Making a difference: Agencies can, will, do work together to solve nonpoint source pollution problems

Excerpt

THE Bureau of Land Management out of the Canon City, Colorado office was working on developing better stream habitat for brown trout in Badger Creek. Badger Creek is a perennial stream south of Salida, CO that provides a prime brown trout spawning ground for the upper Arkansas River. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) crews had delivered equipment and materials to lower Badger Creek and were in the process of beginning construction on a series of small in-stream structures to improve habitat. That evening close to quitting time, clouds gathered and the crew decided to move the heavy equipment to higher ground.

That evening a record storm dumped enough rain on the middle portion of the watershed to blow out the lower third of the Badger Creek stream channel. The US. Geological Survey estimates, indicated 10,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) had come out of about 70,000 acres of the watershed, destroying most of the trout habitat. When the work crew arrived on the site two days later, the only thing remaining on the site was a bulldozer that had been moved to higher ground. It was during …