Kerber Creek Restoration Project
ScSEED is proud to be a partner and fiscal agent for the Kerber Creek Restoration Project.
Also a partner, the WHWT is a coalition of community/watershed improvement groups, confronting the challenges that remain from historic mining in the West. We address environmental degradation and community impoverishment, providing rural mining communities with the skills and capacity they need to make their neighborhoods / watersheds better places to live and work.
Project Summary:
The Kerber Creek Restoration Project is a joint partnership of the Bureau of Land Management, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, Trout Unlimited, Saguache County Sustainable Environment and Economic Development, local landowners, and others. Mine tailings have washed down through Kerber Creek and are contributing metals to the waterway. The project involves tailings removal, in situ treatment, revegetation, installation of fish habitat structures, stream bank stabilization, and fencing to keep cattle from the rehabilitated areas. The partners are taking a holistic view of the watershed; major goals include increased forage area for cattle and wildlife, healthy stream morphology and biota, and removing Kerber Creek from that state's 303(d) list of impaired waterways. This is the final phase of a project which has last over a decade.
The Kerber Creek Restoration Project Partnership proposes hiring a Southwest Conservation Corps crew for two weeks in 2009 for work involving tailings treatment, stream bank stabilization, removal of inappropriate fencing, and installation of prescribed fencing. The addition of a Southwest Conservation Corps crew would greatly increase the amount of restoration work which could be completed on Kerber Creek in 2009.
Project Location:
The project is active along the 17 miles of Kerber Creek and over 60 acres of tailings between Bonanza and Villa Grove in Saguache County, CO. The Kerber Creek watershed is designated HUC 1301000302 and is located at 401587.04 N 4233921.32 E.
Other Kerber Creek Restoration Project downloads:
Colorado Watershed Restoration Program - Grant Application
Kerber Creek Winter 2009 Newsletter
Kerber Creek Spring 2009 Newsletter