Program areas at Big Thompson Watershed Coalition
Disaster recovery goal: helping our lands and community recover from flood and fire through collaboration, restoration, and resiliency building. An immediate need following catastrophic fires like the cameron peak fire is to reduce erosion on hillslopes. High severity fires burn away the majority of vegetation and topsoil on hillslopes leaving hydrophobic (water repellent) soils and burning the seed sources for future vegetation growth. Hydrophobic soils with little vegetation can be heavily impacted by even small rain events leading to severe erosion and sediment, ash, and debris flowing downhill into waterways. When our waterways are inundated with excess water, sediment, and debris, post-fire flooding occurs impacting downstream values, aquatic populations, communities, and roadways. With no seed sources to produce new tree growth, some areas may take decades or longer to become reforested. To address this need we took a two-fold approach: aerial mulching and reforestation. Mulch helps to slow the flow of water on the hillslopes and aids in water infiltration into the soil. Water retention helps bring moisture back into the soil which is critical for revegetation. Aerial mulching utilizes helicopters to drop mulch onto high severity burn areas in priority subwatersheds. Using helicopters allows us to treat more acres of land more efficiently; in 2022 we treated 1,166 acres. Mulching sites were prioritized using burn severity mapping alongside other datasets which show the risk to waterways, roads, and communities. The mulch was sourced from private lands in the upper buckhorn drainage by cutting and chipping burned trees. To counter the lack of tree seed sources, we hosted three volunteer days and contracted labor to plant 3,400 ponderosa pine seedlings across 68 acres of severely burned areas of the Big t Watershed in 2022 to continue engaging with the broader community about wildfire and its impacts on our water supply, btwc staff provides presentation to various community and school groups.
Stream & water resources goal: enhancing the ecological health, function, and connectivity of our river system for human and natural communities. The river envisioning project is a stream management planning project that considers the future of the Watershed and the Big Thompson river system through loveland. Our goal was to build a shared vision for improving the Big Thompson river by identifying strategies and action plans that respect property and water rights, address water user needs, and enhance environmental conditions and recreational opportunities. We asked ourselves, our partners, and our community how we can ensure that it will meet the long-term needs of our communities, our agricultural producers, and our environment. A stream management plan was completed in early 2022; this plan assessed the river health conditions and potential improvements for 15 miles of the Big Thompson river from the canyon mouth to i-25, incorporated feedback from over 250 community members, brought together diverse stakeholders including local government, irrigators, water management agencies, landowners, and more, and gave us a road map to guide future river and infrastructure projects for the next 20 years. In 2022, we prepared ourselves by receiving funding for continued community engagement and project ranking efforts for reaches prioritized by the smp. In addition, btwc finalized our river adaptive management project through our last year of project-based monitoring, data organization, and development of project summary sheets and maps.
Forest health and management goal: mitigating wildfire risk and enhancing forest health through collaborative forest management projects. The storm mountain community of drake, co is one of the densest housing areas within the Big Thompson canyon with over 500 year-round and seasonal residents. Given 2020's record-breaking fire season in northern Colorado, active usfs forest management surrounding the community, and resident interest in forest management support, this community was and remains a priority location to increase landowner interest, knowledge, and participation in wildfire risk mitigation work. Our forestry work in 2022 focused on cost-share mitigation work across 20 acres with six landowners in the storm mountain area. Treatments were a mix of defensible space and forest thinning and included varied fuel processing treatments including pile building/burning, mastication and chipping, lop and scatter, and utilizing cut material for firewood. In addition to implementing wildfire mitigation work, btwc and two graduate students from csu engaged the community to identify challenges and concerns as well as action steps and assets within the community that could be leveraged to address wildfire risk. Through these efforts we helped residents establish a community-led wildfire action group who will continue to engage and activate the community around wildfire preparedness and mitigation. Btwc staff hosted community meetings and gave presentations to community groups in the wildland urban interface of the Big t Watershed. Btwc developed a forest treatment menu to assist Big t Watershed landowners in making informed decisions on managing their forested land. We worked with other local partners and stakeholders to formalize the Big Thompson Watershed health partnership to strengthen and enhance our collective ability to protect the crucial natural resources provided by the Watershed. Staff continued to engage as active members in the northern Colorado fireshed collaborative. Btwc finalized a forest health assessment that identified key areas of the Watershed that could impact water supplies following a wildfire. The assessment was based upon forest and Watershed health characteristics and hazards and outlines project type recommendations for the priority areas.