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Hotchkiss Demonstration Project

(Click to enlarge)

The project objectives included:

• Reconfigure natural river channel morphology to encourage natural processes to maintain the channel's stability and reduce excessive bank erosion.
• Reconstruct an existing irrigation diversion with a shallow rock structure and permanent headgate to deliver a full decree of water, improve water delivery efficiency, increase in-stream flows, reduce diversion maintenance and annual channel disruption by bulldozers, while at the same time allowing for migration of fish, safe passage of recreational boats, and year-round aquatic habitat.
• Enhance, expand, and protect riparian, wetland, and natural floodplain areas to minimize flood damage and to maximize in-stream flows.
• Demonstrate various stabilization and vegetative techniques for evaluation and future use in ongoing restoration of the watershed.
• Improve native fish and wildlife habitat.
• Improve in-stream water quality and quantity.
• Educate the community and other watershed groups throughout the western US about local watershed restoration opportunities and techniques.

Doc Malony's Before and After

The tangible outcomes of this project were the consolidation of a braided stream system into a new, morphologically balanced single thread channel for the North Fork of the Gunnison River and a new and properly functioning irrigation diversion that also enhances riparian and aquatic habitat. The river now meanders 1 ½ miles through Hotchkiss, Colorado lined with newly rooted willows and cottonwoods and filled with new fish habitat that is clearly visible from the two bridges in town and has the attention of the whole community. This new diversion intake plainly illustrates a simple technology in which a low-head weir structure can divert irrigation water while eliminating the need for bulldozers in the stream to construct annual "push-up" gravel dams. The diversion structure has a sufficiently low profile to allow the upstream migration of fish and safe passage of recreational boats while creating just enough backwater to divert a full decree of irrigation water. Also the new concrete headgate can now meter water at the point of diversion thereby reducing waste and increasing in-stream flows. No longer does an annual temporary gravel dam redirect the entire river into the ditch and return the unallocated portion of the flow to the river further downstream.

In addition to meeting our initial objectives we were also able to construct overhanging fish holding structures known as "lunkers" that allow fish to swim underneath the channel bank to provide additional resting habitat and cover from avian predators. Random boulder clusters in the channel not only provide further fish habitat, but may also double as "play holes" for kayaks and rafts. Over the next three years, the measurement of erosion and deposition rates, density and diversity of riparian vegetation, and a range of water quality parameters will evaluate this project.

Another benefit of the project is the restoration of the river's historic floodplain by removing old dikes, thus increasing the river's capacity to spread floodwaters in a hydrologically suitable manner. As the newly planted native vegetation begins to regenerate and thus spread in the riparian area, it will dissipate the energy from floodwaters and again the river will deposit sediment on the floodplain. The project has given a functioning river back to the local community and wildlife. The project has also created a cooperative venture with private landowners, who since the project has been completed, are local supporters of properly functioning river systems in general and the restoration of the North Fork of the Gunnison River's watershed in specific. The project is a win-win situation for all interests.

This locally significant river restoration became viable through initial grants of $90,000 from the Bring Back the Natives Program and $23,000 from the Colorado State Soil Conservation Board (CSSCB). Bring Back the Natives is a cooperative effort amongst the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the Bureau of Land Management, the USDA Forest Service, the Bureau of Reclamation, US Fish and Wildlife Service, and Trout Unlimited to restore native aquatic species and their habitats through local and regional partnerships. The CSSCB provided funds through their Matching Grants Program to fund locally led conservation efforts through local soil conservation districts. The Delta Soil Conservation District was instrumental in obtaining and administering this grant.

The grant award from the Bring Back the Natives program and the CSSCB was instrumental in leveraging the additional cash and in-kind donations necessary to make this project a success. With the help of these programs we were able to raise $204,394 of nonfederal funds to match the program's $113,000 challenge grant.

The following is a list of the project's partners:

1. Bring Back the Natives - awarded $90,000
2. Colorado Smart Growth Regional Partnership Initiative - awarded $50,000
3. Resources for Community Collaboration - awarded $2,500
4. Colorado Soil Conservation Board - awarded $23,000
5. Colorado River Water Conservation District - awarded $15,000
6. Smith-McKnight Ditch Company - cost-shared $13,000
7. FishAmerica Foundation - awarded $5,000
8. General Service Foundation - awarded $10,000
9. National Park Service, Rivers, and Trails Program - awarded $24,900
10. Maki Foundation - awarded $3,000
11. Colorado Dept. of Transportation - awarded $72,240 in-kind rock donations
12. Delta County - awarded $15,100 in-kind rock hauling
13. Colorado Division of Wildlife - awarded $10,000 cash for revegetation and pledged $2,000 in-kind habitat evaluation study
14. Natural Resources Conservation Service - donated $5,000 in-kind
15. Army Corps of Engineers - donated $10,000 in-kind engineering services
16. Colorado Wildlife Heritage Foundation - $5,000 for fish stocking
17. Oxbow Mining Co. - donated $5,000 cash
18. Mary McCarney/landowner - donated $6,300 in cash for surveying
19. Webb Callicutt/Delta County Weed Coordinator - donated $930 in-kind weed control
20. Curry Construction - donated $3,000 in-kind equipment services
21. Sickles Construction - donated $9,200 worth if in-kind equipment services
22. Mesa State College - has offered a 1-credit college course to students for streambank bioengineering that includes 32 hours of in-field implementation of bioengineering techniques. 31 students have participated - approximate value = $5,200
23. Local landowners along the project have applied for and received financial assistance from the NRCS EQIP program for an approximate total of $25,000 toward the demonstration project

The total project raised over $410,370 worth of cash and donated services. A grant from the Colorado Division of Wildlife has provided us with a wide variety of native wetland plants to help revegetate the 3.5 acres of new wetlands developed by this project. Prison crews have cut hundreds of bundles of willows for new innovative bioengineering techniques that were implemented by the volunteer services of students in the Environmental Restoration department at Mesa State College.

On February 7, 2000 the North Fork River Improvement Association received an award from the Wirth Chair in Environmental and Community Development Policy for its initiative in developing the restoration efforts along the North Fork of the Gunnison River. The Wirth Chair was created in 1993 in the graduate school of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado at Denver in honor of former US Senator Tim Wirth. The objectives of the Chair are to foster effective sustainable development strategies, policies, and programs that will strive to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. State Representative Kay Alexander of Montrose nominated North Fork River Improvement Association for the award.

Because of the success of this project, the North Fork River Improvement Association has recently developed a new partnership with the Colorado River Water Conservation District and the US Geological Survey to monitor this project for several years. The monitoring consists of annual measurements of 16 permanent cross sections within the project to research erosion rates, revegetation rates, channel adjustments, water quality, and the efficiency of the irrigation diversion. The Colorado Division of Wildlife will perform a habitat evaluation study to determine the success of the fish habitat techniques. The different bioengineering techniques will also be evaluated for success. The results will be reported in a publication prepared by the US Geological Survey that will be available to the public.