From the Pikes Peak Courier (Norma Engelberg):
Workers from the Coalition for the Upper South Platte are clearing woody debris left by severe flooding last year. They’re hoping to complete the work before another flood washes the jumbled timbers downstream where it can wipe out the bridge at Deckers. Clearing debris along streams in and near the Hayman Fire burn area is the immediate goal chosen by a recently formed Hayman Restoration Partnership that includes Vail Resorts, the National Forest Foundation and the U.S. Forest Service and smaller local organization such as CUSP. The partnership has, so far, infused $4 million into the Hayman watershed recovery effort. Over the next three years the partnership will focus on meeting its long term goal of stabilizing and restoring the streams in the burn area. Forest service project manager Brian Banks said Horse Creek is emblematic of the what has happened to the forest and waterways after the Hayman Fire in 2002…
Eventually, the sediment washed down during floods will end up in reservoirs, displacing drinking water, he said. “Were taking a holistic approach to the problem,” said forest service project coordinator Bob Leaverton. “We’ll do a variety of things — removing debris, riparian planting, bank stabilization — but we’ll also look up slope where the erosion is happening and at the roads and trails that might be adding to the problem.” Bob Cole, representing the National Forest Foundation, explained that the foundation is the nonprofit arm of the U.S. Forest Service…
Carol Ekarius, director of the Coalition for the Upper South Platte said the four-person crew working in the creek bed is part of the coalition’s paid staff. “We have a thousand volunteers but we don’t let the volunteers play with chainsaws,” she said. She explained that some of the larger pieces of debris will be piled up at the edge of the alluvial fans where sediment is deposited at the mouth of ravines leading into the main stream. The timbers will stabilize the fans’ edges and will later be used to restore the stream banks. She explained that restoration will include placing timbers and J-shaped lines of rocks in places at the edges of the stream. These structures will direct the water and its energy into the middle of the stream, instead of allowing it to spread out and eat away at the banks. Nationally renowned hydrologist Dave Rosgen has been hired to work with the project. “Rosgen literally wrote the book on hydrology,” Ekarius said. “We’re lucky to have him. CUSP couldn’t have afforded him. Even the forest service couldn’t afford a guy like him.”
More restoration coverage here.