Presidents Report 6/15/2023
Towards the end of every PLAN Jeffco Board meeting, there is a Presidents Report. This is our opportunity to bring awareness to issues that transcend our local Jefferson County Open Space Parks. The Presidents Report lists activities and events from local and regional organizations, both land conservancy and otherwise, with reports from national and global news agencies. We hope you enjoy the read, and in so doing, we hope this may broaden perspectives in some small way.
– the Fine Folks at PLAN Jeffco
NOTE: in this Presidents Report you’ll read about lands that have been “Permanently Protected” by land organizations. Most of these protected lands have conservation easements on them, unlike our Jeffco Open Space Parks.
What is a conservation easement? It’s a promise to the land, a promise that encumbers the land, that protects the land from ever being developed into something other than what it already is. The land is still privately owned, so no — you cannot go trekking across the property without the owners’ permission, but you can rest assured that the land will not sprout condominiums or shopping centers.
Jeffco Open Space News & Events
https://www.jeffco.us/1523/News-Events
Know before you go! Check these sites for additional information on Park and Trail closures, openings, and other operations that may impact your Jeffco Open Space Park experience.
Jeffco Fairgrounds
https://www.jeffco.us/calendar.aspx?CID=27
Please check the Fairgrounds website calendar for detailed event information.
Jefferson County – Sustainability Commission
https://www.jeffco.us/3406/Sustainability-Commission
Jefferson County – COVID-19 Updates
https://www.jeffco.us/3999/Coronavirus-Disease-2019-COVID-19
Colorado Open Lands
https://coloradoopenlands.org/ https://www.facebook.com/ColoradoOpenLands
Oak Meadows Ranch – Permanently Protected.
Located in Moffat and Rio Blanco Counties, south of the city of Craig and northeast of the town of Meeker, Oak Meadows Ranch is managed as summer grazing ground for cattle by the Steele family, who have been ranching for six generations. The 1721-acre property consists of sagebrush shrublands, montane meadows, and intermountain mixed species forest. Habitat is provided for greater sage-grouse, bald eagle, Columbian sharp-tailed grouse, ferruginous hawk, greater sandhill crane, northern leopard frog, elk, moose, mountain lion, and mule deer. Large numbers of elk and mule deer are often present on the property. Natural Resources Conservation Service was a project partner. https://coloradoopenlands.org/oak-meadows-ranch-permanently-protected/
Jacober Ranch – Permanently Protected.
The 122-acre Jacober Ranch sits seven miles west of the town of San Luis in Costilla County. This agricultural property consists of irrigated hayfields and pastures with water drawn from the San Acacio Ditch. The ranch’s position as one of the last properties irrigated by the San Acacio acequia, one of the most senior water rights in the state, makes it a priority for preservation of water rights upstream along the entire ditch. The property’s irrigated fields and pastures provide scenic enjoyment to the public, while also providing habitat and forage for a diversity of wildlife including elk, mule deer, pronghorn, black bear, mountain lion, and a variety of migratory birds and raptor species. Jacober Ranch also provides seasonal habitat for bald eagle and greater sandhill crane, and breeding habitat for northern leopard frog, all Colorado Species of Concern. Project partners include Great Outdoors Colorado, Natural Resource Conservation Service, the LOR Foundation, and the Trinchera Blanca Foundation. https://coloradoopenlands.org/jacober-ranch-permanently-protected/
Mountain Area Land Trust
https://savetheland.org/news/ https://www.facebook.com/MountainAreaLandTrustCO
A Night in the Park: The Next Chapter. Saturday June 24, 5-9PM, Alderfer/Three Sisters Open Space Park in Evergreen. Buy your tickets at https://rb.gy/z5ste.
Keep It Colorado
Next-Generation Council: a toolkit for involving young professionals in your land trust. KIC has been working with CSU to develop a guide for organizations that are planning to engage young professionals in land conservation. Read and download the guide at the KIC website.
Douglas Land Conservancy
https://douglaslandconservancy.org/
Upcoming events: DLC’s 35th Annual Challenge | now – June 29
2023 Seasonal Journeys Hike Series
Brigid’s Day, Spring Equinox, May Day, Summer Solstice, First Fruits, Fall Equinox, Halloween, Winter Solstice.
Bird Conservancy of the Rockies
https://www.birdconservancy.org/
Upcoming events: 2023 Spring Fund-Raiser Block Party, June 15, 2023, 5:30 – 7:30 PM at Odell Brewing, Fort Collins
2022 Annual Report:
https://www.birdconservancy.org/resource-center/reports/2022annualreport/
Stewards of Golden Open Space
Report in Foothills Living magazine: Stewards of Golden Open Space is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit formed by Golden residents, whose mission is to provide the vision and voice to understand, protect and preserve Golden’s precious open space resources and assets, and the values they represent. As a result of this advocacy, the City of Golden is now beginning Phase 2 of an open space master plan, to provide a formal structure and public guidance for preserving and managing the use and future of Golden’s open space.
Follow the postings from other Conservation Groups, listed at the bottom of our web pages:
Colorado Open Space Alliance (COSA)
Bird Conservancy of the Rockies
Colorado Cattlemen’s Agricultural Land Trust
Watch This Space…
Hogback mine expansion in North Golden gets State approval.
Jefferson County Planning & Zoning Case Number: 22-128087CMT, Case Manager: Nick Nelson, 303-271-8727, nn*****@je****.us https://jeffco.us/planning-and-zoning/active-cases
To get more information on the Protect the Hogback group, go to https://www.protectthehogback.com/
Frei-Walstrum Gravel Quarry expansion, Clear Creek County
Quarry expansion is in progress, the land use variation application has been submitted to County. No additional report.
Bear Creek Reservoir Expansion Proposal
https://www.lakewood.org/Government/Departments/Community-Resources/Projects/Bear-Creek-Reservoir-expansion-proposal (2-year study, on-going)
Gross Reservoir Updates
https://www.denverwater.org/grossreservoir
Construction is expected to impact recreation activities through 2027. The south side of the Reservoir is closed to the public for the duration of the project. CLOSED: Osprey Point boat launch; South Boulder Creek Inlet trailhead; South Shore and Windy Point picnic & fishing areas. OPEN: North Shore picnic area, boat ramp & parking lot at the intersection of Gross Dam & Flagstaff Roads; South Boulder Creek Outlet trail below the dam; Winiger Ridge campground; Forsythe Canyon trailhead. BOATING SEASON: Friday of Memorial Day weekend to September 30th for human-powered watercraft, including canoes, kayaks, & paddleboards. Denver Water is offering a free shuttle bus that will run from the North Shore parking lot to the lower recreation site; it will have a trailer to haul boats. The shuttle is scheduled to operate Thursday through Monday, 8AM to 5:45PM. WATER LEVEL: the reservoir will be filled to about two-thirds of normal capacity during construction. SWIMMING IS NOT ALLOWED IN GROSS RESERVOIR. Pedal boats, inner tubes and floatable rafts designed for pool use are not allowed in Gross Reservoir. Motorized vessels are not permitted in Gross Reservoir.
Shadow Mountain (formerly Full Send) Bike Ranch Updates
New video posted at https://vimeo.com/825959577. Joined the Conifer Chamber of Commerce. Jeffco P&Z, waiting for some materials, will then address any issues and schedule first hearing. Are distributing yard signs in support of Shadow Mtn, get yours at ja***@fu***************.com. Encouraged readers of the most recent newsletter to join COMBA.
West of the intersection of Shadow Mountain Drive and Sunlight Lane.
Case Number: 23-102980RZ Pre-App Meeting Date: Apr 29, 2022
Case Manager: Dylan Monke – 303-271-8718 – dm****@co.us
Status: 1st Referral
Description: Special Use Application for Development of a day-use lift-served bike park as a Class III Commercial Recreation Facility.
Acreage: 483.04 Acres
Here’s a link to Jeffco Planning and Zoning, where the new interactive map showing ongoing applications and permits is located (scroll down to the bottom of the page): https://www.jeffco.us/786/Planning-Zoning
Climate Change Articles of Interest
Italy floods: F1 grand prix cancelled and thousands evacuated following flooding and landslides. Parts of northern Italy have seen more than half a year’s rain in just two weeks. Published: 5/19/2023
https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/65621503
Areas of northern Italy have been hit hard by flooding and landslides after heavy rain this week. Thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes, with many being rescued from rooftops. Earlier this month the same area was hit by storms, and months of dry weather means the ground has not been able to absorb as much rain water as it normally should. The Emilia Romagna F1 Grand Prix, due to go ahead this weekend, has been cancelled due to the weather. These floods have been in northern Italy, with the area of Emilia-Romagna being hit particularly badly. It’s south of Venice, and its regional capital is Bologna. Fifteen rivers burst their banks – which means the water levels got so high that they could not be controlled. The Italian government says rain is expected to continue in the area for the rest of Wednesday.
Could seaweed be the ‘fastest and least expensive’ tool to fight climate change? A wave of startups say seaweed is a multi-pronged solution to climate change: It can absorb carbon, curb the effects of cattle’s methane burps, and feed biofuels—not to mention the world.
A bold experiment to use seaweed as part of a solution to climate change is underway in Iceland, where millions of basketball-size buoys made of wood and limestone and seeded with seaweed will be dropped into the ocean in the coming months. The buoys—which look like bald mannikin heads with flowing seaweed locks below—are designed to sink to the deep ocean floor, where the carbon they contain will remain sequestered for 800 years or more, according to Running Tide, the Maine-based company behind the project. It’s hard to pin down the timeframe: Nothing like this has ever been done before. …
April’s cold weather shows it’s time to fill our gardens with hardier plants, say experts.
Gardeners are being urged to grow plants that can cope with extreme heat and cold after the Royal Horticultural Society was bombarded with letters from members asking why species they had cultivated successfully for years were now dying. …
The country has faced cool weather in March and April before – the springs of 2013 and 2018 both featured snow and ice. However, this year’s weather has flummoxed many. While traditionally, gardeners have a strict calendar of what to plant when, in order for it to flower or crop at its best, the changing climate means this is being turned on its head. …
Ben McCarthy, head of nature conservation at the National Trust, said the “topsy-turvy weather” had been unsettling for wildlife too. While it was too early in the season to tell how severe any impact might be, he said the unpredictable conditions had led to bumblebees and daffodils appearing in January and animals and insects, such as brimstone butterflies, coming out of hibernation early. “They’re coming out of hibernation because there’s a short warm spell and then they’re hammered by a cold spell again,” he said. “It can have really quite significant impacts on the success of our breeding birds and other wildlife.”
High-Temperature records fall across Siberia, thawing an enormous and underestimated heat store.
Temperatures across Siberia have soared over 100 F for weeks, and the heating continues unabated at the time of this posting. These temperatures thaw the enormous store of methane and CO2 that has been locked in the frozen soil of the northern tier of the planet for thousands of years. Permafrost covers 65% of Russia’s land area.
An estimated 1,500 gigatons of carbon is present in permafrost. That is twice the amount stored in the atmosphere. The carbon is the remains of plants, animals, and other sources that have never fully decomposed for thousands of years; the oldest deposit is over 700,000. Once permafrost thaw is initiated by heat waves, human activity, and wildfires, bacteria break the organic matter down the gases are released into the atmosphere. Once the methane and CO2 reach the atmosphere, it further heats the planet in a feedback that only thaws more permafrost. …
Hope will do nothing to save us. We either stop Global warming at 1.5 C, or it’s game over.
Water Wars Articles of Interest ..
Satellites reveal widespread decline in global lake water storage. The Guardian, published 5/19/23
More than half of the world’s large lakes and reservoirs have shrunk since the early 1990s – chiefly because of the climate crisis and human consumption – intensifying concerns about water supply for agriculture, hydropower and human consumption, a study has found. A team of international researchers reported that some of the world’s most important freshwater sources – from the Caspian Sea between Europe and Asia, to South America’s Lake Titicaca – lost water at a cumulative rate of about 22 gigatonnes a year for nearly three decades, equivalent to the total water use in the US for the entire year of 2015. Fangfang Yao, a surface hydrologist at the University of Virginia who led the study published on Thursday in the journal Science, said 56% of the decline in natural lakes was driven by global heating and human consumption, with warming “the larger share of that”.
Read the full story at https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abo2812
Western states agree water cuts to save drought-hit Colorado River.
By Max Matza, BBC News, Seattle Published 5/22/23
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65677766
Three western US states have agreed to draw less water from the drought-depleted Colorado River in exchange for $1.2bn (£960m) in federal funding. Arizona, California and Nevada said the deal would conserve at least 3 million acre-feet of water to the end of 2026. The dwindling river, which flows through the Grand Canyon, provides drinking water for millions, crop irrigation and hydro-electric power. It has been shrinking for years during decades of drought in the US west. The nearly 1,500 mile (2,400km) river is used by over 40 million people in seven US states, as well as several Native American tribes and parts of Mexico. The reductions announced on Monday would account for about 13% of the amount being drawn by the three states. …
All seven states pulling water from the Colorado River – including Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico – have endorsed the plan. It must still be approved by the federal government’s Department of the Interior, which said it will begin reviewing it as early as next month. …
Microplastic shards plague every Colorado river. Here’s where — and how — they get there. New study samples 16 waterways and finds shredded plastic in every one. Ihttps://coloradosun.com/2023/05/30/microplastics-study-colorado-waterways-pollution/
Lexi Kilbane knew, in a vague, nonscientific way, that plastic pollution was a growing problem, and that tiny shards of plastics were showing up everywhere a microscope might look. But the magnitude of the contamination finally hit home after she dipped a water testing kit into a City Park lake, right near her house, and filtered the sample. Fibers from shredded tarps, jackets and carpet popped into view, in a dystopian kaleidoscope. …
Rewilding Articles of Interest …
Heartland Ranch Nature Preserve – Keep It Colorado, October 11, 2022
https://www.keepitco.org/stories-land-water-wildlife-people/2022/9/13/heartland-ranch
Southern Plains Land Trust, located near Lamar on the southeastern plains, is focused on “rewilding” the prairie – and bison are at the center of this work. The bison are an essential contributor to a healthy ecosystem because they move across the landscape, grazing some areas more heavily and some more lightly, thereby creating a mosaic of plant communities. Bison are specially adapted to the Great Plains, feeding on the dense and deep-rooted native plant species like blue grama and buffalograss, which are abundant in the shortgrass prairie. Bison knock down trees and shrubs, thus maintaining their grassland habitat. They also create shallow depressions called wallows when they dust-bathe to relieve themselves from insects and heat. These wallows can fill up with summer rains, giving rise to new generations of spadefoot toads and wildflowers. …
The reintroduction of black-footed ferrets is also a key rewilding activity. These endangered weasel-like animals, once thought to be extinct, are the only ferret species native to North America. Because black-footed ferrets prey mostly on prairie dogs and provide food for raptors and other night hunters, they serve an important function in a healthy ecosystem. SPLT’s preserves are a sanctuary for all of these creatures, protecting prairie dogs from all threats and working with governmental wildlife agencies to reintroduce black-footed ferrets to its land. …
Conservation Articles of Interest
Wind is main source of UK electricity for first time.
By Esme Stallard, Climate and Science Reporter, BBC News Published: 11 May 23
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-65557469
Wind turbines have generated more electricity than gas for the first time in the UK. In the first three months of this year a third of the country’s electricity came from wind farms, research from Imperial College London has shown. National Grid has also confirmed that April saw a record period of solar energy generation. By 2035 the UK aims for all of its electricity to have net zero emissions. … Scientists say switching to renewable power is crucial to curb the impacts of climate change, which are already being felt, including in the UK, which last year recorded its hottest year since records began. Solar and wind have seen significant growth in the UK. In the first quarter of 2023, 42% of the UK’s electricity came from renewable energy, with 33% coming from fossil fuels like gas and coal. … But BBC research revealed on Thursday that billions of pounds’ worth of green energy projects are stuck on hold due to delays with getting connections to the grid. Some new solar and wind sites are waiting up to 10 to 15 years to be connected because of a lack of capacity in the electricity system.
America’s big shift to green energy has a woolly mammoth problem. Transmission lines in the US need to be increased threefold, but faces pushback from fossil conservation and green groups
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/22/america-green-energy-obstacles-fossils
America’s renewable energy drive needs more than a million miles of new transmission lines but emerging resistance includes opponents worried about building them in one of the country’s richest areas of ice-age fossils. The Greenlink West project would build a 470-mile-long transmission line bringing clean electricity north of Las Vegas to Reno in Nevada, but it cuts through an area containing everything from woolly mammoth tusks to giant sloths to ancient camels. The pushback has highlighted a major, and growing, challenge to Joe Biden’s attempts to expand clean energy in order to tackle the climate crisis – how to quickly build vast new networks of electricity transmission across America without falling afoul of local communities and green groups. If the US is to eliminate planet-heating emissions by 2050 it will need to increase the capacity of its current 700,000 circuit-mile network of poles and wires by threefold, researchers have estimated, in order to electrify key components of everyday life and shift intermittent wind and solar energy to areas where the sun isn’t shining or wind isn’t blowing…
The Supreme Court just made it easier to destroy wetlands and streams. The decision strips federal protections from the ephemeral streams that are crucial for life in the arid West.
…ecological realities are strikingly absent from last week’s U.S. Supreme Court decision in Sackett v. EPA. The ruling strips federal protections from all ephemeral streams and, as reported by E&E News, more than half of the previously protected wetlands in the U.S. It limits Clean Water Act protections to “relatively permanent, standing or continuously flowing bodies of water.” That includes some wetlands — those that are “indistinguishable” from protected oceans, lakes, rivers and streams “due to a continuous surface connection.”
Fire Season Updates
Exhausted crews battle Canadian wildfires as experts issue climate warning. Global heating and human changes to the landscape have invited more destructive fires, making fire season worse.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/10/canada-wildfires-climate-global-heating
Sat 10 Jun 2023 11.00 EDT; Last modified on Sat 10 Jun 2023 14.33 EDT
Weeks of unprecedented wildfires in Canada have burned millions of hectares, displaced more than 100,000 residents and plunged the country into a nationwide crisis as exhausted crews battle hundreds of blazes. But experts caution that a changing climate and human actions on the landscape will probably make fire seasons worse in the coming years. Hundreds of firefighters from across the world have flown to Canada to aid a nation stretched thin with a spring fire season that has shattered records on both sides of the country, with warmer and drier months still to come. As of Friday, there were 421 fires burning, down from 441 on Wednesday, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. The number of fires deemed out of control also dropped from 256 on Wednesday to 230, aided by rains that hit areas of Quebec. More than 43,000 sq km have burned so far this year, making 2023 the second worst year for fires on record – a milestone from 2014 probably eclipsed this weekend. …
In recent decades, the forestry industry has grown to appreciate the economics of certain fast-growing trees, including the lodgepole pine, says Gray. The species quickly overpopulated forests in western Canada, largely through the replanting efforts of logging companies. But in recent decades, nearly 30m hectares of pine in western North America alone were killed off by the mountain pine beetles, leaving swaths of tinder on the landscape. …
He points to the historical makeup of western Canadian forests, which long been populated by trees of varying age and size: Douglas fir, mountain ash, cedar and spruce. While some trees, like pine, burn easily, others don’t, like the mountain ash or fir. This meant that even in historically dry ecosystems, a diverse canopy has sufficient “speed bumps” to slow fires, meaning pockets of the land can undergo small wildfires that don’t morph into fearsome blazes. “We can put in vegetation that doesn’t burn that well. In areas where we’ve done prescribed burning, we’ve converted the forest to hardwoods like aspen and cottonwood that don’t burn as well,” he said. …
But he says ambivalence within the forestry industry about embracing a large-scale shift in how it logs and replants, as well as insufficient funding from the provincial and federal governments has delayed efforts experts say can mitigate the most destructive effects of fires.
Let’s keep each other in the loop. When you hear of conservation group activities that merit distribution, send the link to Co*******@PL********.org and we’ll include in the next President’s Report.
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