PROTECTING HOME WATERS

by Duncan Rose

FIGURE 1: The East Fork of the Dolores, now designated as an Outstanding Water

One Chapter’s Journey Through the OW Designation Process

On June 14, 2022 the Colorado Water Quality Control Commission designated 25 streams in southwestern Colorado as Outstanding Waters. Outstanding Waters (OW) is a designation under the Federal Clean Water Act (administered by the State of Colorado) which, if the strict criteria are met and designation is awarded, precludes any permitted activities on or about those waters that degrade the designated stream reach below the very high quality of the reach at the time of designation. It is a substantial tool in the stream protection tool bag.

The water quality of each of these 25 streams is now protected from water quality degradation for future generations. Eight of those streams lie in the Upper Dolores watershed, the “home” waters of the Dolores River Anglers (DRA).

An OW designation is awarded through the Water Quality Control Commission (WQCC) of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE). Designation occurs through a three-year rulemaking hearing process that includes three public, quasi-judicial hearings.

Context

Designation is a rigorous resource- and timeconsuming process. By way of context, for the Dolores River Anglers, the journey that culminated in the OW designations began just over 7 years ago, in the fall of 2013. The upper Dolores watershed is located at the intersection of the high desert with the Southern Rockies. To our west, for hundreds of miles, lies the rugged Colorado Plateau high desert. At the eastern end (our end) of the Colorado Plateau, that high desert hits the Rocky Mountains, where elevations rise dramatically from 7000 feet at the edge of the desert to over 14,000 feet in just 75 miles.

Lying as it does where hot desert meets cool mountains means that the upper Dolores is a proverbial canary-in-the-mine for a changing climate. And our watershed is indeed rapidly changing. At a strategic retreat in 2013, DRA, as a Board, agreed that we had to better understand how our trout environment was changing and what it was likely to become. Only then could we effectively participate in and assist with the management of our trout resources.

Conservation became the major focus of our chapter. In late 2013 we undertook, with the assistance of Colorado Trout Unlimited (CTU) and Trout Unlimited (TU), the Mountain Studies Institute, and two professional consultants, what became a three-year study of climate change and the upper Dolores. Our two core questions: 1) which of our trout streams are likely to survive to the end of the century, and 2) what does this mean for managing those resources? Our highest priority was – and is – native trout.

In 2016 our chapter identified 42 perennial streams, comprising 295 miles, with viable trout populations. Twenty four of those streams harbor native cutthroat. We consider the upper watershed a hidden jewel of the Southern Rockies.

The Upper Dolores Stream Protection Working Group

Based on these findings, we (DRA, CTU and TU)

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FIGURE 2: The Upper Dolores Stream Protection Working Group Decisions Framework

began, in November of 2018, an in-depth collaboration with our local watershed water managers, namely executive and senior staff from the San Juan National Forest, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, and the Dolores Water Conservancy District—the latter being the managers of McPhee Reservoir. McPhee is the second largest reservoir in the State and is key to the local agricultural/irrigation community. This “leaderless” collaboration is called the Upper Dolores Stream Protection Working Group (Working Group).

As a Working Group, we met, and continue to meet, to build a long-term, overarching framework to coordinate both limited resources and work efforts with respect to an increasingly changing environment.

Key to this effort is a list of stream protection tools that form our tool kit. As a Working Group, DRA’s target is to match the right tool to each stream, based on that stream’s emerging challenges. Clearly, OW designation is a significant player in our tool kit (see Figure 1).

The Upper Dolores Coldwater-fisheries Adaptive Management Framework

Framing the Working Group effort is a three-year study, published in 2017, that assessed the likely impact of climate change on the upper Dolores through the end of the century. The study was conducted by DRA with additional financial support from CTU, TU and the Colorado Water Conservation Board; technical assistance was provided by Mountain Studies Institute and two environmental consultants. One output of the study was an assessment of vulnerability to stream dewatering and temperature increases at the (trout) stream level across the upper Dolores.

Additional supporting data available to the Working Group included four years of extensive stream temperature analysis and seven years of DNA analysis in close association with San Juan National Forest and Colorado Parks and Wildlife.

Based on a careful review of the DRA climate change study findings, associated field data, and extensive discussion among the Working Group, the nine streams proposed by DRA for OW designation comprised the best projection of stronghold streams for native cutthroat populations in the Upper Dolores through the end of the century.

Stronghold Streams

Twenty-four streams were identified in the DRA climate change report as having cutthroat populations in 2016. Four were lost to exceptional drought in 2018. Three more have been lost or have been severely challenged since. Our trout populations are increasingly challenged.

As noted, the Working Group effort identified nine stream reaches in the upper Dolores as having characteristics as long-term native trout strongholds sufficient to reasonably survive to the end of the century; that is, those streams with 1) high headwater elevation, 2) significant watershed size at high elevation, and 3) sufficient length to assure DNA diversity.

The nine streams proposed for designation represent our best assessment as to those streams with the best long-term survival potential for cutthroat trout in the Upper Dolores. Each proposed reach is essentially pristine, wild water with healthy, functioning ecological processes as reflected in their abundant cutthroat populations. SJNF-maintained hiking/biking trails lie along four of the proposed stream reaches. All provide backcountry trout fishing and associated hunting and camping opportunities. All have headwaters that reach into high elevations, capturing pristine water critical to downstream users, especially to McPhee Reservoir and its many community-wide uses. The Working Group deemed that timely, long-term, and wide-ranging protection of these streams is, and will continue to be, critical.

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In the spring of 2019 Dolores River Anglers was contacted by David Nickum, Executive Director of Colorado Trout Unlimited, to ask if DRA would be interested in joining a coalition of organizations that was pursuing OW designation for a number of streams in the San Juan, Gunnison, San Miguel, and Animas River basins. We jumped at the opportunity.

The coalition was made up of senior/executive staff from American Rivers, American Whitewater, Conservation Colorado, High Country Conservation Advocates, Mountain Studies Institute, San Juan Citizens Alliance, The Pew Charitable Trusts, Trout Unlimited/Colorado Trout Unlimited, and Western Resource Advocates.

The OW Process

As noted, an OW designation in Colorado requires at least a three-year effort. By the end of that threeyear period, each of three tests much be shown to be met by each stream reach: • The existing quality for each of the following parameters is equal to or better than that specified.

• 12 water quality parameters must be rigorously measured against defined maximum threshold levels. Sampling is done across four seasons. Historic records are also considered. • The waters must constitute an outstanding natural resource, based on the following: • (A) The waters are a significant attribute of a State Gold Medal Trout Fishery, a National Park, National Monument, National Wildlife Refuge, or a designated Wilderness Area, or are part of a designated wild river under the Federal Wild and Scenic Rivers Act; or • (B) The Commission determines that the waters have exceptional recreational or ecological significance, and have not been modified by human activities in a manner that substantially detracts from their value as a natural resource. • The water must require protection in addition to that provided by the combination of water quality classifications and standards and the protection afforded reviewable water under section 31.8(3).

Two public hearings are held with the Commission to carefully “ripen” the proposals to the point of readiness for final (third) hearing consideration by the Commission for actual OW designation. Parties with interests in the proceedings are invited to participate and express support of, opposition to, and/or raise issues with the proposed reaches. Staff from the Department of Public Health and Environment carefully monitor and guide the process. Each proposed reach is then individually voted up or down at the final hearing.

In-depth technical support was critical to the success of the effort. From water quality sampling, to macroinverterbrate assessment, to public communication expertise, the coalition provided it all; indeed,

FIGURE 3: Sampling Water Quality

it is unlikely that DRA’s piece of the project would have been successful without the remarkable support of the coalition members. Likewise, the full and enthusiastic support DRA received from Colorado Trout Unlimited and national Trout Unlimited was equally critical to success. And it certainly helps to have a chapter member with a PhD in water chemistry to lead the sampling effort.

Conclusion

Of the nine streams proposed by DRA for OW designation (nine of the 25 total proposed), eight were approved by the Commission. These eight streams join three other OW streams already in place in the upper Dolores; those designations were coordinated by DRA/CTU/TU in 2012. (Five streams in the Lizard Head Wilderness Area also known to have cutthroat trout populations have OW designations for those portions within the wilderness area).

Only one proposed reach failed to get over the bar (one of the nine in the Upper Dolores),. There the Commission felt that the given reach did not, at this time, meet the level of having a substantial conservation quality cutthroat population due to the excessive presence of invasive non-native trout. Should that be corrected, the Commission felt the reach should have no problem qualifying in the future.

The bottom line is very reassuring: after three years of extensive field effort and considerable financial investment on the part of the Coalition, the water quality in 25 pristine mountain streams, eight of those in the Upper Dolores, are forever protected from human induced degradation. Such designation serves as a significant “heads up” for all future water managers that management decisions about the use of the waters must very carefully consider the maintenance of that very high quality for all future generations.

To Learn More.

To learn more about this story and Colorado Trout Unlimited, visit coloradotu.org.