PRESS RELEASE
Special to the Herald Times
RBC | Across the West landowners are struggling with disappearing streams, springs and creeks. Some have found that by replicating natural processes and letting water do the work, solutions emerge. Certain solutions include beavers, or Beaver Dam Analogs (known as BDAs), that slow water down and allow it to percolate to groundwater storage, rewet dry areas, and retain sediment, much like a beaver dam. This can lead to water quality improvements and habitat benefits, and offer a greater continuous year-round flow. Combined with managed grazing and land stewardship methods, BDAs can be deployed to slow the desertification process and restore native riparian wetlands and floodplains.
A local stakeholder group in Rio Blanco County, the White River Alliance, plans to convene the top experts in the field of process-based restoration and host a workshop, Miracle in the Desert, near Meeker, Colorado on Oct. 1 -2, 2023. In collaboration with The Nature Conservancy, American Rivers, RiversEdge West, Audubon, and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), this is a free public event, with lunch provided, to help landowners learn techniques that mimic nature and increase opportunities to restore year-round springs and creeks.
Robert Hampson, hydrologist for the White River BLM, is particularly excited about this workshop and the movement he is seeing across the west toward to improve desert streams and wet meadows. “By slowing water down, we increase our ability to expand water’s benefits to provide cleaner and more continuous year-round flow of water to rivers throughout the west,” he said. Hampson will be one of the keynote speakers at the workshop and will lead the hands-on demonstration of how to build a beaver dam analog on Oct. 2.
Shawn Welder, president of the White River Alliance and a local outfitter involved in western Colorado water issues, said, “This workshop has the potential to revitalize our local high desert landscape which has lost riparian health over the years due to long-term drought and overgrazing. We want to provide the tools to reverse that trend and help improve the clarity and quantity of our White River overall.” He adds, “We want to see the same success our neighboring dry states have had from using these nature-based techniques, and we have no time to lose to restore riparian habitats for fire protection, forage improvement and wildlife health.”
“We’ve seen an amazing recovery of water that used to just flow through our ditches. The one rock dam slows the water, allows vegetation to grow, and helps us hold and use water on our land where it used to run off, ” said Dave Bean, a Meeker landowner who has built hundreds of One Rock Structures on his land.
On Sunday, Oct. 1 and Monday, Oct. 2, attendees from across the region will see how it can be done and contribute to a hands-on project by installing some BDAs and One Rock Structures on BLM lands. With time and managed grazing, these structures can sustain continuous flows and improve riparian areas, thereby diminishing desertification and severe erosion on public and private lands.
Who should attend? Anyone interested in working with nature to restore and revitalize stream health and habitats. The focus will benefit landowners who are seeing diminishing flows in a stream or spring, and the rancher or farmer who looks to improve their riparian for longer use, more forage, and higher stocking rates.
Speakers include Shawn Connor from BIO-logic, a Colorado firm with expertise in easy-to-build one rock dams and BDAs; Bob Budd, the Executive Director of the Wyoming Wildlife and Natural Resource Trust, who will discuss the challenges and benefits to ranchers by restoring riparian areas; and Bob Timberman, with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, who will cover beaver coexistence, the value beaver add to the landscape, and how to mitigate problems they might cause for irrigators.
Participants will gain an introduction to process-based restoration techniques that they can take back home to test on their lands and streams. Register today for this innovative and interesting workshop by calling 970-846-9834, email [email protected], visit https://forms.gle/jwNXtr7GjWjMQiwZ6 or scan the QR code in the ad on PAGE 2A of this week’s edition. Space is limited!
