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Finding a Common Trail Collaborative Efforts in Gunnison Basin Rugged individualists might have settled the West, but it will be cooperative individualists, willing to struggle collaboratively towards solutions, who will help lead the West into its future history The Gunnison River Basin includes an array of people as diverse as its landscape, Residents run the gamut economically and culturally The traits they seem to share are passion for the place they live and a desire to maintain the qualities that make the Gunnison River Basin a special part of the world, As a result, more and more often residents have been working together to reach consensus, Stakeholders have gone beyond rediscovering the wheel at the roundtable; they are getting things done, In the Gunnison River Basin, a handful of sometimes-unlikely alliances have produced impressive results in water issues, attending matters as diverse as humpback chub eggs and the number of selenium parts in a drop of water. Collaborative groups in the Basin are working to develop new policy, and coming up with creative fixes for unwanted results of old policy They are promoting change in some areas and closely monitoring change in others, Participants in the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forest Instream Flow Pathfinder Project are developing recommendations for protecting instream flows in the surface waters of the Forest. Members of the Uncompahgre/Gunnison Selenium Task Force have also produced results: significant reductions in levels of the element in local waters, Participants in the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program work together in a number of ways to try to ensure a future for four species of endangered fish in the Gunnison River. These efforts include finding common ground in planning policy, research methods and habitat improvement and acquisition, Two collaborative groups in the Basin focus their energy on water quality The Upper Gunnison Water Quality Monitoring Group has established a baseline guide for water quality Pooling resources, members have installed water quality monitoring devices to keep a collective eye on changes in the Basin's water. That more stakeholders join the group each year is testament to the power of collective work. The Water Quality Standards Working Group has worked for nearly a decade to take a proactive role in determining state- mandated water quality standards, Members have hammered out differences enough to draft their own water quality designations for recommendations to the Colorado Water Quality Control Commission, Educational efforts throughout the Basin also multiply each year. Ten years ago the Ute Water Conservancy District began organizing its Water Festival with a handful of exhibits, Today, the Festival features contributions from nearly every water-related agency and interest group imaginable, Work being undertaken in the Gunnison River Basin is indicative of a hopeful shift toward cooperative efforts to solve problems throughout the West. The results of collaborative problem solving speak for themselves, proof that broad-based community input and consensus building can be a dynamic and potent tool for planning, GMUG Instream Flow Pathfinder Project With a slew of branches, a multitude of bureaucratic roots and a trunk full of responsibility for public lands, the United States Forest Service has never been the speediest organization to accept new ideas, After three years of work, culminating in 1,300 pages in six separate volumes, the White River National Forest presented the public with its revised Forest Plan in 1999, Though the plan was long in coming, negative response to the document surfaced immediately US Representative Scott McInnis found the Plan "irreconcilably flawed and in need of a complete overhaul." McInnis gathered Colorado Republicans and demanded that the Forest Service start over, Public response to the draft was equally heated, The Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forest (GMUG) hopes to avoid the same pitfalls in its impending Plan Revision, and to avoid the additional workload created when input is presented late in the game, Forest officials created the GMUG Instream Flow Pathfinder Project in 2000 to develop through consensus, recommendations regarding instream flow protection in the Forest's surface waters, The underlying purpose of the Pathfinder group is to help the Forest Service decide what tools it should use to protect aquatic resources, The group plans to "describe instream flow management strategies that balance healthy stream environments and human water needs" to help the Forest Service figure out what is needed to protect aquatic reserves, 42