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The Spring Creek basin is almost fully developed from Taft Hill Road to ils con- fluence with the Cache La Poudte River. Upstream from Taft Hill Road, the basin is currently being developed as a residential area. Development downstream from Taft Hill Road is primarily residential except along College Avenue, where there is heavy commercial development. There is some light in.dustrial development near Spring Creek's eot1fluence with the Cache La Poudre River. The habitat in the College Avenue reach of Dry Creek consists of mowed grassland or weeded banks with a ribbon of willow trccs which is of limited value to wildlife. Much of the channel is liuered with bwken concrete or other debris. The Larimer County Health Department indical.:s that lhis area has suffered from long-term subsurface petroleum contamination, Soil and ground walertesling has heen conducted in this area at the direction of the Colorado Department of Health. Cleanup is tepoI1ed to be in progress. construCted by the Bureau of Reclamation in 1954. Below the dam, the Spring C:r~k drainage basin's 12 square miles ofuneonlwlled arca has a mean basin elevation of about 5050 feet, m,s,!. Downstream from Horsetooth Reservoir, Spring Creek has an average slope of about 52 feet per mile. The habitat in the Alta Vista reach of Dry Creck is primarily heavily grazed pasture or ungra7ed brome grass pasture. The stream channel was undefined and dry in most of the reach during a fic1dvisit in September 1990, Several low areas containcda scdgel grass mixture. This reach was of limited value to wildlife. CLIMATE , , I , immediately west of the AlIa Vista selllement is an area with an undefined channel and numerous spoil moundsofunknown origin and purpos.c, pos,iblya,soci ated with past sugarbcct processing operations. This area is dominated by tall bromegrass and eolton- wood trees. Just upstream from thisarca, the vegetation eonsistsof>edg.:sandgrass~s amJ i~ h<Alvily littered with tras~, in o~e location. Tht' nlnm"(lll~ spoil mound, and tbe heavily littered location may have some potential for hazardous or to_k wa~te contamina- tion. The Larimer County Health Department indicate~ that Stale and county mainte- nance shops located immediately south ofthc area have, in thepasl, e~perienccd lcaking gasoline, die~el fuel, and waste oil from underground stufagC t..'\nks. Tbe climate in Fort Collins i~ typi\:<<1 of lh~ cast.::m foothills of the Rocky 1'>1ountains. The mean annuallemperatl.lre is 43.5 dep1x:s Fahrt'nheil (F). July, wbich is the w<<rrnest month,avernges71Adegrecsf'.,andJanuary,whichisthecolde,tmonth,avcragcs26.9 ,Jegr~cs r. The aH:rngc annual precipit.,ti(l~ in Fort C,,1li!1~ i~ 12 J inch",. as reported in the 1989 National Oceanic and Atmo,pheric Administralions's Climatological Data Annual Summary for Colorado. ~"IiVIRO"MENTi\L SETTli\G Fort Collins is loca1ed i~ the Dry Domain ecoregion and Great Plains-Shortgrass PrairieprovinccoftheUniteJStatc,. ~luchofDryCreekisan\lrbanripari<lne\:usystell1 l'r an agricnlt\lral riparian ~(.'osystem. Th~ stream has not been assigned <lny valucd fisher;.' resource ela~sification, The followingparagraplls pnwidea briefde,criplion of severa] reaches of Dry Cr~ek, The habitat in the Fort C:olhns Airpark reach of Dr)' Crexk upstrC<lrn frolll the air- park consists of a wide stream ofdi"erse we!land vegetatiun dorninatcd by cattails and large willow trcc$, which arc of high v<lluc tll wildlife, Adjacent land U$e is horse pasture and hayland, with l1\uch of the grass unharvesled. No signs of an)' pUl<:ntia\ for hanrdo\ls or toxic waste contamination were obscrved, It should bc noted that the ,., 2-6