Protecting Land on the West's Outstanding Rivers

by Western Rivers Conservancy
Protecting Land on the West's Outstanding Rivers

Project Report | Feb 3, 2025
Western Rivers Conservancy: Winter 2025 Report

By Anne Tattam | Associate Director of Foundation Relations

With backing from GlobalGiving donors, Western Rivers Conservancy is permanently protecting land along outstanding rivers across the western United States. Your gift supports the core costs of purchasing and conserving land for the benefit of fish, wildlife and people. Your contribution is dedicated to such efforts as preserving salmon and wildlife habitat, and creating new hiking trails, boating access and recreational opportunities.

Thanks to your support, Western Rivers Conservancy has:

• Protected Dunton Meadows, a cold-water savings vault in the headwaters of Colorado’s Dolores River

• Conserved a half mile of California’s Wild and Scenic Trinity River and enabled the next phase of a critical restoration project.

Colorados’s Dolores River:

After more than five years of work, Western Rivers Conservancy and the San Juan National Forest successfully conserved Dunton Meadows, an essential high-altitude wetland complex that delivers clean, cold water to Meadow and Coal creeks, two headwater tributaries of the Dolores River. Spanning 160 acres, this alpine meadow stores enough rain and snowmelt during the wetter months to deliver an outsized benefit to these streams in the form of reliable seeps during warmer weather. This ankle-numbing cold water is a lifeline for fish in the upper reaches of the famed Dolores River. We conveyed the property to the National Forest in late October 2024.

Surrounded by National Forest lands and flanking the southern edge of Colorado’s Lizard Head Wilderness, Dunton Meadows has long been a conservation priority for both the Forest Service and WRC. At 10,000 feet in elevation, this is classic Colorado high country, with three iconic “fourteeners” (mountains over 14,000 feet) visible from the property. One of the most notable beneficiaries of the meadow’s output is the Colorado River cutthroat trout, a state-designated species of special concern that inhabits creeks downstream.

It is also breathtaking alpine scenery up here, with sweeping panoramas framed by the stark peaks of Mount Wilson and the highest points of the San Miguel Mountains. The perennially wet, sheltered alpine bowl also serves as high-nutrient summer habitat for Rocky Mountain elk, black bear, mule deer and various species of songbirds. Dunton Meadows also finds itself within a Canada lynx recovery management unit and provides refuge for the American marten, also a state species of special concern. Rare sightings of boreal owl have been documented nearby, no doubt due in part to the surrounding healthy stands of spruce and fir.

For Coloradans, conservation of Dunton Meadows means that cherished views of the snow-capped San Juan Mountains, a classic sight for many on their way to high-country trails, will remain intact. Just 26 miles from Telluride, Dunton Meadows is bisected by a county gravel road that provides ready access to the Lizard Head Wilderness via the popular Navajo Lake and Kilpacker Basin trailheads.

Formerly a summer-season basecamp for a local sheep ranching family, Dunton Meadows was put up for sale in 2019, and WRC bought it in 2023. After working to secure funding through the Land and Water Conservation Fund, WRC was able to deliver a new conservation future for the meadow, transferring it to the San Juan National Forest and conserving it as an invaluable wetland and cold-water win for southwest Colorado’s fish and wildlife.

California’s Trinity River:

In the remote Klamath Mountains of Northern California, Western Rivers Conservancy and the Bureau of Land Management protected a vital property along a half mile of the Trinity River, downstream of Junction City. The acquisition ushers in a critical next phase of a multi-decade restoration project aimed at reviving one of the great salmon and steelhead streams of California.

The Trinity River drains more than 3,000 square miles of steep, rugged, densely forested mountains that are home to some of the greatest biological diversity on Earth. It is the largest tributary to the Klamath River and historically produced more salmon, steelhead and cold water than any other river in the Klamath system.

But the Trinity was put through the wringer for over a century, first by gold mining and logging and later by two hydroelectric projects that diverted nearly all the Trinity’s water to California’s Central Valley. Today, the great salmon and steelhead runs of the Klamath’s largest artery are a fraction of their historic numbers.

Despite these challenges, the Trinity remains one of the West’s most important steelhead rivers. It has also long been a premier whitewater destination, and over 200 miles of the mainstem, North Fork and South Fork have been designated Wild and Scenic. Given the caliber of this river, in 2000, the Department of the Interior signed off on a massive interagency, inter-tribal restoration project to restore the anadromous fish runs of the Trinity. That effort has been underway for over two decades, and recently, a major component of the project hinged on getting a single property called Benjamin Flats into public hands.

WRC has been working for two years to get Benjamin Flats into BLM hands and successfully facilitated the agency’s purchase of the property in November 2024. The hard work has paid off, and now a half mile of the Trinity has been permanently conserved for the fish and wildlife that depend on it. Stream restoration is already underway, and the BLM is now exploring the best way to blend restoration and public access along this important stretch of the Wild and Scenic Trinity River.

Conclusion

The Dolores and Trinity river projects are just some of our recent projects. WRC currently has nearly 30 active projects in seven states. With the support of GlobalGiving donors, Western Rivers Conservancy is expanding our efforts to protect riverlands for fish, wildlife and people.

We love to hear from our supporters. Please contact Anne Tattam at 503-241-0151, ext. 219 (or atattam@westernrivers.org) for further information. Thank you.


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Oct 8, 2024
Western Rivers Conservancy: Fall 2024 Report

By Anne Tattam | Associate Director of Foundation Relations

Jun 10, 2024
Western Rivers Conservancy: Summer 2024 Report

By Anne Tattam | Associate Director of Foundation Relations

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Organization Information

Western Rivers Conservancy

Location: PORTLAND, OREGON - USA
Website:
Project Leader:
Anne Tattam
Administrative and Development Associate
Portland , OR United States

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