this designation outside of a national park or wilderness area. Also, the Hermosa Creek watershed is Colorado’s largest unprotected roadless area. Literally tens of thousands of acres are so pristine, they are eligible for wilderness designation. And all this is little more than a half hour’s drive from Durango. However, the Hermosa Park private parcel sits right in the middle of this amazing open space. In an open and public workgroup formed in 2008, unrelated to the land swap issues, a consensus values statement for the Hermosa basin was articulated as: The Hermosa Creek area is exceptional because it is a large, intact (unfragmented) natural watershed containing diverse ecosystems, including fish, plants and wildlife over a broad elevation range, and supports a variety of uses, including recreation and grazing, in the vicinity of a large town.

This diverse working group – ocs.fortlewis.edu/riverprotection/Hermosa – sees the value of an intact watershed and recognizes the special and unique characteristics of the Hermosa Creek area.

More Hermosa Creek watershed coverage here.

Grizzly Creek: Home for greenback cutthroat?

Charlies Meyers (The Denver Post) is always looking for a new trout stream. He reports that a stretch of Grizzly Creek is above a stream full of mine runoff. That effectively blocks other species from the stretch. Here’s the report. From the article:

Janowsky is leading a broad- based team of experts poised to begin restoration on more than 2 miles of a creek whose sparkling headwaters rise off the flank of 14,267-foot Torreys Peak, a popular climbers’ destination just south of the Bakerville interchange off I-70. Funded in large part by MillerCoors, the Forest Service and Trout Unlimited and bolstered by a small army of volunteers, the effort will begin the first week of August with a launch of equipment and materials that will make the creek suitable for fish while erasing a rash of environmental scars. A buck-and-rail fence will be installed to prevent motorized incursion, while a mile of unauthorized road will be obliterated to further aid in stream protection. At the same time, a single-track trail will be maintained for hiking and other backcountry uses. Design and construction will be managed by Frontier Environmental Services, the firm that earlier was contracted by West Denver TU to design and build the so-called Golden Mile on Clear Creek. The Clear Creek Watershed Foundation will oversee the project once it has been completed, an effort that includes on-ground remediation and metals reduction…

“It’s the perfect chemical barrier to keep fish from coming in from down below,” said Paul Winkle, area biologist with the Colorado Division of Wildlife.

More Coyote Gulch conservation coverage here.

Long Draw Reservoir: USFS to stock cutthroat

The U.S. Forest Service is proposing a plan to kill non-native fish species and replace them with cutthroats in Long Draw Reservoir, according to a report from Trevor Hughes writing for the Fort Collins Coloradoan. From the article:

Trout Unlimited in 2004 sued the U.S. Forest Service, which permits the reservoir, to force changes. Trout Unlimited argued the reservoir was harming fish and other wildlife downstream. In response, the Forest Service is proposing mitigation efforts known as Alternative 3 that include killing all fish in sections of area streams and creeks, then replacing them with the threatened greenback cutthroat trout. The Forest Service released a draft environmental impact statement about a year ago and has now issued a final statement, with a formal decision expected within the next few months. “This alternative does not change the physical damage that occurs from the ongoing operations but rather Alternative 3 changes the residents of the area stream from a non-native trout species to a listed native trout species and applies conservation biology concepts to connect habitat in a manner that makes the physical damage irrelevant.”

The proposal lacks a request made by Trout Unlimited: Release water from the reservoir during the winter to improve trout habitat downstream. Forest Service scientists are recommending against releasing water from the dam in winter, largely because it would require major changes to the dam. It’s a nearly 10-mile trip from Colorado Highway 14 to the dam, according to the Forest Service. Further, the Forest Service concluded that “unnatural” flows of water released from the reservoir during the summer make La Poudre Pass Creek below the dam a poor habitat for native fish. “High energy requirements for small trout to move, rest or feed in these flows would reduce the condition of any trout that reside in La Poudre Pass Creek,” the statement says. “Use of the habitat in La Poudre Pass Creek by fish would be incidental during high summer flows and non-existent during zero-winter flows…

Long Draw was completed in 1929. The reservoir was later enlarged, and the dam rebuilt in 1974. The reservoir stores water imported from the Colorado River Basin by the Grand Ditch. It also stores water from La Poudre Pass Creek, a tributary of the Cache la Poudre River. The Forest Service issued a special permit for Long Draw in 1978. The permit expired in 1991 but was extended to 1994.

In 1994, following an environmental impact study, the Forest Service issued a plan that allowed Water Supply and Storage to operate Long Draw without providing bypass flows to La Poudre Pass Creek below the dam. Under the 1994 plan, the Greeley-owned Barnes Meadow reservoir releases water to the Poudre in the winter. Trout Unlimited sued, claiming the Forest Service should have required a bypass flow from Long Draw as a condition of use and that not requiring one would harm fish and wildlife in the Poudre basin. A judge in April 2004 reversed the Forest Service’s decision and told the agency to rewrite the permit.

More Coyote Gulch coverage

Restoration: CSU Researchers Identify Environmental Risks and Opportunities for Conservation of Native Colorado Trout Populations

Here’s the release from Colorado State University (Jennifer Dimas):

With only 14 percent of their original habitat remaining, native Colorado River cutthroat trout have been forced into isolation by habitat loss and invading non-native trout in relatively short reaches of high-altitude headwater streams. A new research paper by scientists at Colorado State University’s Warner College of Natural Resources has found that 63 percent of the remaining populations will be at some risk of decline or extinction by 2080.

There are 309 individual fragments of rivers and streams where pure Colorado River cutthroat trout still persist in the Colorado River Basin. The CSU researchers developed models to assess the probabilities for a variety of risks to trout in these populations, including those from a warming climate as well as increases in drought that causes stream drying and wildfire that can produce erosion of sediment into streams.

Researcher and lead author on the paper James Roberts first developed a sophisticated model to predict future stream temperatures from the latest predictions of future air temperatures and stream flow under climate change, as well as a range of other important variables such as latitude, slope, and elevation. The researcher team then analyzed the impacts of potential environmental disturbance events, such as fire, erosion and drought. What they found was a surprising paradox, and an opportunity for conservation.

The scientists report that none of the populations of cutthroat trout are expected to be at risk of acute mortality from increasing temperatures as the climate warms, even 70 years in the future. This is because these native fish have already been forced into refuges in short high-altitude streams, above barriers that prevent invasion by non-native brook, rainbow, and brown trout. As a result, the surviving populations are less susceptible to extreme temperature changes such as those that will occur at lower elevations. However, these isolated havens of cool-water habitat are also at the crux of what is jeopardizing the Colorado River cutthroat trout population.

The study reported that the fish living in these short stream reaches are highly vulnerable to potential effects of drought, fire, sediment deposition and freezing because they lack the habitat that would shelter them from these events that longer stream segments would afford. In addition, the isolated populations are also compromised by genetic risks that occur in small populations.
Because Roberts’ models looked at each risk factor for each stream where the native trout still occur, the researchers are able to identify in which of the 309 fragments restoration to expand the native trout’s habitat can be most effective. Furthermore, they are able to determine approximately how many kilometers long a stream fragment needs to be in order to provide adequate habitat for enhanced persistence rates.

“The complexity and depth of this study has allowed us to sharpen our focus and help managers create sustainable solutions for this iconic native fish species,” said Roberts. “Our hope is that this research will empower land managers with the tools and information needed to make a significant impact on the conservation of native Colorado River cutthroat trout for generations to come.”

The paper, Fragmentation and thermal risks from climate change interact to affect persistence of native trout in the Colorado River basin, is published in the May 2013 issue of Global Change Biology. The study was conducted using data from the upper Colorado River Basin, which includes all tributaries above Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell.

Roberts, now working with the U.S. Geological Survey, conducted the research over three years while he was a post-doctoral researcher with CSU’s Warner College. CSU scientist Kurt Fausch served as Roberts’ research advisor and co-author, and is a professor in the Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology and a world-renowned expert in the ecology and management of trout and other stream fishes. Other co-authors of the study are Mevin Hooten with the USGS Colorado Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit and CSU alumnus Doug Peterson with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“The exciting outcome of this research is that we now have a targeted tool to help land managers plan efficient and strategic habitat restoration to reduce these risks,” said Fausch. “In many other cases, managers may be able to do little for native trout as the climate changes and makes streams too warm for their survival.”

From the Summit Daily News (Breeana Laughlin):

Rising water temperatures, the Colorado State University study concludes, aren’t impacting the indigenous fish like some of its non-native brothers.

Results of the study, which included six streams in Summit County, indicate that the hardy fish may be less susceptible to increases in water temperature than other trout.

Researchers James Roberts and Kurt Fausch are suggesting this may be because cutthroat trout have already sought refuge in short, high-altitude streams, above the barriers that keep out non-native brook, rainbow and brown trout.

Although isolated havens of cool-water habitat could help native trout survive future temperature increases, they still face peril in the event of a drought, fire or hard freeze because they don’t have the expansive habitat larger fish populations rely on to survive.

More restoration/reclamation coverage here and here.

Restoration: The Eagle River Watershed Council is planting willows along Red Dirt Creek May 17-18

From email from the Eagle River Watershed Council:

We are beginning a second project along the East Fork of Red Dirt Creek, a tributary of the Colorado River. The Watershed Council, along with a team of volunteers and help from the US Forest Service and Trout Unlimited, will plant willows and remove a dirt road that is adding sediment to the creek and harming the local cutthroat trout population.

Friday, May 17th and Saturday, May 18th we will be planting willows along the East Fork of Red Dirt Creek and we are looking for 10-15 volunteers. Call us at 970-827-5406 or email outreach@erwc.org to sign up for one or both days!

More Eagle River Watershed coverage here and here.

Parachute Creek spill: Residents ask state to take over testing at the creek #ColoradoRiver

From the Glenwood Springs Post Independent (John Colson):

Area residents, concerned about the discovery of extremely high levels of the toxic compound benzene 10 feet from the banks of Parachute Creek, are calling on state officials to take over the water-sampling duties currently being conducted by a private company. That company, Bargath LLC of Oklahoma, is listed by the Bloomberg Businessweek website as a “subsidiary of Williams Companies, Inc.,” the parent company of Williams Midstream and WPX Energy. Bargath, according to statements from the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, has been in charge of water sampling from Parachute Creek and from two groups of water-quality monitoring wells, one group at about 30 feet from the creek and a second group just 10 feet from the creek.

In an e-mail to Matt Lepore, director of the COGCC, Silt resident Carl McWilliams pointed out that Bargath in late 2012 was fined $275,000 for violations of the state’s stormwater-management regulations in its operations in Garfield County…

“Please notice the ‘joined-at-the-hip’ association Bargath LLC has with Williams,” wrote McWilliams. “Based upon the unthinkable environmental devastation benzene has to aquifers and ground water, and the totally unacceptable track record of Bargath LLC and Williams Production on water issues in Garfield County, this email to you is a formal demand that the COGCC immediately implement laboratory water testing of the ground water and aquifer (in the area of the plume).”

Steve Gunderson, director of the Water Quality Control Division of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, disagreed with McWilliams’ concerns. “Certainly, this pipeline leak is a significant and serious situation,” Gunderson said. But, he continued, “It’s an apples-and-oranges type of thing” compared to the stormwater violations in Bargath’s 2012 violations.

From the Northern Colorado Business Journal (Steve Lynn):

A benzene spill that contaminated groundwater near Parachute Creek on the Western Slope has renewed calls by conservationists for increased buffers between oil and gas facilities and streams, rivers and lakes. Such spills could have a major impact in heavy production areas such as Weld County, which lies in the heart of the South Platte River Basin. Weld, with 20,000 wells, is the most active production area in the state…

“This was one of the things that was still outstanding, the riparian setback issue,” said Bob Meulengracht, Colorado coordinator of Sportsmen for Responsible Energy Development. “The (Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission) was supposed to convene a stakeholder group to look into this.”

The state of Colorado said it has instead focused on buffers between oil drilling and buildings, which regulators expanded from 350 feet in urban areas and 150 feet in rural areas to a uniform 500 feet earlier this year. Drilling cannot take place within 1,000 feet of buildings housing large numbers of people, including schools, nursing homes and hospitals, without a hearing before the commission. Regulators also passed stricter groundwater monitoring measures, though those rules do not pertain to streams, rivers and lakes.

The state passed some regulations protecting fisheries and drinking water infrastructure in 2008. It adopted a rule to create setbacks and mitigation requirements near areas with drinking water infrastructure as well as a 300-foot buffer from streams designated as “gold medal” streams and those containing cutthroat trout. But environmentalists believe the regulations do not go far enough, saying that oil and gas spills could contaminate water supplies and harm wildlife. “Right now, other than gold medal trout waters and cutthroat trout waters, we have virtually nothing to protect our riparian areas,” Meulengracht said. “We all know that accidents happen; we’re seeing that up in Parachute.”

The Colorado Wildlife Federation believes oil and gas companies should adopt “reasonable” setbacks from water ways, said Suzanne O’Neill, executive director of the environmental group. “We don’t believe one size fits all, because there are a lot of factors that would go into it,” she said.

In Gunnison County, elected leaders did not wait for the state to overhaul its water-way setback regulations. County commissioners last year passed 150-foot buffers between oil and gas development and bodies of water. The regulations also call for another buffer from 150 to 500 feet where elements of the operation can occur. However, companies must take additional steps, such as building two-foot-tall berms around the edge of the well pad facing a body of water. “The goal is to allow the operators to extract the resources that they own, but to do that in a way that’s environmentally safe and safe for humans,” County Manager Matthew Birnie said…

Williams had removed nearly 4,300 barrels of groundwater and 140 barrels of hydrocarbons from the spill near Parachute Creek, discovered last month. Samples taken by the state oil commission had shown no evidence that the creek was contaminated.

From The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel (Dennis Webb):

Authorities on Wednesday installed and sampled three new monitoring wells within 10 feet of Parachute Creek, one day after high benzene levels were reported within the same distance of the creek. The results of those samples, along with another round of samples taken from the surface of the creek itself, were not available.

Benzene levels as much as 800 times more than the federal drinking water standard were found Tuesday in shallow groundwater in a monitoring well just 10 feet from the banks of the creek at the site of a liquid hydrocarbon leak. State officials continue to say that testing of the creek water continues to show no signs of contamination from the leak. Sampling results from well completed Tuesday show benzene levels of 1,900 to 4,100 parts per billion. The Environmental Protection Agency’s maximum allowable level for benzene, a carcinogen, in drinking water is 5 ppb. Readings from three other wells farther from the creek and closer to the contamination site have shown readings ranging from 5,800 ppb to 18,000 ppb.

The highest reading is near a recovery trench dug as part of the leak cleanup. That trench, and the area around an above-ground valve set for a 4-inch-diameter natural gas liquids line from Williams’ nearby gas processing plant, are being investigated as possible sources of what investigators think may have been historic releases of hydrocarbons. No active leak sources have yet been found.

Williams spokeswoman Donna Gray said Tuesday the 4-inch line went into service in 2008. The contamination was discovered by Williams in a pipeline corridor March 8 as it was doing location work. Some 6,000 gallons of hydrocarbons were recovered.

Colorado Department of Natural Resources spokesman Todd Hartman said the new monitoring well is about 325 feet southeast of the valve set and recovery trench. Investigators for the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission believe groundwater is flowing from the creek toward the contamination site, rather than vice versa, which is helping protect the creek from contamination.

Parachute Creek provides irrigation water to the town of Parachute. Town Administrator Bob Knight said Tuesday the town usually releases water from the creek into its irrigation reservoir on April 15. “We are hoping this matter is resolved long before that. But I have no intention of turning water into the reservoir until it is cleaned up and the leak has been found or whatever is causing that,” he said.

He said some residents probably will use the town’s domestic water system for irrigation, which will put more strain on the system’s treatment plant. “But we believe we can handle it for the interim,” he said.

From The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel (Dennis Webb):

A federal agency is looking at plugging a hole in the regulation of oil and gas gathering pipelines. The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, part of the Department of Transportation, is considering regulating all gathering pipelines, which would close a loophole applying to many lines in Colorado and other states.

Gathering lines deliver oil, gas and associated substances from production areas to processing facilities.

For gas gathering lines, the agency’s pipeline safety regulations currently don’t apply to low-population areas, leaving only about 10 percent of 200,000 miles of natural gas gathering lines nationwide regulated by it. The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration now regulates about 4,000 of the 30,000 to 40,000 miles of hazardous liquids gathering lines in the country. Its rules for hazardous liquids lines apply to lines that are in communities, cross waterways used for commercial navigation, or in the case of certain rural lines come within a quarter-mile of environmentally sensitive areas.

The federal agency typically has agreements with state agencies for regulations and enforcement within a state, but those agencies may not impose safety rules on federally unregulated gathering lines. It has a regulatory agreement with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission for gas lines, but although the PUC imposes some minimal safety rules on rural gathering lines, the more extensive rules that PHMSA requires for those gathering lines it does regulate do not apply.

The rules of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration cover areas such as pipeline design, construction, testing, operations, maintenance, and corrosion detection and prevention, agency spokesman Damon Hill said.

Williams site

Pipeline regulations associated with oil and gas development in Colorado have garnered increased attention in light of a leak of some 6,000 gallons of hydrocarbons, discovered in a pipeline corridor near Parachute Creek northwest of Parachute last month. The investigation into that leak continues, but it is focusing in part on a valve set for a natural gas liquids pipeline that runs from Williams’ nearby gas processing plant to tanks on the other side of the creek.

Williams has said that pipeline is regulated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Hill said his agency continues to look into the situation, but that it doesn’t appear to regulate that pipeline. He said certain pipelines within a plant might not be considered transportation lines for regulatory purposes.

Matt Lepore, director of the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, has said he expects his agency to review its own pipeline rules in light of the Parachute situation to see if changes might be warranted. Its rules currently apply to flow lines running from wells to metered points at which the oil or gas joins gathering lines, and cover areas such as piping materials that must be used and requirements for pressure-testing.

Williams has said the regulations apply to a liquids line that runs from the tanks by Parachute Creek to another processing plant in Rio Blanco County.

In the case of natural gas gathering lines, the federal agency doesn’t regulate lines in areas with fewer than 10 buildings intended for human occupancy within 220 yards of a line per mile — what are called Class 1 areas.

State rules dropped

Under the Colorado PUC agreement with Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, the state enforces Colorado safety regulations of gas pipelines when lines are entirely within the state. It regulates transmission lines, distribution lines to customers and other lines including gathering lines.

However, in the case of Class 1 gathering lines, it only mandates pipeline markers at roads and railroad crossings; telephone reporting of incidents such as leaks along with immediate, documented repairs; and other notification in certain instances.

The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission had some gathering pipeline rules in place but eliminated them in 2008 out of concern over possible duplication of, or conflict with, rules the PUC was working on. The PUC adopted its gathering rules in 2011. According to a commission rulemaking document, its past rules apparently involved requirements only to notify the commssion and affected local governments and provide construction plans when companies plan to build gathering lines subject to federal pipeline agency rules.

While leaks from gas lines can threaten the environment, a primary concern is the danger of explosion. Part of the reason the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration hasn’t regulated gas gathering lines in rural areas is because they historically have been generally small and have had relatively low pressures. However, diameters and pressures of gathering pipelines have been increasing in the case of some lines being installed for drilling in gas-rich shale formations. Some local energy companies have begun exploratory drilling in shale.

On its website, the agency said that it “recognizes that the state of onshore gathering pipeline safety is evolving, and is in the process of collecting new information about gathering pipelines in an effort to better understand the risks they may now pose to people and the environment.”

Garfield County has about 10,000 gas wells, generally in the less-populated western part of the county, including in many areas commonly referred to as rural-residential. It also said that while most gathering lines nationaide previously were built in minimally populated areas, populations are spreading to once-rural locations as the nation grows, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration said.

Hill said the agency will have to consider the costs and benefits of regulating unregulated gathering lines, and will consult with other regulators, the industry and the public. “There’s a lot of things that are looked at and weighed when we consider developing new regulations,” he said.

WPX Energy, which has more than 4,400 gas wells in Garfield County and surrounding areas, has said it treats all of its lines as flow lines subject to COGCC rules and tests them beyond what that agency requires.

From The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel (Dennis Webb):

State regulators and an energy company said Thursday they’re still mystified as to the origins of a hydrocarbon leak near Parachute. And it’s what the industry doesn’t know that concerns some area residents.

“This is a really serious event and I am really scared and upset,” Richard Votero of Carbondale said at the Garfield County Energy Advisory Board meeting. “… I know the industry is being diligent and I know (they’re) using all best practices, all those things are going on, and they don’t know where it’s coming from.”

A handful of residents expressed similar concerns after Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission director Matt Lepore and an official with Williams updated the status of the investigation into the leak of about 6,000 gallons of hydrocarbons near Parachute Creek about four miles northwest of Parachute. The contamination was found in a pipeline corridor with lines servicing a Williams gas plant. Officials have identified what they call the “hot spot” for the contamination as being beneath an above-ground valve set for a 4-inch-diameter natural gas liquids line running from the plant to tanks on the other side of the creek.

“We’re concerned, I’ll be honest,” said Dave Keylor, vice president and general manager in the Piceance Basin for Williams. “We’re concerned and we want to prevent this from getting into the creek. We know how important water is in the West. We know how important this creek is as a supply.”

The creek is used for downstream purposes including as the irrigation water supply for the town of Parachute, and it also is a tributary of the Colorado River.

Williams has taken the 4-inch line out of service and repeatedly tested it under high pressure using water, at pressures above 600 pounds per square inch, more than three times its normal operating pressure. “We put a very robust test on it and it held so we feel confident that that pipe does not have a leak,” he said.

While the valve set isn’t showing signs of leakage now, Keylor revealed that a pressure gauge above-ground in the valve area had been discovered to have been leaking Jan. 3. He said Williams removed the gauge and plugged the pipe rather than installing another gauge, and did testing at the time that indicated it likely leaked less than 25 gallons—a lower amount than it was required to report to the COGCC, and far less than has been recovered since. He said the leak also wouldn’t explain dissolved benzene being found now in a groundwater monitoring well more than 300 feet away.

Lepore said the investigation is expected to provide information on how fast groundwater travels in the area. Once it’s determined how far the contamination plume extends from the concentration point, investigators can then determine how long contamination has been there.

Investigators are considering the possibility that more than one event caused the contamination. Asked to speculate as to possible sources, Lepore said, “It seems sort of obvious that the location of the release we’ve got pinned down. Historical malfunction that got fixed, that nobody told us about? Don’t know. Truck spill? Could be a very slow, slow leak over a long period of time that somehow the current hydro tests aren’t showing us—I don’t know. The process to get us there isn’t self-evident to me either. We’re going to keep chipping away at it.”

A prime focus of the work continues to be trying to protect the creek, which investigators say so far doesn’t appear to be contaminated despite benzene in nearby groundwater. But Lepore and Keylor said attentions also are turning toward developing a long-range remediation plan for the site, which Keylor said will be made public.

Energy Advisory Board member Bob Arrington, a retired engineer, suggested that Williams should investigate the possibility of a temporary leak associated with the liquids line during this winter’s extreme cold snap.

Karen Meskin, who lives in the heavily drilled subdivision on Grass Mesa outside Rifle, told officials water quality is always a concern there. “Now you’ve scared me,” she said after hearing the presentation, before urging officials to “pay attention to our public health.”

Benita Phillips, president of Western Colorado Congress of Mesa County, said it’s time that companies show that their operations are safe. “I don’t think that they really understand what they’re doing,” she said.

A.J. Hobbs of Carbondale suggested doing water quality monitoring in the Colorado River as well as in the creek. He added, “I think it’s important that we step back and not progress (with oil and gas development) at this constant speed that will lead to inevitable leaks here … .”

Keylor said Williams has “a lot of business in this basin and we have between 90 and 100 employees and their families who live here so we are as concerned if not more concerned as anybody in this room” about the contamination.

In an apparent reference to criticism over the limited notification and communication it provided early after the contamination’s discovery, Keylor said Williams learned that “maybe we weren’t quite as responsive as we need to be with our stakeholders, so it’s a lesson learned and something that we’re going to endeavor to fix.” He added, “Our sense of responsibility here and our diligence is at the highest level that we can offer.”

More oil and gas coverage here and here.

BLM Approves Southern Nevada Water Authority Water Pipeline Project

Water providers along the Front Range that rely on transmountain water from the Colorado River Basin are looking closely at the possibility of a future call on the river from the lower basin states as most transmountain diversions are junior in priority to the Colorado River Compact.

A recent study released by the Bureau of Reclamation predicts future supply shortfalls some 3.2 million acre-feet.

Southern Nevada is planning to mine groundwater in the Great Basin to bolster their supplies. For Colorado that might be a good thing since it should help decrease demand on suface supplies from the Colorado River.

On December 27 the Bureau of Land Management gave the go ahead for the 234 mile pipeline and collection system. Here’s their release:

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will publish a notice in the Federal Register on Friday, Dec. 28, announcing the availability of the Record of Decision (ROD) for the Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) Clark, Lincoln, and White Pine Counties Groundwater Development Project. The notice is available on the Federal Register electronic desk on Thursday, Dec. 27. The purpose of the project is to construct a groundwater delivery system to the Las Vegas Valley.

The Lincoln County Conservation, Recreation and Development Act of 2004 (Public Law 108-424), directed the Secretary of the Interior to issue a right-of-way grant on Federal land in Lincoln and Clark counties, Nev., to construct a groundwater delivery system.

After extensive environmental analysis, consideration of public comments, and application of pertinent Federal laws and policies, the Department of the Interior has decided to grant the SNWA a right-of-way for the construction, operation, maintenance, and termination of the mainline water pipeline, main power lines, pump stations, regulating tanks, water treatment facility and other ancillary facilities of the project.

The decision authorizes the BLM to issue a right-of-way grant to the SNWA for the preferred alternative as analyzed in the Final Environmental Impact Statement issued in August 2012. The BLM will conduct subsequent environmental analyses for the future facilities and groundwater development.

The Nevada State Engineer is the authority for approving or denying water right applications. Up to 83,988 acre-feet per year (afy) of groundwater could be transported through the proposed facilities from the SNWA’s water rights in Spring, Delamar, Dry Lake, and Cave valleys, and up to 41,000 afy of water rights from the SNWA’s private ranches and agreements with Lincoln County. No water would be developed in Snake Valley.

The ROD, signed by Deputy Secretary of the Interior David Hayes, constitutes the final decision of the Department of the Interior. Any challenge to the decision must be brought in Federal district court.

Click here to go to the BLM webpage for the EIS. You can download a copy of the ROD there.

From the Associated Press (Sandra Chereb) via MSNBC.com:

“This is a huge milestone for southern Nevada,” said Patricia Mulroy, the water authority’s general manager. She said being able to “draw upon a portion of our own state’s renewable groundwater supplies reduces our dependence on the drought-prone Colorado River and provides a critical safety net.”

The Colorado River flows into Lake Mead, southern Nevada’s main water source. A recent study projected moderate to severe water shortages over the next several decades. Lake Mead’s surface level has dropped about 100 feet since 2000 because of ongoing drought and increasing demand from the seven states and more than 25 million people sharing Colorado River water rights. “What the study really told us was that we must prepare for a much drier future and that we can’t count on the Colorado River to sustain our community in the way it once did,” Mulroy said.

Environmentalists decried the decision, which comes two decades after the concept began to take shape and after years of litigation. More lawsuits are expected to follow.

Nevada’s state engineer, Jason King, granted the water authority permission in March to pump up to 84,000 acre-feet of groundwater a year from four rural valleys in Lincoln and White Pine counties. An acre-foot is the volume of water needed to cover an acre of land with water 12 inches deep — about 326,000 gallons. King’s rulings are being challenged in state court.

The pipeline approved by the BLM Thursday is needed to deliver that water to the southern Nevada’s population center.

Simeon Herskovits, an attorney in Taos, N.M., representing a coalition of ranchers, farmers, rural local governments and environmentalists, said the BLM decision was being reviewed but added that unless “serious deficiencies” in an earlier environmental study have been corrected, the decision to approve the pipeline cannot “be scientifically, economically or legally sound.”

The BLM’s decision follows findings made in November by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that the project would not significantly affect about a dozen threatened or endangered species. Environmentalists say otherwise. “Some of Nevada’s rarest, most unique species rely on wetlands and springs,” said Rob Mrowka with the Center for Biological Diversity. “The Las Vegas water grab could undo all that and drive them extinct in the blink of any eye.”

BLM spokeswoman JoLynn Worley said the decision authorizes the “main conveyance and support facilities” to be built on federally owned land. It’s the last administrative ruling by the federal agency, and further challenges will be handled by the courts.

From Chance of Rain (Emily Green):

WHAT western water managers preach and what western water managers do is often contradictory. This much can be relied on: inconsistency starts at the top. Only this month a long-awaited report issued by the federal Bureau of Reclamation emphasized the need for conservation over big infrastructure projects. And we can trust its conclusions in that pointlessly hyped McGuffin projects such as diverting the Mississippi to the dry West or towing Alaskan icebergs to San Diego will not happen any time soon. However, only weeks after the release of the Colorado River Basin Water Supply and Demand Study, during the dead time between Christmas and New Year, Reclamation’s parent agency, the US Department of Interior, green-lighted the driving of a massive pipeline from Las Vegas hundreds of miles north into the Great Basin. This is the opposite of conservation over big infrastructure and its approval comes in spite of clearly devastating implications for thousands of square miles across the Great Basin.

Where, you might wonder, were our vaunted environmental regulations in all this? The short answer is that these laws and the agencies meant to enforce them are every bit as successful protecting our natural resources as the Securities and Exchange Commission is policing Wall Street. The Southern Nevada Water Authority deputy general manager who for many years fronted the Vegas pipeline once bragged to a local television reporter that she could get anything permitted. To judge by this week’s Record of Decision, she appears to be right. Watch enough projects go through environmental impact review and it’s hard not to conclude that this notionally protective scrutiny is nothing more than a line item on an infrastructure project budget. While reviews too rarely protect the environment, the expense turns out to be valuable to prospectors such as Las Vegas. Feigning diligence proves a useful inoculant against liability.

From the Las Vegas Review-Journal editorial staff:

Although the plan has been in the works ifor 25 years, congratulations may still be premature. Ms. Mulroy has little doubt more anti-development lawsuits are on the way.

In fact, the water authority would just as soon not build this project, which comes with a price tag variously estimated from $2 billion to $15 billion. Unfortunately, changing the law of the Colorado to allow interstate water purchases at market rates – the best solution – is still not politically feasible. Though certainly, if that day ever comes, it will help Nevada’s case to be able to say everything else has been tried.

From the Las Vegas Sun (Cy Ryan):

Initial briefs are scheduled to be filed Jan. 31 in lawsuits attempting to block the Southern Nevada Water Authority from building a pipeline to siphon water from Northern Nevada to Las Vegas.

The lawsuits seek to overturn a decision by state Engineer Jason King to allow pumping 83,988 acre feet of water a year from four rural Nevada valleys.

The Bureau of Land Management last week permitted the Water Authority to build the $15 million proposed pipeline on federal lands.

Scott Huntley, a spokesman for the authority, said a vote to start construction won’t be taken until conditions on the Colorado River dictate it. He said earlier that 90 percent of Southern Nevada’s water supply comes from the river, which is subject to drought.

The state Attorney General’s Office, which is defending the decision to allow the pipeline, says oral arguments in the lawsuits are scheduled for June 13-14 in District Court in Ely.

The suits say the pipeline will interfere with existing water rights and damage the environment.

From the Summit County Citizens Voice (Bob Berwyn):

The Southern Nevada Water Authority’s groundwater development project would siphon more than 27.4 billion gallons of groundwater per year from at least four valleys in central Nevada. According to environmental groups, the project would imperil dozens of species dependent on precious surface and groundwater in the driest state in the U.S.

“The federal government’s own scientists are confirming this Las Vegas water project would be an epic environmental disaster,” said Rob Mrowka, a Nevada-based ecologist with the Center for Biological Diversity.

“It’s really no exaggeration to say that the natural, cultural and social heritage of central Nevada is at grave risk from this project.”

Mrowka said the Center for Biological Diversity and other organizations will challenge the approval in court, claiming it violates the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, Federal Land Policy and Management Act and Clean Air Act.

The BLM’s environmental study for the project discloses that more than 137,000 acres of wildlife habitat would be permanently destroyed or changed as the diversions lowers groundwater levels by up to 200 feet in some areas.

According to Mrowka, the loss of water will result in declines of species like mule deer, Rocky Mountain elk, sage grouse and Bonneville cutthroat trout. At most urgent risk will be species associated with the springs and wetlands that will dry up as the water beneath them is sucked away.

“Some of Nevada’s rarest, most unique species rely on wetlands and springs,” said Mrowka. “They’ve evolved over tens of thousands of years in response to isolation and fragmentation of habitat that occurred after ice ages. The Las Vegas water grab could undo all that and drive them extinct in the blink of an eye.”
Many of these species are often found in only one or two springs on Earth. As the springs are dewatered and flows are altered and eventually stopped, at least 25 species of Great Basin springsnails will be pushed to, or over, the brink of extinction. Also affected will be 14 species of desert fish, including the Moapa dace and White River springfish; frogs and toads will fare little better, with four species severely threatened by the dewatering.

Other impacts from the project, disclosed in the BLM’s impact statement today, include ground-level subsidence in excess of five feet on more than 240 square miles, as well as tens of thousands of tons of new dust generated from de-watered and denuded lands.

Thanks to Coyote Gulch reader Kara for the heads up and the reminder that all the Colorado River Basin states have a stake in solving supply problems in the basin. As Wayne Aspinall famously said, “In the west, when you touch water, you touch everything.”

More Colorado River Basin coverage here and here.