Completion Form

2023

In the Colorado River Restoration 6  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, invasive mapping in Matheson wetland and final assessments of sites.

On the ground methods were primarily:
*Hand removal and herbicide treatment to remove tamarisk and Russian Olive, additional herbicide application to treat Russian knapweed.
*Mowing fine fuels in the project area, including cheatgrass and kochia.
*Manual seed collecting in support of native revegetation projects.
*Revegetation with longstem plantings, containerized plantings including Cottonwood and coyote willow, and seeding at sites. 
*Hand work reopening a side channel at New Rapid on the Colorado River.

FFSL WUI: 
For the Professor Valley Field Camp we finished burning all piles within the unit over the winter of 2022/2023. We spot treated all resprouts of tamarisk and Russian olive within the unit. We also frill cut all Russian olive on creek left in this stretch of the creek. While there is still tamarisk on creek left all Russian olive has been removed from this stretch. In Castle Valley within the 2 acre unit there was essentially only Russian olive under the cottonwoods, with very little tamarisk. Our in-house fuels crew cut and chipped all Russian olive in this section. Stumps were sprayed with herbicide.

RRR: 
Coordination
Rim to Rim Restoration successfully facilitated and supervised many projects in Colorado 6, working across property boundaries and between different agencies, including facilitating the permitting process for work at New Rapid with the Army Corps of Engineers and BLM. There has also been continued progress on creating and communicating project procedures to contract crews on the ground, especially when there is limited contact with those crews, through improved coordination and communication with crews and a redesign of the scopes of work used to pass on project information.

Site Evaluations 
The ArcGIS site assessment tool adapted by the BLM as part of the Colorado 6 project was implemented successfully for work tracking, and will continue to be used into the future. The polygons submitted with this completion report were gathered and prepped with that tool. The development of this tool in association with the BLM is ongoing.

FFSL: 
As part of the Colorado River 6 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.

Final methods for removal in the Castle Creek and Professor Creek units included felling and chipping all non-native trees on site and chipping as much of the material as possible.

TNC/DWR Matheson Preserve: 
UCC crews completed several large mowing, herbicide application and planting polygons in the Matheson Wetland in fiscal year 2023. Crews mowed kochia using brushcutters and hand tools. UCC also applied seed to bare areas and planted several round of containerized plants, including, Cottonwood, Gooding's willow, New Mexico privet, saltbush and winterfat.

PRI:
The focus of this phase of the project was on revegetation of areas of recent tamarisk cutting, with some minor work on road recovery, and revegetation of former cutting areas and areas still lacking perennial cover.   This mostly involved maintaining previous saltgrass plantings, including regular hand-watering and maintaining the small irrigation system, some transplanting of saltgrass and seeding, either by broadcasting or scattering and raking into wet soil.  Wire-wrapping and painting trunks of cottonwood and Goodings willow with sanded paint was done in spring to protect trees from beavers, especially considering high water.

Another focus was removal of biomass from previous cutting and maintaining wildlife corridors throughout tamarisk thickets.  At various locations, slash was thrown on to the bank at different levels to allow the river to take it downstream slowly as water rose.  Where feasible, some of the slash was carried off-site.

BLM:
Canyon Country Fire and Fuels staff burned piles near Cottonwood Creek, Lower Onion, Below Zuckerman, and Seven Mile Canyon. They also conducted thinning in seven mile canyon. The BLM continued to generously collaborate on the Field Maps assessment tool, hosting project data, conducting QC and providing technical assistance when requested.

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. GCWD spot treated noxious weeds in riparian zones along the Colorado River from the Colorado border to the Potash Mine near Moab, and in Onion and Professor creeks.

National Park Service (NPS): 
National Park Service staff surveyed and treated Russian knapweed and other herbaceous weeds, Russian olive, reed canarygrass in Salt Wash and the 191 bridge boat ramp, and used UCC for one week of work removing Russian olive in the park.

UMTRA: UMTRA used WRI funding to purchase seed for restoring riparian areas at the Moab UMTRA site.

The total proposed area for this project was much larger than what we were able to completed with the funding. This project was not fully funded and funding was reprioritized based on the reduced amount. Weed treatments at Mile Marker 32 on 128, planting at Dewey Bridge, Noxious weed treatments tamarisk removal and planting at the river right Onion Camps, and planting at Kings Bottom were all removed from the proposal due to reduced funding. Work at May Flats was delayed due to additional BLM planning and coordination needs. Nevertheless the total area treated with the reduced project scope was 731 acres with 691 acres of terrestrial treatments and 40 acres of aquatic/riparian treatments.

RRR:
Coordination has been fine-tuned over the course of previous WRI Colorado River Restoration Projects (WRI 4009, 4374 and 4952) and this project. Expanding upon and improving these WRI projects years after year has substantially improved coordination between agencies and other partners including Rim to Rim. Other coordination improvements that were implemented in Colorado River 6.0 including the refinement of the FieldMaps tool with the BLM for compiling project work data and coordinating planning, and the use of Box for corps to upload their post-hitch data both for reporting and to share herbicide application data with the BLM.

RRR has continued to spearhead the Southeast Utah Riparian Partnership, hosting two meetings per year. This meeting has proved invaluable for coordinating planning on riparian projects, sharing resources and following up on funding opportunities. As mentioned above also RRR coordinated project work at sites along the Colorado River, including New Rapid, conducted invasive mapping in Matheson wetland, tracked and collected reporting data, wrote conservation corps contracts, wrote scopes of work, guided project implementation in the field with crews, provided technical assistance with native seed collection, and supported permitting work in collaboration with other project partners. RRR also prepared a restoration plan for 8 tamarisk thinning sites along Potash Road and at Fish Ford at the request of the BLM.

UCC: 
Having detailed scopes with a prioritized list of goals has continued to help crew leads and field bosses prioritize different tasks and organize work more effectively. Making a fillable pdf form made it easier for crew leads to fill out post hitch paperwork on their phones and tablets. UCC experienced some staff turnover in FY23 and had to spend some time getting up to speed.

Having the detailed lists also helped crew leads and field bosses to organize their post-hitch reporting using those same scopes.

TNC/DWR:
DNR conducted a site visit at North Matheson and coordinated on Colorado River corridor work periodically, including a long-term planning meeting with the new FFSL habitat coordinator.

Plateau Restoration Inc:
This wildlife habitat project is on 67 acres of bottomland owned by Intrepid Potash that includes 1 mile of Colorado River-front just above the Potash boat ramp. Once a near-monoculture of Tamarisk, about 45 acres were cleared by bullhog between 2010 and 2012, with narrow corridors being cleared by bullhog and chainsaws in thickets by the bank to create wildlife routes to the river.  These clearings subsequently became the focus of revegetation efforts following high water of 2011, shade from remaining Tamarisk ensuring greater success.  Efforts included seeding and planting with follow-up watering.  Plateau Restoration provided manual labor with the help of over 500 college volunteers, although there has been greater use of paid conservation corps since college participation declined due to the Covid pandemic.

More recently, cutting has mostly been along the bank, leaving some large trees to prevent catastrophic collapse of the bank and to provide beetle habitat. Otherwise it is hoped that undermining remaining roots will gradually result in a less steep bank with greater cover by willow, baccharis, privet, etc. some of this was evident after high water this year.

Following several years of chain-sawing tamarisk, piles of slash have been accumulating, in former channels, lining thoroughfares cut in the tamarisk thickets for wildlife, and along the bank.  These piles have begun to restrict width of corridors, affect river access, and limit sight distance and escape routes for wildlife from predators. Piles were reduced by throwing logs and branches over the bank.  Smaller branches are less likely to be trapped by vegetation as it is carried away by rising waters, so recent cutting included reducing size of slash. All wood had been stashed and allowed to dry above high water for at least a year to prevent it from resprouting.  Although a lot of slash was moved, a significant amount still remains even after high water.

Most of the site continues to be inundated with kochia and amaranth although native sea purslane (Sesuvium verrucosum) and alkali sida (Malvella leprosa) are expanding, which should help prevent further weed invasion.  Whereas Russian Knapweed (Centaurea repens) and Perennial Pepperweed (Lepidium latifolium) have not been abundant, new occurrences are being identified during regular monitoring.  No treatments were done this year, although areas previously treated are still persisting, but do not appear to be spreading significantly.

Much of the site went under water this spring, a condition seen only three times since 2010 (in 2011, 2019 and 2023) and after three particularly dry seasons (2020-2022), the longest period of low water seen since the start of this project.  Flows peaked at 37500cfs on May 20 and remained above 20000 cfs until June 30, after which levels dropped quickly.  In contrast, the peak in 2022 was 16700 cfs on May 21.  Both of these peaks were earlier than usual, possibly due to upstream dam releases, last year to fill Lake Powell and this year to manage record snowpack.  This year the high water impacted our ability to access parts of the site in late May through June and scoured many of the successes from seeding seen earlier in the year.  More seed was broadcast on recently scoured areas as water receded.  High water also made it necessary to extend the wire wrapping around cottonwood and Goodings willow and apply sanded paint to the bark to protect them from beavers.  Beavers had taken down one of five large Gooding willows this spring, but the remaining trees survived the high water after raising the height of protection.

At least some of the recent saltgrass plantings have emerged since flooding and Great Basin Rye is flourishing adjacent to zones submerged for a longer time. In the lower elevation parts that were cleared in FY2022, willows that had been knocked over and partially buried are beginning to resprout, achieving a goal of increasing willow cover, while decreasing Tamarisk along the bank.   Other areas along the bank that did not go under water showed very good success from seeding, particularly Rocky Mountain Beeplant (Cleome lutea and C. serrulata), four-wing saltbush, alkali sacaton and Great Basin Rye.

Use of the site by deer and bighorn sheep continues to increase and 5 young sheep were seen adjacent to the lower end in February 2023.  The thoroughfares opened up along the bank during FY2022, with several access points to the river, showed particularly high use by larger mammals.

BLM:
Canyon Country Fire and Fuels coordinated periodically on progress on tamarisk clearing in order to facilitate revegetation post clearing, including at the seven mile canyon site, a large mastication polygon. The BLM fire fuels also requested a long-term restoration and revegetation plan for several sites along the Colorado River, which RRR provided.

The BLM aquatics program was also essential in the execution of the Colorado 6 project contributing time and extensive technical planning expertise in planning and obtaining the permitting from the state of Utah and the Army Corps of Engineers for the New Rapid work. BLM aquatics also provided direction on sites to focus on in the project area.

FFSL WUI:
At the Professor Valley Field Camp we completed the last round of retreatment that we will do there. All piles have been burned and we have met our objectives within this unit. Canyonlands Field Institute has agreed to continue monitoring and treating resprouts within this unit. Within the Castle Creek unit we treated all of the accessible Russian olive. There are some that we couldn't access due to the steepness of the bank and there isn't much we can do to reach them. Otherwise all Russian olive we could reach was dragged up the hill and chipped.

GCWD:
Under the leadership of the new County Weeds Department Head, Elizabeth Weimholt, GCWD spot treated herbaceous weeds at several terrestrial sites, for a total of 150 acres of herbaceous weed treatments. They also scouted and treated the Colorado river corridor for purple loosestrife and other riparian invasives from the Colorado border to the Jackson Bottom/NPS boat ramp area.

The work on Colorado River 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0 and 6.0 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 as getting good work done efficiently.

The next round of this project was left unfunded for FY24. As a result of this absence of funding, we may lose some ground on annual weed management and resprout follow-up. However, because of the SURP we may be able to fund other funding sources and continue some of this work despite the lack of WRI funding for future management in FY24.

RRR:
Coordination:
RRR coordination efforts will continue through the SE Utah Riparian Partnership as well as through our cooperative agreements with the BLM and participating agreement with the USFS. The Fieldmaps tool that was developed through these projects will continue to be used on other projects and the native plant monitoring data collected will be used to refine future planting.

Mortality Monitoring:
RRR began mortality monitoring of plantings in Colorado River 4.0. Those efforts will continue this coming fall and additional mortality data should be available by November/December 2023

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.

At the Professor Valley Field Camp the landowner has agreed to continue retreating the minimal resprouts on this site. No more future management will be needed by FFSL. At Castle Creek we will need to do one more entry for retreatment and then we will be able to turn it over to the landowner for maintenance.

Matheson: 
The TNC and DNR plan to continue active management of the preserve to improve fisheries habitat, and bird habitat. With the invasive plant mapping that RRR performed in Colorado 6, an invasive plants management plan may be written and implemented.

Plateau Restoration Inc.:
Future management will include removing existing irrigation supplies, and monitoring and treatment of noxious weeds. PRI will continue to maintain the project area with assistance from Grand County Weed Department and Intrepid Potash.  The owner has pledged to leave the property undeveloped and rip the road in the center of the project area if necessary.

BLM:
The BLM will continue to provide vital project support, and will help coordinate the progression of the ArcGIS Field Maps tool.

GCWD:	
With its new department head the GCWD will continue to collaborate on restoration projects, hiring additional seasonals and continuing its work along the river corridor and throughout Grand County, using its array of specialized equipment, including their raft and spray truck. Their technical expertise and involvement in the community and SURP are valuable assets moving forward to tackle additional invasive removal challenges.

Kara Dohrenwend

09/20/2023 11:28:22