WSP00768 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

-.J The Denver Post Online - News DPO "".it r~ "r SiTi lfilm lEAR<ll + 1!AOl1O HEWS FrJ- Is solution for one dam another? By Mark Obmascik Denver Post Staff Writer March 15 - After concluding that a little-used dam helped spread a disease that killed almost all the rainbow trout in one of the West's greatest rivers, Colorado wildlife biologists are proposing an unusual solution: Two dams, they say, might be better than one. The Colorado Division of Wildlife is asking a Front Range water district to consider building a $1.5 million dam-within-a-dam at Windy Gap Reservoir on the Colorado River near Granby. Biologists say the new dam could change the reservoir's current status as a major incubator of whirling disease, the incurable sickness that has wiped out 99 percent of the rainbow trout in the Colorado River while killing hundreds of thousands of other fish in five other famed trout streams across the state. "It's obvious that Windy Gap is one of the major contributors to whirling disease on the river," said Tom Powell, who heads the aquatics research section of the Division of Wildlife. "I think this could be a really good possible solution if we work together on it." State officials met last week with the reservoir owners, the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District, to pitch the new dam plan. District engineers said they'd consider the proposal but conceded some skepticism. "We are going to look at it," said Eric Wilkinson, manager of the water district. "From an engineering and financial standpoint, we do have some concerns. It may work partially for a few years. But as a long- term solution, 1 have my doubts." The idea is this: Building a 2,400foot berm through the middle of the reservoir will isolate whirling disease spores in a settling basin inside Windy Gap - and prevent the malady's carriers from flowing downstream through the gold-medal trout waters of Middle Park. Biologists say Windy Gap is one of the state's worst hot spots for the disease. The 445 acre-foot reservoir is shallow, warm in the summer and filled with lots of mud - an ideal environment for the tiny tubifex worm that carries whirling disease. Though Colorado River water flowing into Windy Gap is relatively free of whirling disease spores, the water leaving the reservoir is loaded. At one point during spring runoff, state fisheries biologist Barry Nehring found that Windy Gap was discharging 1.5 million spores of whirling disease per second. Once in the wild, whirling disease spores are difficult to kill, biologists say. Individual spores http://www.denverpost.comlnews/news0315k.htm Page I of3 3/15/99