Boat passage at Poudre River Diversion Dam (CO) Moves Forward

After multiple years of advocacy by American Whitewater, the local outfitting community led by Rocky Mountain Adventures, and our nonprofit partners, the City of Fort Collins has agreed to improvements that will allow for boat and fish passage at the Gateway Diversion Dam in the lower Cache la Poudre River canyon. These dam modifications will restore aquatic connectivity and nearly double the length of the Filter Plant run, one of the river’s most popular reaches and one of the few true quality beginner whitewater runs in the area.

Installing fish passage at the dam that diverts Poudre River water for the City's municipal water use, is a feature of the mitigation plan for the expansion of Halligan Reservoir in the upper reaches of the North Fork Poudre, however boat passage was not a part of the plan until our coalition brought the concept to City planners. American Whitewater funded a site-survey and concept design for combined boat and fish passage at the structure, which was completed by Recreation Engineering & Planning, a firm who has previously modified dams for boat and fish passage at multiple sites across Colorado. 

Big thanks to the City of Fort Collins and Colorado Parks and Wildlife for being willing to modify the fish passage plans and to the coalition of local river outfitters who wrote multiple letters of support. Big shout out to Save the Poudre, who’s settlement with Northern Water led to the creation of the $100 million Poudre River Improvement Fund, a fund who’s creation played no small role in convincing the City that funding outside of the City budget would be available to make this project a reality.

"It has been my pleasure to work with the recreation community and Fort Collins city staff to see what can be done to add boat passage to the Gateway Dam. I am hoping that as this project moves forward, the collaboration between these entities in Northern Colorado and beyond can become a model for how our communities can work together to make great things happen." –Julie Pignataro, City of Fort Collins Councilmember, District 2 

Bonus update: Northern Water has also signaled that it is open to exploring fish and boat passage modifications at the Munroe Canal Diversion. A structure, which if improved, would restore the aquatic and recreational connectivity of the Wild and Scenic reaches of Poudre with the bottom six miles of river, all the way to the Picnic Rock access and essentially the mouth of the canyon.