Letter from the Director
Over the past year, the Coalition for the Poudre River Watershed (CPRW) continued to work with partners to address high priority restoration needs in the Cameron Peak burn area. This included treating over 4,000 acres of burned hillslopes with wood mulch with our partners at the USFS and City of Greeley, installing 93 post-fire treatments to protect water quality and improve habitat, and planting more than 6,000 ponderosa pine trees. We also were able to treat 120 acres of forested area to reduce the risk of future high severity wildfire, and worked closely with the many upper watershed communities as they started to plan for future wildfires. We also made strides to complete the design for a river resiliency project along the mainstem river corridor in Greeley and received funding to continue to advance the design of a fish passage project in the Town of Windsor. Our outreach and education program also grew immensely in 2022. We connected with over 5,000 community members through webinars, community meetings, watershed project tours, events like the annual Poudre RiverFest, volunteer projects and conferences.
The extraordinary generosity of our donors, volunteers and partners has allowed us to continue to implement our mission in the watershed for almost a decade. One of our 2022 highlights was our new partnership with Poudre Valley REA. With their staff and members, we held three reforestation days where we were able to plant 500 trees together. Through a generous donation from PVREA, we will be able to expand the treatment of one of our post-fire restoration projects in the summer of 2023.
In May of 2022, we had the honor of presenting the first Dick Jefferies Partner for the Poudre Award to Horse & Dragon Brewing Company. The award was named after CPRW’s founder, and watershed champion, who passed away in the spring. Horse & Dragon has been a long-time partner, donor, and friend of CPRW. We look forward to continuing the tradition of honoring Dick Jefferies and our partners for years to come.
The achievements we’ve made over the past decade are only just the beginning. With your support, we have been able to grow our organization’s capacity, expand our footprint to the entire watershed (all 1,219,038 acres of it!), respond quickly and efficiently to Colorado’s largest wildfire, support the efforts of the Northern Colorado Fireshed Collaborative, launch a long-term Citizen Science Water Quality Monitoring Program, and connect our communities to their local watershed through outreach and education opportunities. In 2023, we published a new five-year strategic plan with a 50-year vision for the watershed. We hope you will take time to read this new plan and join us in celebrating our 10-year anniversary all year long.
I continue to be humbled by the support of our community. We are proud to be your local watershed coalition. I hope to see you out on the river, a trail, or at one of our local watering holes this year.
-Hally Strevey, Executive Director
