Article #1 . . . NO MEETING IN JANUARY!

Article #2 . . . BFC President, Larry Quilling -
"Looking Back at 2008 and New Horizons for BFC in 2009"!

Article #3 . . . BFC Member, Al Permut, Offering Help for the Club!

Article #4 . . . BFC Calendar for Winter 2008

FIRST CAST ARTICLE by Larry Quilling

Dear Boulder Flycasters,

Welcome to 2009 and I hope everyone enjoys a happy and prosperous new year. Boulder Flycasters experienced a number of changes in 2008 that refocused our efforts towards Boulder Watershed stewardship and youth education. We successfully received a "Fishing is Fun" grant from the Colorado Division of Wildlife to help fund the Rogers Park Project on Middle Boulder Creek. We initiated numerous fund raising activities to bolster the project including the Bombay Bistro Event, participation in the Boulder Creek Festival, and the BFC Fly-fishing Film Tour this fall. The Roger's Park Project is in its final permit approval this month with Boulder County. We will be ready to begin project restoration work early this spring.

Our fund raising efforts have fallen short of plan so we do need everyone's help to raise the final amount for full project implementation. The BFC board reviewed our chapter funds against the project budget in November and determined we are funded well enough to complete most of the reconstruction activities with existing monies. We will however, need to most likely scale back some highway erosion abatement, parking & turn-out grading and youth education venue tasks unless additional funds can be raised. As I stated in the BFC newsletter in November, a gift of $25.00 from each BFC member would achieve our funding goal so please help us complete Rogers Park by donating what you can today.

Another successful project was completed this past month in partnership with the Boulder Mountain Parks and Open Space Department at the McGinn Ditch diversion on South Boulder Creek. BFC was awarded a grant from the Trout & Salmon Foundation in December 2006 that will be applied towards the cost of the fish passage diversion project. This spring, we will be organizing a youth project to re-vegetate the work area damaged during the construction phase. This project is an important accomplishment for South Boulder Creek habitat. This diversion dam reconstruction will allow fish passage from Valmont Reservoir all the way to Eldorado Springs. This will open new spawning grounds and create more fish population diversity for all of South Boulder Creek in our community.

We completed numerous youth activities and projects in 2008 including the sponsorship of two chapter youth members to the CTU Rivers Conservation & Fly fishing Camp this past summer. We coordinated two youth events with the Colorado Division of Wildlife at the Boulder Children's Water Festival and a City of Erie fishing & education day held at Wilson Reservoir this past spring. These two events helped over 1,000 local kids learn about our watershed and participate in local fishing. Other youth activities included monthly water quality monitoring on Goose Creek and fishing with students from Eisenhower Middle School. This program is sponsored by the Sierra Club and our CU student chapter has done a great job working with the kids each month. Fishing and education programs were also conducted with two local middle school classes and students from Third Way Alternative High School in Denver.

Looking forward into 2009 we will expand upon our earlier successes and continue to support our community watershed and youth education. There will be significant progress this year in our efforts to increase in-stream flows for South Boulder Creek and we look forward to the successful completion of Rogers Park this spring. Please accept my invitation to get involved this year to help conserve, protect & restore our home waters. Here are just a few of the opportunities where you can become involved:

• Chapter Programs: As we have previously announced, we are revamping and revitalizing our chapter programs this year to more premium events. We will not conduct chapter meetings every month as we have done in the past but will instead focus on 2-3 premium events. To date, we do not have a dedicated programs volunteer to coordinate the events so please consider volunteering to help create some new & exciting events.

• Rogers Park: Once the heavy construction phase of the project is completed this spring, we will need nearly 100 volunteers to help re-plant and stabilize the banks and surrounding vegetation areas. Our "Rogers Park Day" will be a great family or school project day which will include a barbeque afterwards and dedication ceremony.

• South Boulder Creek: Teams are being formed this month to coordinate water quality monitoring and reporting. Volunteers who would like to help coordinate data collection methods and reporting with the key water interests of Lafayette, Boulder, Boulder County and Louisville are welcome to participate. There will also be a habitat committee formed to review and propose to the Division of Wildlife habitat restoration plans which the City of Denver agreed to fund during the last FERC Relicensing negotiations for Gross Reservoir. A total of $250K is available from Denver and we could use help writing matching grant requests to further leverage these funds for significant habitat improvements.

• In-Stream Flows: The Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) is conducting an in-stream flow workshop February 24th at the REI Flagship store in Denver. They have expressed an interest in working with BFC for improved flows in our watershed, particularly South Boulder Creek. We could use a team of volunteers to attend and represent our chapter for this event.

• Youth Education: Our outreach programs to youth are only limited by the number of volunteers we have to help organize and participate in the events. There is no greater return on an investment than one made with our youth members. Please consider helping organize and participate in our Youth Night planned for February or many other events planned for this spring & summer.

Winston Churchill once said: "We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give". Please consider adding to your New Year's resolution a volunteer effort or donation for Boulder Flycasters which will make a better life for our community.

Best Wishes for the New Year,

Larry Quilling
BFC President

By Roger Svendsen

Just a note to let you all know where things stand. Our Boulder County Permit Application is in the hands of the Boulder Land Use Dept. After a review of the documentation, the planner, Hannah Hippley, wanted an application sheet from CDOT as well as Boulder County. After a few mis-fires with CDOT, we managed to connect and I obtained Bob Hays' signature this morning. I delivered the document to Hannah this afternoon and she said it was what she wanted. She wants to do a site visit as part of her review, however schedules and the Holidays will probably make that necessary in January. Since the area will probably be snow covered, we will want to have pictures for her. The visit will probably be made by Dave Blauch, Hannah, and myself. Coordination will be through Claire DeLeo from Parks and Open Space. I will be the primary interface for BFC and ERC while Claire will be the interface for the Boulder County organizations.

I remain hopeful that this project will come before the commissioners in January. Hannah is the one that schedules that meeting. I tried to get a peak at the January calendar, but was unable to do so. I was told that Hannah typically schedules the meeting as soon as she has all the documentation she needs in hand.

The critical path for scheduling our "in-stream" work is now obtaining agreement from CDOW to work in the stream prior to June 1, which is the current stipulation in the Corp. of Engineers permit. The Corp. gets direction from CDOW on such things. Larry Q. has the monkey on this task and we are optimistic.
I will be in touch with Ed Self from Wildlife Restoration Volunteers relative to the work we hope they can do with/for us. There will need to be a lot of coordination with CDOT on these tasks, since it is all on CDOT land, however Bob Hays was very positive this morning about allowing us to do what we want.

Also, CDOT is continuing to sift the soil and move rocks around up at the turnout at the top of the project. Bob Hays remains hopeful that we will not have to incur expense to relocate our rock pile. Keep your fingers crossed.

To keep abreast of the progress of the project visit the BFC web site and watch for more bulletins in the newsletter.

By Paul Prentiss

Conversations with DWB management over concerns/objections pertaining to the ramp down rates below Gross on October 22, 2008 (80 cfs to 11 cfs in under 5 hours) which stranded fish in side channels and impacted spawning. Reached the end of the road last week.

Keep in mind when the flows are reduced to winter levels the entire lower section of South Boulder Creek is de-watered (we're talking flows of .5 to 1.5 cfs compared to what it takes to sustain a minimal fishery 7.5 cfs). This is caused by no water flowing through the upstream canal due to concerns over icing. Also be aware that below Eldorado Springs the DWB takes no responsibility for flows caused by diversions.

The fact of the matter is that the DWB acted in line with a program agreed to/proposed by National TU some 10 years ago. Part of the ESI inclusion authored by TU is set forth below. It basically says that ramp down rates of 30 cfs per hr. for flows between 100 cfs and 40 cfs are permissible.

The DWB did acknowledge that the drastic reduction could have been handled differently & with less impact.

Three things to keep in mind:
1. These ramp down rates were established some years ago when the flows were much higher
2. TU acted on the basis of input received from the DOW.
3. These ramping rates and in stream flow must be a part of the permitting process for the expansion of Gross.

The silver lining is that CTU is very much aware of the problems caused by drastic flow reductions in the fall.

At the end of the day, we lost fish for no particularly good reason!

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We will notify you of our next regular meeting! Date, Place & Time to be determined. Please read your monthly newsletter for updates.