Resources
HANDBOOKS
2007 Legal and Institutional Opportunities for Aquifer Recharge and Storage in Colorado—An Interactive Forum
Final copy is now available. Click Here.
Draft Handbook for Developing Watershed Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs)
Environmental Law Institute Handbook Explains New and Successful Strategies in Western Water Policy
Western Water in the 21st Century identifies the various ways in which 12 Western States have addressed practical and legal challenges to promoting strategic, sustainable water management. It is designed to inform everyone from the casual observer to experienced engineers and legislators, providing a platform that will help us all think strategically about preparing for the many challenges in water use that lie ahead. You can download the full report by visiting: Environmental Law Institute.
American Water Works Association Water Conservation Metrics
The purpose of this guidance report is to identify and characterize a set of water use and conservation metrics for public water supply utilities. To read the report, visit
AWWA Metrics.pdf.
How Can We Better Integrate Water Supply Planning with Land Use Planning in Colorado - Panel Discussion at 2008 Sustaining Colorado Watersheds Conference
“How Can We Better Integrate Water Supply Planning with Land Use Planning in Colorado” details perspectives from panel members and audience participation on this important topic. Panel members included water leaders from Colorado and western states. Click here for the late-breaking report of our panel at last fall’s Sustaining Colorado Watersheds.
EPA:
Video Shows Green Practices to Manage Stormwater Runoff
To watch the video: http://www.epa.gov/owow/nps/lid/video.html
More information on stormwater management: http://www.epa.gov/greeninfrastructure
Climate Change Guide for Local Officials:
This January 2009 'Outreach and Communications Guide is a tool to help local governments effectively communicate climate information to their constituencies. The Guide contains an array of steps and methodologies for communication and outreach efforts, as well as a compilation of best practices from around the United States. It can be downloaded from their website.
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WATERSHED REPORTS
State of the Roaring Fork Watershed Report 2008
Boulder Creek Watershed Initiative's 2008 Stream Team Report
2007 Clear Creek Watershed Report: Exploring Watershed Sustainability
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WEBSITES
Informative Websites for Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Funds:
Drinking Water SRF overview
How the Drinking Water SRF can be used for water conservation and efficiency.
Colorado Water Quality Monitoring Council
The Colorado Water Quality Monitoring Council serves as a statewide collaborative body, open to all, to help achieve effective goal identification, data collection, data analysis, data retrieval, and reporting/dissemination of water quality data, and monitoring information.
Brown & Caldwell's The Water Cooler
The Water Cooler is
a gathering place for water professionals to share stories from the news pages and from personal experience, updated daily with the latest headlines from around the country and with commentary from some of Brown and Caldwell’s most experienced water resources experts.
Wildlands CPR
Wildlands CPR revives and protects wild places by promoting watershed restoration through road removal, preventing new wildland road construction and stopping off-road vehicle abuse. To watch a 3 minute video of how a plugged or overwhelmed culvert can turn into a major road failure, click here. WMTW TV News 8 chief photojournalist Kevyn Fowler shot the footage.
Good Samaritan: Educating the Public About the Imperative for Legislation to Support Private Mine Reclamation Efforts
This website is designed to inform and educate people about a legal issue that severely hampers mine remediation and reclamation at inactive and abandoned mine sites. Visit the website.
River Network's summary on the Clean Water SRF
EPA's website on green infrastructure
Colorado Water Resources and Power Development Authority
Watershed Central
This website is designed to provide state, local, and voluntary watershed management entities with a variety of tools and information that will aid in successful watershed management.
Western Hardrock Watershed Team
WHWT is a coalition of community/watershed improvement groups, confronting the challenges that remain from historic mining in the West. We address environmental degradation and community impoverishment, providing rural mining communities with the skills and capacity they need to make their neighborhoods / watersheds better places to live and work.
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OTHER USEFUL INFORMATION
Report on bad CWA jurisdictional calls in CO
This report, compiled by the National Wildlife Federation, Trout Unlimited, and Ducks Unlimited, offers five case studies on the effects of the SWANCC and Rapanos Supreme Court Rulings on Colorado wetlands and streams. To read the report, visit
http://www.nwf.org/News-and-Magazines/Media-Center/News-by-Topic/Wildlife/2010/~/media/PDFs/Water/ColoradoReportonWetlands2010.ashx.
Best Management Practices for Oil and Gas Development
The Natural Resources Law Center and its partners welcome you to this free-access website of best management practices (BMPs) for oil and gas development in the Intermountain West. The focus of this website is a searchable database addressing surface resources affected by oil and gas development. The database includes both mandatory and voluntary best practices currently in use and/or recommended for responsible resource management in the states of Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming.
Stimulus & SRF Update & Action Items
For more information click here.
American Recovery Reinvestment Act
For more information on accountability news click here
Summary of Potential Brownfields Funding
for more information click here.
Values of Watershed Protection: Quantitative & Qualititative
Quantitative
1) An often cited example, which comes from the Chichilnisky and Heal
1998 paper (see REFERENCES below) is the comparison between the cost of
technological replacements for the provision of clean, safe drinking
water in one watershed (Catskill watershed, New York). Costs for water
treatment were estimated at US$6-8 billion, leading municipalities to
purchase the entire watershed to perform this ecosystem service for US
$1-1.5 billion instead.
2) Lands in permanent vegetative cover have been estimated to reduce the
cost of filtering sediment in municipal drinking water by $5.60 per
hectare per year, and phosphorus reduction costs by $23.30 per hectare
per year. - from the following document:
http://www.ducks.ca/aboutduc/news/archives/pdf/ncapital.pdf
3) Economic damages from nutrient pollution create a "toxic debt"
A U.S. analysis of nutrient pollution in freshwater reveals annual
losses of at least $4 billion, mostly from dips in lakefront property
values and loss of recreational use.
http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/sample.cgi/esthag/asap/html/es803044n.html
Click on the second link in the review text to get a copy of the study.
By the way, the study addresses several costs, including the treatment
of drinking water.
Qualitative
1) The implications of biological impairments are as varied as the
streams that we monitor. To really know the human health implications,
the economic losses to the community (recreational value, fishing), or
the economics of remediating the system, we must know what is causing
the biological impairment (or at least have a good idea). Possibly a
fish kill several years ago removed resident fish species and a dam or
culvert is preventing repopulation. Excess road salt may have washed
into the stream, causing chronically or acutely toxic conditions.
Excessive erosion from agricultural fields or construction sites may
have filled pools and interstitial spaces, removing vital habitat.
These examples would have minimal human health impacts, though they may
decimate the aquatic community. Or the causes could be toxic conditions
(e.g., excessive pesticides, human releases of hormones and
pharmaceuticals, heavy metals) or pathogens. These could have human
health implications.
2) . . . it is prudent and rational to base management and restoration
policies on an assumption that there is a direct link between the health
of stream biota and of people who live with and near these resources,
and of people who live downstream. This approach follows the
precautionary principle, which is apparently a guiding framework in
other countries (especially parts of Europe) but less so in the US.
This principle places the burden of proof on claims that something is
safe, rather than requiring a demonstration of harm before taking
action. This viewpoint should also apply to economic values and
impacts.
References
Costanza, R., d'Arge, R., de Groot, R.S., Farber, S., Grasso, M.,
Hannon, B., Limburg,K., Naeem, S., O'Neill, R.V., Paruelo, J., Raskin,
R.G., Sutton, P., van den Belt, M. 1997. The value of the world's
ecosystem services and natural capital. Nature 387:253-260.
Daily, G.C. (Ed.), 1997. Nature's Services: Societal Dependence on
Natural Ecosystems. Island Press, Washington, DC.
Daily, G.C., T. Soderquist, S. Aniyar, K. Arrow, P. Dasgupta, P.R.
Ehrlich, C. Folke, A.M. Jansson, B.O. Jansson, N. Kautsky, S. Levin, J.
Lubchenco, K.G. Maler, S. David,D. Starrett, D. Tilman, and B. Walker.
2000. The value of nature and the nature of value. Science 289:395-396.
Chichilnisky, G. and G. Heal. 1998. Economic returns from the biosphere.
Nature 391:629-630.
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BEETLE INFORMATION
Beetle Articles after Aerial Survey Release
View.
Study on Western Tree Life
View.
Beetle Presentation
This presentation is animated to show the movement of the beetles.
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RESOURCES FOR GRANT SEEKERS
River Network: Updated Fundraising Website
River Network has compiled a list of foundations and programs that support river and watershed conservation.
It can now be accessed only via the River Network Partner website under the fundraising tab.
Third Sector Innovations
Services include: grant research, grant writing & editing, fundraising planning, and training sessions.
Red Lodge Clearinghouse
Search their database to find funding for your collaborative project. Search by state, grant size, or funder name.
The Community Resource Center
An up-to-date website with funding sources in Colorado.
The Foundation Center
Research private and community foundations.
The Grantsmanship Center
A training institute that helps organizations write and receive grants.
The Catalogue of Federal Domestic Assitance
Comprehensive website listing federal dollars for community programs.
Guide Star
A searchable database with private foundations and 990 forms.
GrantSmart
A searchable database of private foundations and 990 forms.
The Council on Foundations
Learn about how foundations operate.
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EDUCATIONAL TOOLS
EPA Releases Tool for Improving Water Quality at the Site, Neighborhood, and Municipal Scales
EPA is releasing a first-of-its-kind water quality scorecard that will help communities in rural, suburban and urban settings incorporate green infrastructure practices to protect local water quality and improve both the built and natural environment.
The Water Quality Scorecard was developed to help local governments identify opportunities to remove barriers and revise and create codes, ordinances, and incentives to better protect water quality.
To download a copy of the Water Quality Scorecard, go to: www.epa.gov/smartgrowth/water_scorecard.htm.
Trout Unlimited - Stream Explorers
An interactive website to teach kids about fish and other critters that live in rivers.
Your Water, Your Choice: An on-line Tool
Check out this on-line tool for producing customizable messaging for local officials on options for protecting water quality. Visit http://www.yourwateryourdecision.org/.
River Network - Environmental Education Programs
River Network compiled a list of organizations that offer programs that connect kids to rivers.
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