Click the link to read the article on the Sky-Hi News website (Andrew Miller). Here’s an excerpt:
The Grand County-based Upper Colorado River Watershed Group continues to search for landscape scale solutions to address immense environmental problems at least partially created by a combination of global climate change and increasing levels of water diversion. On Oct. 13, the group tested one possible large-scale solution to restoring the more than 300 square mile East Troublesome Fire burn scar on a small scale on the west side of the Grand Lake Golf Course.
Hydro mulch is a green-colored coating applied by fire hose-type sprayers, it’s often used on ground that has been exposed after road construction. This same technique, applied from the same air tankers and helicopters used to fight wildfires, might offer a scaled approach to restore blackened fire scars all over the West. As a test of this concept, the Upper Colorado River Watershed Group hydro mulched test plots on a burned area near the course. The group used funds from a Colorado Department of Health and Environment grant for the experimental treatment. Grand Environmental Services employee Adam Roth also helped concoct a hydro mulch mix including mycelium supplied by Boulder Mushroom. Mycelium is the below-ground “root” structure of a fungus, and it can help tie the soil together to prevent erosion. This mixture might help reduce the number of landslides which continue to bedevil the Colorado Department of Transportation, regularly closing Willow Creek Pass and Interstate 70 through the Glenwood Canyon.