Forests Are the Guardians of Our Water Supply · MORE THAN JUST TREES 256 vols = $80K ~25 youth corps trained ~975 people engaged MEASURABLE CHANGE Fuels significantly reduced wildfire

Jennifer [email protected]

970-222-5754

Coalition for the Poudre River WatershedOur mission is to improve & maintain the ecological health of the Poudre River watershed through community collaboration

Forests Are the Guardians of Our Water Supply

A Healthy Watersheds is Good for Business

Native Hill FarmsEvan Stafford

CPRW

Water quantity & quality are directly tied to landscape condition

• Snow• Water quality• Forests

From snow to flow - headwaters are our largest reservoir

Snowpack – the best leaky bucket

Poudre Headwaters = Water Treatment Plant

Water quality is generally good• Some trends since 2012:

• Increasing nutrients• Increasing dissolved solids• Increasing organic carbon

• Emerging Contaminants low• But some reaches listed:

• Arsenic, E. coli, cadmium,

Stressors in our headwaters

Inter-connected drivers• Wildfires• Drought/climate • Insect/disease• Land use/development

Problem: change in wildfire patterns impacts more than

forests

Working together to prioritize

Watershed Values to Protect:• Water supply• River • Forests• Communities

Skin~1.5 mi restorationflooding & erosion

$300,000 grant funding

Seaman Post Fire1 ac

Stabilized sediment delta threatening reservoir

UT3 sediment (60- tons) to the Poudre

& Munroe$200k

Matched to $45k City Ft Collins $

ElkhornTributary to Mainstem

420 ac completed613 ac planned

4 partners$568,000

$51 K Ft Collins $

Horsetooth35 ac complete

~100 ac planned5 partners

$125k CPRW (grants & Ft Co $)

FIRE FORESTSGetting to Landscape Scale by Reaching Across Boundaries

ImpactMORE THAN JUST TREES256 vols = $80K~25 youth corps trained~975 people engaged

MEASURABLE CHANGE

Fuels significantly reducedwildfire behavior moderated

~$1,671,000 raised for implementation

Return on local gov investment:$1: ~$6

River Health Assessment Framework

• Filling in data gaps for river corridor condition• Based on Ft Collins effort• One set of comparable metrics for the whole watershed

People Driven Data• Baseline data for key resilience tracking

• Data to better understanding how prescribed fires may affect water quality

• Volunteer training to begin this spring

• Collections 1x/mo

THANK YOU• Connect with us!

• Tours • E-newsletters• Facebook• www.poudrewatershed.org

Watersheds: "that area of land, a bounded hydrologic system, within which all living things are inextricably linked by their common water course and where, as humans settled, simple logic demanded that they become part of a community.“

John Wesley Powell