Dec. 20, 2024

East Troublesome Fire Recovery Efforts Aim to Revitalize Creeks, Wetlands on Forest Service Land

East Troublesome Fire recovery efforts shifted gears in 2024 but with many of the same goals as previous years. 

The bulk of this year’s recovery work took place in the fall, with construction crews building post-assisted log structures (PALS) on Forest Service land within the burn area. Nearly 80 of these wooden structures were built across two sites along Kauffman and Stillwater creeks. The structures – placed both within the creeks and adjacent floodplains – are designed to slow down and capture portions the creeks’ streamflows. This mimics some of the benefits of beaver dams to help restore stream channel functions and the surrounding wetlands.

Along with restoring riparian and wetland systems damaged by the 2020 fire, these new structures are expected to help the landscapes become more resilient to future wildfires by creating wider flood plains that can potentially serve as fire breaks. 

The benefits will also extend to Northern Water’s nearby water infrastructure and operations. The two project sites along Kauffman and Stillwater creeks are respectively upstream of Willow Creek Reservoir and Lake Granby, two storage reservoirs among the Colorado-Big Thompson Project’s West Slope collections infrastructure. The PALS are expected to help improve water quality in the collections system by capturing sediment that might otherwise settle downstream in those reservoirs. 

As part of this project, Northern Water is collaborating with the Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Research Station to monitor the effects of the recently constructed PALS, as it could take three to 10 years to see some of their impacts and benefits come to fruition. 

This year’s low-tech, process-based projects on public lands come after three years of recovery that largely focused on stabilizing and protecting private property and critical infrastructure.

This winter, Northern Water and the Forest Service will continue to work on a long-term recovery plan, using their recently developed Watershed Assessment of River Stability and Sediment Supply report as a road map for identifying the most pertinent projects. Heading into 2025, the two entities and other project partners will also continue working to identify funding opportunities for those needed projects.