Southern Rockies End of Year Recap!

We have a lot to celebrate for our Southern Rockies rivers this year! We could not have accomplished these milestones without the support from our members and our passionate river community! If you are able, please consider donating to American Whitewater for Colorado Gives Day. Any donations made through December 10th will help us leverage additional funds from the Colorado Gives Day Program and support our Colorado River Access Program. Our work on river access is only funded by your donations.

Here are some highlights from the three pillars of our mission: Protect, Restore, & Enjoy! 

Protect:

• In June, we celebrated the final decision on Wild and Scenic River eligibility for 113 river miles including Oh-Be-Joyful Creek, Taylor River Canyon, East River, Uncompahgre Gorge, and the San Miguel River. We celebrated this preliminary decision last Fall and subsequently went to bat during the Objection process to ensure these rivers remained protected.

• We are feverishly working with our colleagues around the country to ensure that a public lands package passes this year and that it includes durable river protections for the Dolores River in Colorado and nearly the entire Gila River watershed in New Mexico. We should know either way by December 16. 

• We secured over 380 miles of water quality protections on key Colorado rivers in the Yampa, White, and Roaring Fork Basins. 

• We led a community stakeholder group deep diving on the feasibility of a Wild and Scenic designation and supporting river protection measures on the Crystal River. Our work provided connections with experts in a variety of river protection fields and fact based information on Wild and Scenic Rivers to develop a legislative proposal. 

Restore:

• The Southern Rockies Program team joined our colleagues at Outdoor Alliance in our nation’s capitol this fall to advocate for sustainable outdoor recreation and healthy rivers. We asked for improved data low head dams nationwide, better management of Cataract Canyon, elevated the importance of river recreation in large scale Colorado River Basin management, and advocated for our federal legislative priorities. 

• We initiated and are leading a team in Colorado to increase the pace and scale of aquatic connectivity projects to have safer passage for recreators and connected habitat for aquatic species. As a part of that work, we are focused on expanding the scope of a proposed fish ladder on the Poudre River to include navigation over a dangerous low-head dam.

• After years of being the lead representative for boating on the Upper Colorado Wild and Scenic Stakeholders Group, American Whitewater was voted in as Chair of the group to lead the diverse group of stakeholders looking for ways to enhance flows on the Upper Colorado when upstream water developments cause low flows in the summer.

Enjoy

• American Whitewater is working hard to find paths forward for improved legal river access in Colorado. We have stood up against recent attacks on river access and are actively seeking opportunities to improve steam access law in Colorado for the long-term.

• We raised over $150,000 of Colorado state funds to help improve river access infrastructure in the Taylor River Canyon at the Slot Put-In with the remaining funds expected to come from our project partners at the Forest Service. 

• We were grateful to celebrate another Gore Fest with you all this August with friends and incredibly excited and grateful to Whitewater Racing LLC (Riff Raft Racing) for bringing back the Gore Race to its former glory. We will be handing the event off to them going forward but will still see folks out at the event, come see us at the American Whitewater tent!

Thanks for being along for the ride and for your continued support.