Headwaters Summer 2010 -- The Grassroots

By George Sibley

Mount Emmons is probably the closest thing to a holy mountain that the people of Crested Butte, Colo., would acknowledge. It rises 3,000 vertical feet in long, gentle slopes from the western edge of town to an abrupt, glaciated bowl called The Red Lady, named for the early sun that lights her face while the town still lies in night’s shadow.
Draining the west and south slopes of Mount Emmons is Coal Creek, a modest headwaters tributary of the Gunnison River that flows through downtown Crested Butte and provides the town’s water supply. Its name reflects its path, which cuts a narrow valley through a layer of coal. The mountain sitting atop that layer of coal contains rich, if geologically jumbled, lodes of silver and all the heavy metals—lead and zinc among them—that are typically found near silver.

Historically, Mount Emmons was a central element in the town’s economic as well as its spiritual life. Coal mines there and in adjacent mountains were Crested Butte’s economic mainstay for its first 75 years, until the mid-1950s. Hardrock metal mines also operated on and off, corresponding to fluctuating markets.
In 2003, the High Country Citizens Alliance, an organization initially formed in 1977 to oppose molybdenum mining on Mount Emmons, initiated a water quality study of Coal Creek. The study found parts of the stream were contaminated enough with heavy metals, some naturally occurring but most from mine drainage, to warrant designating them as “impaired stream segments,” giving them priority for federal and state mitigation funding. The long-abandoned Standard Mine on Mount Emmons was designated as a Superfund site, being placed on the Environmental Protection Agency’s priority list.

Read more: The Grassroots: A homegrown approach to healthy watersheds

By Laurie J. Schmidt

On a breezy April day last year, a group of hardy volunteers battled the chill in their efforts to restore a riparian corridor on Little Owl Creek, located in the Pawnee National Grasslands of northeastern Colorado. The Wildlands Restoration Volunteers crew spent the morning planting cottonwood cuttings in holes adjacent to the stream, which they intended to backfill after lunch. As the trees leaned in their unfilled holes, the lunchtime chatter suddenly quieted: Red-winged blackbirds were perched and singing on almost every new cottonwood. “Everyone just stood and watched,” says volunteer Jonathan Stauffer. “In that moment, we saw that the work we were doing was not only providing future habitat—it was immediately beneficial.”

It’s rewarding experiences like these that motivate volunteers to donate their time, expertise, and enthusiasm each year to the collective goal of protecting Colorado’s waters. With 100,000 miles of stream, a swelling population, and a landscape that attracts upwards of 20 million visitors each year, the state relies on volunteers—whether they’re collecting data or shoveling dirt—to protect and maintain watershed health.

Read more: Citizen Water Brigade: Non-profits are mobilizing volunteer armies to protect water quality and restore degraded streams

By Laurie J. Schmidt

Rounding up enough participants for volunteer work days can be on an ongoing struggle for watershed groups. Even for some conservation-minded people, the thought of shoveling sediment or weed-whacking after a long week of work or school just doesn’t conjure up images of a relaxing Saturday. But Wildlands Restoration Volunteers, headquartered in Boulder, has a down-to-earth approach to getting conservation work done: make volunteering fun.

With an active volunteer base of 3,000 and total volunteer hours between 1999 and 2009 valued at $2.7 million, the group’s approach is obviously working. “We honestly embrace the idea of building a community and having a good time,” says projects director John Giordanengo. WRV provides food, with trained cooks accompanying volunteer groups on multi-day projects. It also holds “social events,” such as potlucks and its fundraising event Wildlands Jam, which features local bands and a showcase of projects and trainings.

Read more: Wildlands Restoration Volunteers

By Cally Carswell

On a bluebird spring day, Jeff Crane stands beside Highway 92 where it crosses the North Fork of the Gunnison River just outside of Hotchkiss, a small town on Colorado’s Western Slope. With his hands tucked in the pockets of comfortably-worn Levis, Crane looks up and down the river, surveying the results of his handiwork.
Eleven years ago, Crane began giving this mile-and-a-half stretch of river, coursing through at least nine private properties, a makeover. He replaced a bulldozed diversion with an inconspicuous, permanent headgate. He carved out a gently meandering channel, stabilized the curves with strategically placed boulders, and planted willows along the river’s banks and wetland grasses beyond those. “We wanted to build a natural river system here,” he says. “And let [the North Fork] be a river again.”  

Re-imagining the river this way would be a dramatic departure for many landowners. The farmers and ranchers who made their livelihood on the river’s edge had taken a heavy hand with the river for years, using plows, bulldozers, even dynamite to tame its flow.

Read more: Case for the Private Partner: Landowners ease into conservation