Tougher standards OK'd for stream temps

Todd Hartman, Rocky Mountain News

Published January 10, 2007 at midnight

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Fish that are jeopardized by overheated Colorado waterways are expected to gain a measure of protection under tougher standards for stream temperatures that were adopted Tuesday.

Colorado's Water Quality Control Commission approved the new standards after five years of often contentious debate among industrial groups, water utilities and environmentalists.

The complicated litany of standards attempts to preserve water temperatures necessary for fish to survive. They include varying temperature limits for a number of species - both those favoring higher elevation, cold-water streams and those inhabiting the warmer stretches on the Colorado plains.

"This is a big step," said Steve Gunderson, chief of Colorado's water quality control division, which recommended the standards to the nine-member commission.

The standards will take effect over the next several years, as regulators examine each of the state's river basins, and implement updated rules for a variety of pollutants.

Environmentalists, along with the Colorado Division of Wildlife, praised the new standards, as well as the commission's adoption of "interim" temperature rules designed to protect trout species in the state's high country "gold medal" fishing streams. Those rules will apply within just a few months.

But at least one commission member was critical of various elements of the temperature standards, suggesting that they were regulatory overkill.

"We even heard the division (staffer) say this is a biologist's dream," said Paul Grundemann of the Centennial Water and Sanitation District. "This is going to create a huge amount of work for everybody - the division and everyone in the audience."

A number of human activities can shift water temperatures. Sewage treatment facilities and power plants can discharge water that's too warm into streams. And water diverted out of streams can leave low-flowing streams more susceptible to rising temperature - a particular danger to cold-water trout fisheries.

Elevated stream temperatures have hurt fish habitat in Bear Creek below Evergreen and were associated with outbreaks of disease in the Eagle and South Platte rivers, according to Colorado Trout Unlimited, an environmental group that has long fought for new temperature standards.

While all seem to agree adopting the new rules mark progress, they probably will have only limited impact.

That is because numerous exceptions are built into the numbers, and various interests will have the opportunity to tinker with limits on specific river segments.

Perhaps most significantly, water flows that shrink because of diversions for human use are exempt from the temperature rules, because Colorado water laws involving the right to divert water generally trump protections for fish.

But a Trout Unlimited representative said that the regulations do serve a purpose, whatever their limitations.

"Temperature is a very critical factor," said Amelia Whiting, the group's Colorado water project counsel. "If you don't have a standard in place, you don't know what you're shooting for."

Gunderson agreed, arguing that even the existence of the standard helps the public understand the environmental costs, even if the standard doesn't legally apply in some situations. It helps "people understand there are consequences - pluses and minuses" to how we use water, he said.

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