The Coolest Way to Help Protect Your Favorite Outdoor Spaces? Build Beaver Dams.

‘We’re imitating beaver dams’ – About the Soda Creek Restoration Project

Photo: Kellon Spencer/Courtesy National Forest Foundation

The project Sharp described is an iconic example of conservation organizations putting money to use for the common good – and in addition to enjoying the natural splendor of the surrounding White River National Forest, you can be involved in future efforts. As a traveler and outdoor recreationist, it’s so critical that you are. Part of the work involves getting down and dirty to create what are effectively man-made beaver dams — because nobody protects their surroundings quite like a beaver.

The Soda Creek Restoration Project showcases how conservation of public lands and natural spaces works when the public, private, and non-profit sectors come together – in addition to the travelers that use these lands. The Soda Creek channel is upstream of Dillon Reservoir, a beautiful outdoor site in the high elevation of Summit County that hosts anglers, paddleboarders, boaters, and more in the summer months. The reservoir, however, is also a major source of drinking water for the Denver metropolitan area. As the state has grown and travel to it has increased, demands on its water resources have strained supply over the past century. The channel has been slowly degraded. The NFF came in three years ago to implement low-tech process-based solutions, including creating structures that replicate beaver dams and slow the flow of water while building habitat, to restore the watershed and in turn, draw birds and other wildlife back to the area.

Historically, the area was a wetland. But it is historically significant in Summit County as an agricultural area. Mushy, willowed areas aren’t conducive to farming,

“In order to farm the area, the stream was pushed to the side,” Sharp says.

As farming declined in priority in this high-elevation zone, the area degraded into a state that was not only bad for farming, but that couldn’t support the beavers, red foxes, elk, and other wildlife that had historically lived in the area. Nor, the native plant life.

“It looked like a beautiful meadow, but it had turned into a not-diverse meadow full of non-native grasses,” Sharp says. “The point of the project is to reclaim the ecosystem.”

The project is about three years in the making. Following permitting and planning, the project work completed now is will reestablish 29.9 acres of wetlands and rehabilitate 12.5 acres of existing wetlands. Low-tech process-based restoration involves stuff like building mand-made “beaver dams” that act to control the flow of water while helping the area return to its “wetland” state.

“It’s mostly handwork done with natural structures in the stream,” Sharp says. “This allows the habitat to return. We’re done with the project and will be monitoring it over a period of five years to ensure the 42.5 acres of wetland do return. It’s a preliminary success, and the next couple years will really confirm that.”

The project area is also a pilot site for future projects as part of the NFF’s innovative Colorado Western Slope In-Lieu Fee (ILF) Program. This allows for the development of wetland and stream compensatory mitigation sites to offset permanent impacts to aquatic resources throughout designated areas in Colorado, Sharp explained. Basically, when a developer wants to build in a wetland area, they have to offset that impact.

In the Blue River and Eagle River watershed drainage, tehre’s a lot of development, there’s a lot of impact to wetlands. By restoring this, we’reoffsetting the impact to those wetlands. This allows developers to buy credits in their development areas to offset their impact. If you develop a half-acre of wetland, you have develop a full acre of wetland to ensure a ‘no loss’ operation.”

Finding unique approaches to funding conservation and restoration efforts

Photo: Kellon Spencer/Courtesy National Forest Foundation

The Soda Creek Restoration Project saw funding from major companies like Coca Cola and Swire, two corporate partners that came on board to work with the NFF to support the project. This ability to partner with private sector businesses, unavailable to government entities such as the National Forest Foundation itself, helps the NFF diversify the funding streams for conservation and restoration efforts in the national forest system. The organization is outside the federal funding system and therefore not subject to congressional swings in terms of funding.

“The forest service can’t make those direct partnerships to get the funding onto the ground,” says Sharp. “We’re more nimble, we;re not a bureaucracy, we can do things more quickly. The idea of the NFF is to have a more nimble layer that can step in and help projects when necessary.”

Another layer is citizen engagement. The NFF actively wants you and fellow travelers to be engaged with restoration efforts in the areas where you like to recreate. The organizaiton lists ways to get involved on its website.

“We often have opportunities for volunteers to get out and engage with these different projects<” Sharp says. “It can be really meaningful work for volunteers. It’s immediately gratifying when you see structures in the stream that make the water level increase as you watch.”

If you aren’t able to volunteer, the NFF encourages donations to support the work on the ground.

“Water is something we all depend on, and the more we can get the word out and get the public excited, the more luck we’re going to have continuing to restore watersheds like this,” Sharp says.