Frequently Asked Questions
About KVRC
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The Kawuneeche Valley Restoration Collaborative (KVRC) is a collection of organizations that share the goal of promoting a healthy and resilient Kawuneeche Valley to benefit ecological, recreational, and economic interests. KVRC includes representatives from:
Colorado State University
Grand County
National Park Service – Rocky Mountain National Park
The Nature Conservancy
Northern Water
Rocky Mountain Conservancy
Town of Grand Lake
United States Forest Service – Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests
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To date, KVRC has secured over $3 million, which includes a combination of grants and KVRC collaborators’ internal funding and in-kind resources.
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Restoring the Valley will take decades. Right now, we anticipate it will cost several million dollars over the first 10 years. However, that cost may change depending on conditions and circumstances.
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KVRC’s members include a diverse group of collaborators, some that work entirely within Grand County, Colorado, as well as organizations that work at a regional or statewide scale. Together, they focus on the Kawuneeche Valley in Grand County. The Valley extends from the high mountain passes in Rocky Mountain National Park southward to where the Colorado River meets Shadow Mountain Reservoir below the Town of Grand Lake, encompassing both public and private lands. To date, KVRC’s work is exclusively located in Rocky Mountain National Park.
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KVRC has a long-term plan to strengthen the Valley’s resilience and ability to adapt impacts of hotter and drier conditions. When KVRC’s work is finished, riverscape health will be restored, and water quality, wildlife habitat, aesthetics, and recreational uses will be improved.
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Engaging with the community and interested parties is critical to KVRC’s efforts. KVRC hosts annual site visits to fenced exclosures upstream of the Holzwarth Ranch as part of its outreach effort. To date, the group has focused on fundraising, planning, governance, and restoration plans within Rocky Mountain National Park. As KVRC continues its work, it will need input, collaboration, and participation from other community organizations, landowners, and interests to be successful.
The Kawuneeche Valley
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The Kawuneeche Valley extends from the high mountain passes of Rocky Mountain National Park to where the river meets Shadow Mountain Reservoir below the Town of Grand Lake, Colorado. Check out a map of the Valley here.
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In the past 100 years, the Kawuneeche Valley consisted of dense stands of tall willows that supported beaver habitat and biodiverse wetlands throughout the Valley. At one time, the wetlands were eight miles long and half a mile wide, and the ecosystem played a vital role in Colorado’s livelihoods, traditions, and water story. After a long history of human land uses, the Kawuneeche Valley struggles to sustain ecological functions today. The river is disconnected from its floodplain, wetlands have all but dried up, and biodiversity is not thriving. To remedy this, KVRC seeks to focus on drought mitigation, environmental resilience, and recreational opportunities. Restoration and adaptive management will protect the Valley, the communities and livelihoods that rely on it, and its wildlife.
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Historic land management practices, including beaver trapping and diverting water for irrigation via ditches, altered the Valley’s land and riverscape and greatly affected the hydrology of the Valley’s meadows. Further, over the last 20 years, overgrazing by elk and moose reduced the health of the Valley’s willows. The lack of quality habitat displaced beavers, which are essential “ecosystem engineers” for maintaining the health of rivers and wetlands because they provide vital services such as flood control and ecological resilience. The result is a Valley with unnaturally dry conditions and vegetation and a river struggling to survive.
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Riparian ecosystems like the Kawuneeche Valley provide essential benefits, including water purification, erosion control, wildlife habitat, and places for people to enjoy nature. The Kawuneeche Valley’s water quality benefits are significant; the watershed provides drinking water and recreation benefits to 40 million people on both sides of the Continental Divide.
The Valley’s Ecosystem
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Eight miles long and half a mile wide, the Valley historically supported vibrant ecosystems and dense stands of tall willows that native beavers used to build dams and support the wetlands. The Valley also supports native fish, elk, moose, birds, and other wildlife.
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Wetlands are areas of land covered by water that serve as a buffer to pollutants entering the stream and help control erosion by adding a sponge-like speed bump on a river. They support various ecosystems and biodiversity and are critical to the Valley’s health, the Colorado River, and watershed processes.
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Watersheds are natural drainage systems: they’re areas of land that transport and collect water into a common body of water, like a river or lake. Watersheds include a variety of ecosystems and types of land, including forests, wetlands, streams and rivers, and agricultural and municipal lands.
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The Kawuneeche Valley is critical to the Upper Colorado River Watershed, providing drinking and irrigation water to millions of people on both sides of the Continental Divide. The Valley’s wetlands serve as natural filters that enhance water quality, and its watershed offers recreational and economic value to surrounding communities.
Restoration Work
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Some restoration work may occur on private land. KVRC is committed to ensuring our approach to restoration is inclusive and cooperative with landowners. In keeping with that commitment, we’re working closely with landowners to ensure their goals and perspectives are included in decision-making under this restoration effort.
This work is essential to farmers and producers in the area. Healthy watersheds support agriculture by supplying water for irrigation and maintaining fertile soil. Watershed management practices like soil conservation and erosion control are critical to ensuring productive agriculture.
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Throughout the project, KVRC may request access to private land to monitor water and river processes to identify potential simulated beaver structure sites. Restoration involves several steps, including monitoring and assessing land, preparing sites, fencing and planting new willows, and allowing vegetation to grow. Since restoration is long-term, we anticipate our work to take decades.
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KVRC is committed to an inclusive process that seeks input from the diverse residents, businesses, landowners, and interests in the Valley and beyond. If you want to engage with KVRC’s work, please use the contact form on our contact page. You can also contribute to KVRC’s work through Rocky Mountain Conservancy’s Kawuneeche Valley Restoration Collaborative Fund.
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If you want to see KVRC’s work in action, sign up for one of our site visits this summer. If you cannot attend one of our tours, rest assured, you can still see restoration in Rocky Mountain National Park. Much of our restoration work can be viewed from the Holzwarth Historic Site. Make sure to check it out on your next visit!
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KVRC established four restoration sites in the Kawuneeche Valley: Beaver Creek, Upper Baker Creek, Lower Baker Creek, and Onahu Creek. Each of these creeks originates in Rocky Mountain National Park.
Click here to view our project site map.
Public and private entities both own land in the Kawuneeche Valley. As KVRC’s work continues, public-private collaboration will be crucial for successful long-term restoration at a geographic scale that improves the watershed. To date, KVRC’s work is exclusively located in Rocky Mountain National Park and has only been conducted by the KVRC collaborators and partners listed on our about page.
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Some of the proposed restoration activities for the next decade and beyond include:
• Using fences to limit elk and moose from eating the surviving willows, creating a safe space for beavers to potentially return.
• Removing non-native plants that compete for the willows’ space.
• Planting new willows and other riparian plants to restore native species.
• Building simulated beaver structures to raise groundwater levels, trap sediment, and reconnect floodplains by spreading water near the river.
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Evidence from other sites in the Intermountain West shows that KVRC’s proposed restoration approach will work. For example, property owners in rural areas use fencing to protect garden and landscape plants from browsing herbivores, including moose, elk, and deer. The practice is widely used, and fencing material is marketed and sold throughout North America. Similarly, a fenced plot in the Valley experienced a more than 200% increase in willow height over 10 years. As a result, a small beaver population now resides in the area and has re-started building dams.
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No, KVRC does not plan to reintroduce beavers. KVRC’s work is focused on reducing browse pressure on vegetation, raising the streambed and water table, and restoring the Valley’s native plant species.
The Kawuneeche Valley was once a vibrant home for beavers, and the restored ecosystem is likely to replicate this habitat. Beavers may naturally migrate back into the Valley as it becomes healthier, particularly as tall willows become available for forage and dam building. Natural migration has occurred at comparable sites in the region.
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To date, KVRC’s work is located exclusively within Rocky Mountain National Park. Our longer term vision includes working with willing landowners on restoration work on their properties, but to date KVRC has not conducted restoration on private lands.
KVRC is interested in partnering with landowners in the Valley in the future. If you are interested in learning more about future opportunities to work together, please contact us here.
Don’t Miss an Update
Our project team is hard at work to ensure the Valley and its wildlife return to the conditions that nature intended. As our work continues, there will be opportunities for you to join our team on field tours, site visits, and more!
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