Founded in 2015 as a sub-committee of the Arkansas Basin Roundtable, the Arkansas River Watershed Collaborative was one of the outcomes of the Roundtable’s Watershed Health Working Group’s efforts when preparing the Basin Implementation Plan. Initially, the focus of their energies were heavily influenced by the Waldo, East Peak, and West Fork Complex fires, which brought attention to the need for watershed protection and community partnerships. After gathering feedback from several reaches of the basin, it was determined that watershed- health concerns spanned a wide variety of locally identified challenges, which helped to shape the Collaborative into what it is today. Incorporated as an independent non-profit corporation that supports and partners with the Arkansas Basin Roundtable, ARWC developed a strategic plan incorporating input from the Roundtable and other stakeholders within the Basin. This plan is intended to guide the high-level, overarching activities of ARWC for a period coinciding with the State of Colorado’s Water Plan, with annual operating plans laying out specific tasks year-by-year.
Mission.
The mission of the Arkansas River Watershed Collaborative is to provide assistance to Arkansas Basin communities to address locally identified watershed issues for economic, ecological, and social benefit.
Vision.
“Healthy Watersheds & Economic Prosperity”
Values.
- Seek representation from a wide diversity of basin stakeholders, including federal and state agencies, local government, private and non-governmental organizations, and citizens who are committed to maintaining healthy watersheds and economic prosperity in the Arkansas Basin.
- Support locally-driven initiatives and implementation of action-oriented efforts.
- Serve as a transparent champion for stewardship of resources, with an emphasis on best-available science, voluntary activities, and building funding availability and leverage for watershed health projects.
Strategic Imperatives and Direction.
- Work with the widest array of stakeholders by providing a forum in which to discuss watershed-health issues in a non-hostile environment, and work to reach consensus on strategies and approaches for protecting and restoring watershed health.
- Recognize that watershed health depends on healthy communities, and healthy communities depend on economic prosperity.
- Provide a central point for consistent review, mapping, and data sharing with respect to watershed-health.
- Facilitate completion of prioritized watershed-health projects, particularly those that are identified as part of the Basin Implementation Plan.
- Provide a conduit for local constituents to bring forward additional watershed-health projects for inclusion in the Basin Implementation Plan in the future.
- Engage in public outreach and education (in concert with the Arkansas Basin Public Education, Participation, and Outreach work-group—aka PEPO) that helps citizens and stakeholders understand and address water needs, uses, and watershed-health concerns.
- Serve as a model for other basins in Colorado and beyond.
What exactly is watershed health?
In a 1964 Supreme Court Opinion, Justice Potter Stewart said of pornography that it would be hard to define, “But I know it when I see it.”
Watershed health is similar in that it may be hard to define, but it is easy to see. First, however, it helps to understand the concept of a watershed: it is all the area that drains to a certain point, and like Russian stacking dolls, small watersheds are embedded within bigger, and ever bigger watersheds. The Mississippi is the third largest watershed in the world, draining 41% of the contiguous United States (and a bit of Canada). The Arkansas basin is one of four main tributaries to the Mississippi. At its confluence with the Mississippi, it drains about 170,000 square miles. At the border of Colorado, the watershed drains 28,268 square miles.
Measuring the “vital signs” of a watershed to assess its health requires thinking of all the things that are happening, both on the land and in the river. We take the “temperature” of the watershed by assessing:
• Water quality—typically a measure of pollution.
• Hydrology, hydraulics, and geomorphology—the quantity of water at different seasons, and how that water moves through the system. These are typically studied by evaluating flows at different seasons and weather patterns, bank stability, sinuosity (or how the river meanders), cross-sections, depth of pools, and similar physical features.
• Upland health and habitat—reflects a wide array of vegetation, climate, human disturbance, animal population dynamics, invasive species, and more.
When a watershed is healthy, it is more resilient to floods, fires, and disturbances, and it provides critical “ecosystem services,” such as clean and abundant water.
Watershed health is similar in that it may be hard to define, but it is easy to see. First, however, it helps to understand the concept of a watershed: it is all the area that drains to a certain point, and like Russian stacking dolls, small watersheds are embedded within bigger, and ever bigger watersheds. The Mississippi is the third largest watershed in the world, draining 41% of the contiguous United States (and a bit of Canada). The Arkansas basin is one of four main tributaries to the Mississippi. At its confluence with the Mississippi, it drains about 170,000 square miles. At the border of Colorado, the watershed drains 28,268 square miles.
Measuring the “vital signs” of a watershed to assess its health requires thinking of all the things that are happening, both on the land and in the river. We take the “temperature” of the watershed by assessing:
• Water quality—typically a measure of pollution.
• Hydrology, hydraulics, and geomorphology—the quantity of water at different seasons, and how that water moves through the system. These are typically studied by evaluating flows at different seasons and weather patterns, bank stability, sinuosity (or how the river meanders), cross-sections, depth of pools, and similar physical features.
• Upland health and habitat—reflects a wide array of vegetation, climate, human disturbance, animal population dynamics, invasive species, and more.
When a watershed is healthy, it is more resilient to floods, fires, and disturbances, and it provides critical “ecosystem services,” such as clean and abundant water.
Driving Forces.
- Water rights and administration, including cross-basin and cross-state issues (Interstate Compact and Inter-basin Compact issues).
- Climate-driven impacts on hydrology, particularly associated with drought, wildfire, and flooding.
- Population growth in Colorado.
- Water-quality issues.
Stakeholders and Partners.
Many individuals, representing a diversity of interests, participated in the development of this plan. The following organizations or individuals affiliated with these organizations have been involved, including members of the Arkansas Basin Roundtable (included below):
- Federal Agencies (Bureau of Reclamation; Bureau of Land Management; Environmental Protection Agency; Forest Service; US Geological Survey; Natural Resources Conservation Service)
- Counties (Baca, Bent, Chaffee, Cheyenne, Crowley, Custer, Elbert, El Paso, Fremont, Huerfano, Kiowa, Lake, Las Animas, Lincoln, Otero, Park, Prowers, Pueblo, Teller)
- Special Districts (Donala Water & Sanitation District; Fountain Creek Watershed Flood Control and Greenway District; Huerfano County Water Conservancy District; Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District (Fiscal Host); Purgatoire River Water Conservancy District; Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District; Upper Arkansas Water Conservancy District)
- Municipalities & Municipal Water Providers (Buena Vista; La Junta; La Veta; Salida, Trinidad, Walsenburg; Aurora Water Department, Colorado Springs Utilities, Pueblo Water Department)
- State Agencies (Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment, Colorado Parks & Wildlife; Colorado State Conservation Board; Colorado State Forest Service; Colorado Water Conservation Board (Primary funder))
- Sub-basin Watershed Groups (Headwaters of the Arkansas Watershed Group; Purgatoire Watershed Partnership
- Nonprofit Organizations (Audobon Society; Coalitions & Collaborates, Inc (Facilitation and Support); Colorado Association of Conservation Districts; Friends of Browns Canyon; Greater Arkansas Nature Association; Land Trust of the Upper Arkansas; Mile High Youth Corp; National Forest Foundation; Palmer Land Trust; San Isabel Land Protection Trust; Trout Unlimited (multiple chapters and state representatives)
- Other Organizations (Arkansas River Wetlands Focus Committee; Boggsville Historic Site; Colorado State University Extension Service; East Otero, West Otero Timpas & Olney Boone Conservation Districts; Ecometrics; El Paso Regional Watershed Collaborative; Huerfano County Economic Development; Upper Arkansas Area Council of Governments; Riverside Water Company; Round River Design; Western Colorado Landscape Collaborative; Western State University); Holbrook Mutual Irrigating Company.
- News Media attendees (La Junta Tribune; La Veta Signature; Mountain Mail; Pueblo Chieftain)
- Senator Corey Gardner and Senator Michael Bennett staff attendees
Roles for ARWC.
During listening sessions and planning meetings, a number of themes came through with consistency. ARWC can and should assist with the following:
- Communication Among Stakeholders—provide a system that allows participants to connect with each other and with other stakeholders.
- Partnerships— support partnership development and help to connect potential project partners with each other.
- Stakeholder Support—develop local and broad-based stakeholder support for projects.
- Information—share information across the basin, such as data and successful project models.
- Capacity—help develop human capacity to focus on watershed projects and local collaborative development.
- Funding Sources—support identifying and bringing in funding sources.
Issues for ARWC.
Issues that came up more than once in listening sessions include:
- Forest Health, Fire, Flooding
- Water Quality & Quantity (e.g. dams deemed unsafe to hold full amount of water)
- Invasive Species, particularly phreatophytes
- Healthy & resilient river corridors and uplands
- Recreation & agriculture (maintaining rec and ag economies, while mitigating impacts).
- Intersection of groundwater/surface water needs and challenges.
- Storm water impacts.
Strategic Plan.
Goals
Strategies
The strategies listed below are intended to provide a focus and basis for ac4vi4es over the first five years following the effective date of this plan.
- Protect and improve watershed health throughout the Arkansas Basin.
- Work with the Non-Consumptive Committee and other stakeholders to support and implement the Basin Implementation Plan Non-Consumptive Goals (see page # ):
- Assist in, or support, the execution of watershed-health projects identified in the Basin Implementation Plan and the objectives for protecting water resources identified in the Colorado Water Plan (see page A 12).
- Coordinate with stakeholders to assure that watershed-health considerations are recognized during planning and implementation for storage, municipal, and agricultural projects identified in the BIP, and in other types of projects that occur across the basin, as appropriate (e.g. in relation to things like a major highway project).
- Support and aid local collaborative groups in sub-basins to further their watershed- health efforts throughout the basin, such as assisting with planning efforts, fundraising, or other functions identified by sub-basin groups.
Strategies
The strategies listed below are intended to provide a focus and basis for ac4vi4es over the first five years following the effective date of this plan.
- Governance and Organizational Strategies:
- In conjunction with ABRT establish nonprofit with bylaws and board of directors.
- Produce a annual operating plan (with a three-year look-out period).
- Data Management Strategies:
- Establish a web portal for Arkansas Basin information (e.g. reports, research papers, thesis, etc).
- Collaboration of GIS specialists from municipal, governmental, and NGO
- Continue efforts aimed at inclusion of water infrastructure information into Wildfire Decision Support System (WFDSS).
- BIP Implementation Strategies:
- Establish a review procedure for providing input to the Roundtable’s Needs Assessment Committee of projects for benefit of watershed health.
- Work with Roundtable Non-Consumptive Committee and local stakeholders to promote/implement at least one BIP Watershed Health project annually.
- Community/Local Collaborative Support Strategies:
- Identify existing watershed stakeholder groups in each sub-basin (typically HUC 12 units or similar scale groups) in annual operating plan. These may be formal
- Provide staff support to Non-Consumptive Committee at their request.
- Provide grant training/review/writing services to local groups upon request.
- Provide support to groups as requested and approved by the Roundtable.
- Planning:
- Work with local stakeholders and agencies as appropriate (supported by Roundtable leadership), requested (by local stakeholders), and funded to prepare or update plans that support watershed health work, such as:
- General Watershed Health Strategic Plans;
- 9-Element Water Quality Plans (EPA/CDPHE planning approach);
- Work with local stakeholders and agencies as appropriate (supported by Roundtable leadership), requested (by local stakeholders), and funded to prepare or update plans that support watershed health work, such as:
- Stream Management Plans (CWCB Colorado Water Plan planning approach); or
- CWPPs (USFS/CSFS forest/fire planning approach).
- Project specific plans for implementation of watershed-health projects.
- Note that depending on goals and purposes of a planning process, one plan may cover more than one of the aforementioned elements
- Education & Outreach Strategies:
- Work directly with the Roundtable PEPO (Public Education, Participation, & Outreach) Committee on educational events geared specifically toward watershed health (e.g. meetings on fire & protecting water supply).
- Assist the Arkansas Basin Watershed Forum with inclusion of watershed-health- related information.
- Other outreach, including maintaining a web page, interacting with stakeholders, attending Roundtable meetings, etc.