Change Brings Hope

By the Colorado Water Trust staff In October 2016, The Durango Herald carried a modest story sporting the headline, “Trout Discovered in Creek Long Devoid of Fish.”  In the southwest corner of Colorado, where abandoned mines and contaminated streams have long been a part of the otherwise magnificent mountain landscape, this is encouraging news—especially for a …

2017 New Year’s Resolution: Invest in Water Quality to Invest in Your Health

By Trisha Oeth, Commission Administrator, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment's Water Quality Control Commission The views represented are those held by the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment or the Colorado Water Quality Control Commission.    It’s that time of year again—time …

Collaborative Watershed Management Highlights in the Roaring Fork Basin

By Chelsea Congdon Brundige, Public Counsel of the Rockies In Colorado, everyone from irrigators and municipalities, law-makers and water districts, regulators and conservationists are scrambling to find ways to restore and protect the state’s over-tapped rivers. A top priority of the 2015 Colorado water plan is to balance the needs for water in agriculture, cities …

A rancher, a scientist, an angler and a conservationist walk into a room…

By Christina Medved, Watershed Education Director and Heather Lewin, Watershed Action Director at Roaring Fork Conservancy in Basalt, CO. A rancher, a scientist, an angler and a conservationist walk into a room… “Wait a minute,” you say, “I’ve heard this one before! Something about water being for fighting, right? Remind me the punchline again?” Well, …

Reducing abandoned mine water pollution in Colorado

By Skip Feeney, Water Quality Scientist, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment's Water Quality Control Division Recently, I stayed at the Polar Star Inn, a hut in the 10th Mountain Division Hut system. Within an hour of arriving several children reported back that they had found a large hole in the ground that went …

The Orange Animas

Last week, an estimated three million gallons of mine sludge poured from the dormant Gold King Mine, north of Silverton, Colorado, into Cement Creek, sending an orange plume of acid mine drainage down Cement Creek into the Animas River, through Durango, into New Mexico, where it met the San Juan River and flowed into Utah—the …

Animas River Stakeholders Group: An Unlikely Alliance for Watershed Health in the San Juans

By Samantha Wright For 21 years, an unlikely alliance of mining companies, environmental organizations, landowners, local governmental entities, and state and federal regulatory and land management agencies has converged faithfully on the third Thursday of almost every month in the tiny, isolated town of Silverton in the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado. Collectively known …

It’s Tax Season… and Colorado Healthy Rivers Fund Season

Remember, this year, taxes are due April 15--that's just over a month away-- which means you have just over a month to donate to the Colorado Healthy Rivers Fund! The Colorado Healthy Rivers Fund is financed by the Colorado tax checkoff program which provides tax payers the opportunity to contribute a portion of their tax return or to make …

It’s Colorado Gives Day! 6 Great Reasons to Support CFWE TODAY

The most wonderful time of the year-- Colorado Gives Day is  a magical 24-hours when you can increase the impact of your year-end donation to your favorite (water) nonprofits.So...Support the Colorado Foundation for Water Education TODAY.  Not convinced? Here's a brief list of reasons to support CFWE: 1. It's Colorado Gives Day! And the end of the …

Water: What is the New Normal?

By Jennie Geurts, Administrative Assistant, CFWE The Sustaining Colorado Watersheds Conference is only a week away.  This year’s theme is “Water:  What is the New Normal?” This question immediately intrigued me – not only because I want to prepare for Colorado’s water future, but also because I’ve never had a good baseline for the “old …