Core Goal 2: Support Watershed Research

Many of the participating community/watershed organizations have not had the time, knowledge, or skills necessary to adequately identify and effectively monitor water quality and to bring this information to the community. The WHWT supports watershed research and water-quality monitoring critical to future funding, project development and implementation, and community support.

Rachel Boothby helps lead volunteer assessment of Uncompahgre River
 

OSM/VISTA Rachel Boothby of the Uncompahgre Watershed Partnership during the Rapid River Bioassessment on the Uncompahgre River near Ouray, Colorado

OSM/VISTA Rachel Boothby with the Uncompahgre Watershed Partnership helped organize a Rapid River Bioassessment on the Uncompahgre River. Sixteen sites from Ouray to Montrose were assessed by twenty volunteers. Many of the volunteers who participated were not regular attendees of the stakeholder meetings, but simply wanted to learn about the health of the river. All participants were required to attend a two hour training session on the eve of the assessment. This training was facilitated by Boothby and her supervisor, Sarah Sauter, and helped participants understand the assessment protocols and practices. Volunteers not only helped collect data critical to future restoration work but also learned skills important to visually assessing a river’s physical condition. OSM/VISTAs Anna Santo, Casey Carrigan and Adrian Uzunian also volunteered for the Bioassessment to support Boothby and learn more about the Uncompahgre River. 

Amy Weinfurter helps lead water sampling and BMPs in Crested Butte, CO

OSM/VISTA Amy Weinfurter and her supervisor Anthony Poponi of the Coal Creek Watershed Coalition near Crested Butte, Colorado

Coal Creek Watershed’s Coalition (CCWC) OSM/VISTA, Amy Weinfurter puts an emphasis on environmental and water quality research, monitoring, and improvement.  Weinfurter and two community volunteers joined CCWC staff to conduct watershed-wide sampling for flows and metals in Quarter 1 of FY2010.  Funding was secured from the Colorado Water Conservation Board to complete the study which guided the organization’s fundraising and grant writing priorities in 2010.  Weinfurter also teamed up with volunteers from Western State College, and staff from the Forest Service to install erosion mats and re-vegetate eroded slopes along Coal Creek.  Gunnison County and the Town of Crested Butte provided supplies for this project, which the OSM/VISTA helped collect, distribute, and return.  This day long effort was part of the CCWC’s pilot installation of several different types of Best Management Practices (BMPs) along Kebler Pass Road.  Says Weinfurter, “To me, this experience illustrated how capacity building is so often an exponential process; bringing a few more people into the project lead to the involvement of many more. Also, these suggestions usually pointed me to areas where we did not currently have a large area of expertise; the recommended help was targeted rather than general. This detailed and specific knowledge would not have been difficult to track down on my own or from a general source; it took, in many cases, insider information just to point me in the direction I needed to go in.”