Plans and projects help us move toward healthier rivers

I’ve always loved Eagle County’s rivers; the smell, the wildlife, the adventure, wild in the spring and tranquil in the fall. I’ve been a kayaker and done some fly fishing, but mostly use the rivers as a rafter these days, on the Eagle and Gore Creek when running and the…

Snow and rain: A tortoise and hare story

Here in Colorado, we tend to think of precipitation in discrete, measured amounts: Inches of snow, cubic feet per second, acre feet of water. In an arid region often afflicted by drought, this is an understandable way to perceive our water situation. But if we dig deeper, the issues we…

Time to cleanup our highways

This spring marks the 15th anniversary of the Community Pride Highway Cleanup on Saturday. Organized by the Eagle River Watershed Council, and presented by Vail Resorts EpicPromise, the event will gather more than 100 teams with over 950 volunteers in total. These teams will clean up trash and debris that…

River restoration project near Edwards enters its final year

With the help of schools, businesses and community groups, the Eagle River Watershed Council is in the eighth and final year of community-based restoration along the Eagle River west of Edwards. Beginning in 2008, the Eagle River Restoration Project in Edwards set out to improve the health and function of…

Does a wet spring mean an end to drought in the region?

After the lean snow year, we were all getting a bit nervous about what water levels might look like later this summer. But then the rains came. And boy, did they come. It rained. It poured. We all celebrated and then it rained some more. We saw that moisture here…