The Game Changer
March
the fifteenth represents a notable day on my calendar, for its the day
that the USGS river gauge located on the Catamount Bridge goes back
online. It delivers real time information on what the river is doing
from then until November fifteenth each year, and over the past several
years that its been there its proven to be a real game changer for those
who recreate along the Lower Upper Colorado River.
The gauge near Catamount was very welcome when it first went in several
years ago. Before then, trying to determine the actual flows on the
river past my backyard involved adding the number for the gauge at
Kremmling to the number for the gauge on the Piney River. Or, one could
take the number from the gauge at Dotsero, then subtract the figure from
Kremmling. You could also take those two numbers, and average them
out. Whatever method chosen, it was only a rough estimate the didn't
factor in the various other streams and creeks that added to the
Colorado's flow, or the irrigation headgates and pumps that pulled it
out.
The new gauge changed all that. It was installed at the behest
of the Upper Colorado River Wild and Scenic Stakeholder Group, an
organization that I became a member of not long after. From a shortcut
on one's phone or laptop, it became possible to check not only the
river's flow, but its water and air temperature as well. This was huge,
not only for the flows but for the water temps, which are very important
to an angler. A trout's metabolism is very much dependent on the
temperature of the water they live in. At the low end of the temperature
range in the spring, when the water rises to fifty degrees, the fish
and the bugs they eat become active. Time to go fishing. Later in the
summer, when temperatures begin to approach (and sometime exceed)
seventy, its time to stop fishing, and to use the metrics
provided by the gauge to initiate ways to mitigate those warm temps,
sometimes by provoking the release of water upstream from reservoirs to
cool things off.
For example, a couple of years after the Catamount gauge went in, we
were having a dry summer. That winter's snowpack had been subpar, and
the following spring had seen very little rain. As part of normal
reservoir operations, flows had been held back during what would have
been a meager runoff, and for a while that had made for great fishing
during the period when the river in its unfettered state would have been
high and dirty. But by mid-summer, the bill was coming due and not
only were water temperatures climbing, but algae blooms were beginning
to blossom on the river bottom. Through this, I was checking the flow
and temperature of the river every day watching nervously as
temperatures climbed.
Then one day, I took a family out on a scenic float, and as usual we
had a wonderful day on the river. The sky was bright and sunny, but it
wasn't as much of a white water float as it might have been since the
river was only about 550 cfs, instead of the thousand cfs it might have
been. But there are no bad days on the water, and they had a good
experience. However after they left, I was down at my takeout cleaning
the mud off my raft and while standing in the water noticed that it felt
warm. Not warm as in not cold, but warm as if I were in my hot
tub. I went up to my shop, booted up the PC and clicked the bookmark to
the Catamount gauge. I was shocked to see that the water temperature
there was exceeding seventy degrees Fahrenheit! At that point, I had
only been a member of the Stakeholder group for a couple of years, but
had the email addresses of all the other members. So I wrote an email
and copied everyone on the list, noting the warm temperatures on the
river, and asking if there weren't some way to get some water released
to aid the trout population in the river, and to forestall the growth
I'd been seeing of the algae.
Critically,
I also added a link to the Catamount gauge to help bolster that
request. I had already been living on the river for ten years by then,
and used to monitor river temperatures by means of hot tub thermometer
attached by some orange twine to the bank in my backyard. This was less
than scientific. But by adding the link to the gauge upriver, I wasn't
making some anecdotal argument, my plea was backed up by actual data the
was both objective and shareable.
Once
the raft was pulled out and put away, and phone calls returned, I went
back to check my email before going home. My Inbox already had a
response from a member of the Stakeholder who worked for the Colorado
River District, who said that he had seen my email noting the warm water
in the river.
In
it, he said that the as a result of the readings from Catamount, they
River District would be releasing some water from Wolford Mountain
reservoir the following morning, from the lowest outlet of the dam to
get the coldest water possible. I was elated. I had written an email
only an hour earlier, not really expecting much, and suddenly had the
knowledge that the river was going to be getting a little bit of help
starting the next day. It wouldn't completely fix the problem, but it
would help.
The next morning, I got to my shop and fired up the PC. Checking my
email, I noticed some other messages from the Stakeholder group. One
was from an employee of Denver Water, and another from someone with
Northern Water, both entities from the Front Range who supply water to
folks living from Fort Collins in the north to Denver in the south.
Now, its a pretty popular opinion for people on the western slope of
Colorado to despise the Front Range water providers for "stealing" water
that should be flowing west, instead of being pumped and piped east to
where the majority of Colorado's population lives. Its an opinion that I
used to share. But there are two factors to consider. The first is
that dams and the reservoirs they create are not inherently good or bad.
What is important is how they're managed. Without dams, the
trout fishery that we enjoy on the Upper Colorado River simply would not
exist. Yes there would be big flows in the spring, scouring the river
and spreading sediment, but in late summer of some dry years, there
might not be much water in the river at all, and temperatures would
skyrocket. It would not be conducive to brown and rainbow trout, which
after all are not native to this river. The cutthroats that are would
be higher up in the watersheds, enjoying those cooler waters. The
second thing to remember is that many of the employees of those water
providers aren't sitting around all day plotting ways to steal that
water from the western slope. They also enjoy recreating on the western
rivers themselves, they just happen to live on the other side of the
Continental Divide, and their job is to see that the bulk of Colorado's
residents have water to drink, and to shower and flush the toilet with.
So
that next morning, I was happy to see that one of those emails was from
an employee of Denver Water who had seen my email. This was a man with
whom I'd enjoyed cold beer around a warm campfire at a Stakeholder Group
campout a couple of weeks earlier. He wrote that he had seen my email
from the previous evening, and as a result Denver Water would be
releasing extra water from Williams Fork reservoir that very morning.
But the good news wasn't done yet. There was another email from a
member of the Stakeholder group who worked for Northern Water. She said
that after my email had been distributed around their office, it was
decided that pumpback operations out of Windy Gap reservoir would be
curtailed earlier than planned, with the result that more water would be
sent down the Colorado River!
I found myself in a pleasant state of shock. I had written an email the
previous evening, not expecting much to come of it, and here it was
twelve hours later, and sweet relief in the form of cold water was
already on its way to rescue the Colorado River! I have no doubt that
being able to add a link to that email made all the difference. It
wasn't just some crank of a fisherman yelling at the kids to get off his
aquatic lawn, it was hard, objective real time data that couldn't be
ignored or disputed. Cooperation, not conflict. Bridges, not walls. The
pen is mightier than the sword, indeed.
Then a few years ago, the gauge got even better. More metrics were
added to the Catamount gauge's output, including Turbidity, PH,
Conductivity and some others. From an angler's perspective, the new
Turbidity reading became as important as flows or temperature. Below
State Bridge, the geology surrounding the Colorado River becomes much
softer and more colorful. As a result, heavy summer rains can quickly
turn the river opaque with sediment in colors ranging from red, brown or
green, depending on where the point of discharge is. If one is boating
the river for the sheer pleasure of the experience, an off-color river
is not a problem, and can even make the ride more beautiful. But to an
angler, trying to fish off-color water is a no go. I have seen people
catch fish in mud, but its rare. Most anglers will cancel their trip or
fish somewhere else if the river is really dirty. Having that
information in hand before driving all the way up to your put can make
the difference between a great day or a bust.
With some familiarity using the gauge metrics, one can look at what the
gauge is displaying and imagine what's been going on along the river
and its surroundings. On clear sunny days, the air temperature rises,
plateaus, and drops again in the afternoon. But on partly cloudy days,
that afternoon line becomes jagged, as each time a cloud passes the temp
drops, then zooms back up with the sun. If a front passes and the
clouds mean business, the temperature will drop and stay low. If it
rains locally, the flows will increase a little, and sometimes by a
lot. If the rain falls on a tributary or dry wash that runs through
soft geology, then the turbidity number might spike. By knowing where
the sediment is coming in, anglers can adjust their plans by going
either above the point of discharge to find clear water, or far enough
below it to get their day of fishing in before the muddy water drifts
down that far. The river flows at about 2-3 mph, so one can estimate
the time it will take to reach a point downstream if you know where it
enters a river, and when.
All
of this is possible thanks to an innocuous river gauge that one could
drive past without even noticing. The term "game changer" is very
overused these days, but relative to the USGS gauge at Catamount, its
probably an understatement.
In
the past few years, these additional metrics have been added to the
USGS gauges at Dotsero and Kremmling as well, which give river users a
very comprehensive look at just what the river is doing at any given
moment. I've been living along the Lower Upper Colorado River for over
twenty years, and running a float fishing business for almost as long. I
used to field lots of calls from anglers and other outfitters wondering
what shape the river was in, especially in the late summer once the
monsoon rains began. The Catamount gauge has made me somewhat
irrelevant as they've learned to read the gauge, and I'm fine with
that. I've got better things to do than answer those calls.
If you are an active river user who doesn't have all of this
information at hand for your particular river, it would be worth finding
out who is bankrolling that gauge. The USGS does the work of
installing and maintaining the gauges, and translating their output into
a form that you can read on your phone. If your river is prone to
off-color events, volatile flows, or mine discharges, it might be worth
looking into having the gauge on that river retrofitted with these new
metrics.
Jack Bombardier
Confluence Casting
Here
is the link to the Catamount gauge. (I usually select the link for,
"Legacy real-time page" near the top to see the parameters I'm
interested in displayed on one page)
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