Completion Form

2023

The Colorado River Restoration 5.0 project coordinators successfully implemented work across property boundaries and amongst agencies. Coordination took many forms, including planning meetings, as well as site visits with contract crews, interagency work, and final assessments of sites.

On the ground methods were primarily:
*Hand removal and herbicide treatment to clear tamarisk and Russian Olive from important native plants including willow and cottonwood.
*Spraying knapweed and other high priority exotics along the river corridor, focusing first at high traffic sites that can be a vector for seed transportation.
*Mapping and removing Ravenna grass, a newly emerging invasive exotic that has shown vigorous growth in the project area.
*Mowing herbaceous annuals and other invasive  plants at high-use sites along the river corridor.
*Revegetation with longstem plantings, containerized plantings, and seeding at tamarisk removal sites. 
*Frill cut treatment of Russian olive and elm along the river corridor.

RRR: 
Coordination
Rim to Rim Restoration successfully facilitated and supervised many projects this season, working across property boundaries and between different agencies. There has also been continued progress on streamlining planning for and communicating project procedures to contract crews on the ground, especially when there is limited contact with those crews.

Site Evaluations 
With help from the BLM, ArcGIS Field Maps has now been fully integrated into our post project reporting. UCC crews gather data on the work the do on each hitch using Field Maps. The data can be used in the field for gathering site data, updating projects after performing work or for future planning.

FFSL: 
As part of its contribution to the Colorado River Cross-Watershed collaboration, FFSL worked with Grand County Noxious Weeds to identify and treat secondary herbaceous weeds through spot applications of herbicide within tamarisk and Russian olive removal sites. Each polygon was visited periodically throughout the year. FFSL also conducted tamarisk and Russian olive removal in Castle Creek and Professor Creek.

Final methods for removal in Castle Creek and Professor Creek included felling and chipping all non-native trees on site and chipping as much of the material as possible. There was a considerable amount of non-native poplar on site that ended up taking a lot of time to cut and chip.  A dozen trees or so were frill cut and left on site for bird habitat, all other invasive trees within the primary removal unit were removed and sprayed with aquatic safe triclopyr. 6 dump trailer loads of chips were hauled off to Mayberry to be used in future Colorado River planting projects.

TNC/DWR Matheson Preserve: 
UCC Crews completed several thinning, noxious weed treatment and seeding/planting polygons in the Matheson Wetland in fiscal year 2022 for a total of six weeks of work.

Plateau Restoration - Jackson Bottom:
This phase of the Jackson bottom project focused on thinning several Tamarisk stands, transplanting plant material and conducting monitoring in support of revegetation efforts.

Planting and maintenance: 
Project work involved site visits for planting and maintenance of irrigation, seeding, monitoring, hand-watering new plantings, planning and supervising chainsaw crews. PRI also transplanted Saltgrass, seeded disturbance areas, refilled irrigation rain barrels and hand-watered seedlings not on irrigation weekly from July through October 14.

Invasive species control 
PRI monitored the site for Russian knapweed and perennial pepperweed, met with GCWD for spraying of tamarisk resprouts and cleared annual weeds around new plantings and to clear routes for access to chainsaw areas and to monitor noxious herbaceous weeds. In cooperation with UCC, PRI supervised 8 days of chainsawing  tamarisk along the riverbank and old river channels, creating several additional routes to the river in newly cleared openings in tamarisk thickets. Corps crews also relocated six brush piles.

BLM:
Canyon Country Fire and Fuels staff burned piles just downstream of the the Zuckerman property in castle valley. The BLM also collaborated extensively on maintaining the Field maps tool that was used to collect and track project data.

Grand County Weed Dept (GCWD):
Grand County Noxious Weeds worked with to identify and treat secondary herbaceous weeds through spot applications of herbicide within tamarisk removal sites previously established, and facilitated projects and trainings with UCC. The GCWD also scouted several large areas for Ravenna grass.

The total proposed area for this project was 882 acres (proposed from WRI database). 4 projects were not executed, May Flats, the Matheson Wetland Burn, part of the work above New Rapid, and the White's Ranch Project. We were, however, able to complete 796 acres of work along the Colorado River for a total of 24 stream miles. We treated 566 terrestrial acres treated and 230 aquatic/riparian acres treated. The difference in acreage numbers for completed work is mostly due to the Matheson burn not being conducted and RRR beginning of invasive mapping in Matheson wetland. The planned prescribed burn could not be completed due to high fire dangers conditions in the Matheson Wetland, and the May Flats work was postponed until next cycle. May flats is still under planning by the BLM and work may occur in FY2024.

RRR:
Coordination has been fine-tuned over the course of four previous WRI Colorado River Restoration Projects (WRI 4009, 4374, 4952) and this project. Expanding upon and improving these WRI projects years after year has greatly improved coordination between agencies and other partners including Rim to Rim. Other coordination improvements that were implemented in Colorado River 5.0 include the use of the ESRI Field Maps tool for mapping all UCC work that was completed under Colorado 5.0.

UCC: 
In Colorado 5.0 UCC crews successfully integrated ESRI's Field maps tool with training from the BLM. This mapping, in association with streamlined post-hitch reporting has led to more complete tracking of post hitch photos and required follow-up work.

TNC/DWR:
Coordination with DWR went smoothly and UCC did a great job with the execution of the work, especially in light of the COVID-related scheduling and safety challenges.  Evan Kluew, regiproject manager for UCC, ensured the terms of the contract were satisfactorily met.

The prescribed burn was not implemented in FY2022 due to dry conditions.

Plateau Restoration Inc.:
Tamarisk removal and restoration have been conducted on 70 acres at Jackson Bottom since 2010 by PRI and Grand County, Utah DNR, and USFWS partners, with 3 in 2021/2022.  This private land near the Potash mine has been set aside as valuable wildlife habitat and is ideal for experimentation and training of future resource managers in SW riparian restoration.  During the last decade the site has been flooded twice, in 2011 and 2019.  Most other years have seen abnormally low water, with 2020 starting off as the driest April on record with above average temperatures and the lowest water levels since 2013, peaking near 14,000 cfs in June.  Monitoring vegetation trends over this period of time has provided insights into rehabilitation of this site.

Jackson Bottom 
The focus of this project is to expand native plant diversity in slow to recover areas, especially on the east side of the service road at both ends.  Both areas see abundant wildlife use and have good water access.  Ensuring that native species are now on both sides of the road achieves our goal of biodiversity throughout the site.

Saltbush that was planted to replace some that had died in Fall 2020 did not survive. However, almost all saltgrass planted survived the fall and most are showing signs of re-emergence this spring. The saltbush that did survive from the initial planting do appear to have survived the winter. Seedlings of suaeda that were transplanted into the roadway appear to have survived. New occurrences of perennial pepperweed and Russian Knapweed have been observed in several spots in the site exposed by chainsaw crew, and known occurrences have come back following spraying in 2019. Additional Saltgrass was transplanted in as part of the Colorado 5 project.

Larger saltbush seedlings overcome by gnat hatchings in summer 2020 appear to still be alive. Only one of the introduced cottonwood trees that had been growing well in the lower end of the site, but which were cut down by beavers in 2019, appears to still be alive. Privet planted in the lower end have shown significant growth despite foraging by deer.

Several small privet, one baccharis and one rabbitbrush have been exposed by tamarisk clearing near the bank. Goodings willows in the lower end of the site are growing well and forming a canopy.

BLM:
The Canyon Country BLM office collaborated extensively on creating and maintaining the ESRI Field Maps tool, project planning, site visits, scoping and pile burning.

FFSL:
FFSL treated a site at Canyonlands Field Institute's Professor Valley Field camp for Russian olive and tamarisk and also a site on private land in Castle Valley.

GCWD:
GCWD spot treated herbaceous weeds at several sites, for a total of 105 acres of herbaceous weed treatments. They also scouted 143 acres for Ravenna grass. They treated 7.687 acres with UCC, using the corps backpack crews effectively in concert with the larger GCWD spray equipment.

The work on Colorado River 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 and 5.0 has built strong collaborative relations between land managers at the local BLM Field Office, NPS office, the local FFSL Sovereign Lands office, the County and nonprofit land managers.  With the many administrative boundaries in our area the continued communication through the SE Utah Riparian Partnership is creating continuity across these boundaries and across intra agency boundaries as well.

RRR:
Coordination:
RRR coordination efforts will continue through Colorado River Restoration 6.0 as well as through the SE Utah Riparian Partnership.  Colorado River 6.0 projects beginning at multiple sites and the deployment of the finished Field Maps tool will help refine and track future planning efforts.

Mortality Monitoring:
RRR began monitoring the mortality of plantings in Colorado River 4.0, and that monitoring will continue in Colorado 6.0. Those efforts will continue this coming fall, and additional mortality data should be available by November/December 2022.

FFSL: 
Through continued monitoring of restoration sites, FFSL will be able to determine areas where the need for active revegetation is greatest. Such sites will be candidates for seeding or planting depending on specific site conditions. In areas where native species are rebounding and naturally recruiting, emphasis will remain on reducing exotic competition.

Matheson: 
The TNC and DNR plan to continue active management of the preserve to improve fisheries habitat, and bird habitat. As conditions allow the area will be burn as prescribed in the burn plan that was developed under this project.

Plateau Restoration Inc.:
PRI plans to continue working at the Jackson Bottom site. Noxious weed control will be managed by Grand County Weed Department and Utah FFSL.  The land owner has pledged to leave the property undeveloped and has offered to rip the road in the center of the property when it is no longer needed for the project.  Since the property is prone to decade scale flooding, its value other than open range (or recreation) is limited.

BLM:
The BLM will continue to provide vital project support, and will continue managing the ArcGIS Field Maps tool.

GCWD:	
The herbaceous weed management plan implemented in Colorado 4.0 will continue to help guide GCWD to continue to coordinate efficiently with grant partners, improve communication and more easily track work areas. This plan will be an important tool in future work, laying out the vision and plan for tackling herbaceous weeds as successfully as past projects in tamarisk and Russian olive.

Kara Dohrenwend

09/20/2023 11:25:24