Joy and grit were in abundance during a recent Roaring Fork Outdoor Volunteers (RFOV) field day, as nearly 50 volunteers navigated mud, rain and a bit of hail to help restore and support the Roaring Fork Watershed’s best engineers: the beavers. With generous funding from the Roaring Fork Outdoor Coalition, RFOV partnered with Wilderness Workshop, Defiende Nuestra Tierra and the U.S. Forest Service to install innovative beaver dam analogues (BDA) throughout the Middle Thompson Creek area on Aug. 29.
“It was such a beautiful day,” RFOV Communication and Engagement Manager Tabatha Godoy said. “It’s so good for the community to work together, think differently with other people and then be proud of something you get to accomplish together.”
Designed to mimic beaver dams, BDAs are permeable, low-tech, human-made structures that temporarily pool water and gradually release it into the local water table and surrounding groundwater system. The crews hammered roughly 350 untreated wooden posts into designated areas and then wove natural materials, such as willow branches, to help create the dam.
“We’re putting in posts or rocks … to hold or slow the flow of the natural flood plain,” Wilderness Workshop Outdoor Programs Coordinator Sheehan Meagher said. “Ideally, if you [build BDAs] for riparian restoration, it will create a habitat that the beaver will move into eventually.”
In Colorado, wetlands comprise nearly 2% of the land surface area and provide habitat for nearly 75% of the state’s species. Beavers, a keystone species, help shape and enrich this landscape by creating habitat for freshwater fish, connecting the water table and wetland vegetation, increasing stream channel complexity, catching sediment, reducing erosion, lessening the impact of drought and wildfire.
Over the years, climate change and overhunting have reduced the beaver population, and local activists, including Meagher, have supported legislation to limit hunting or killing of beavers on public lands.
Forest Service Fisheries Biologist Clay Ramey approached RFOV with the idea to install BDAs.
“I pay attention to fish habitat in the forest, protecting and improving it where and when it’s feasible,” Ramey said. “Productive beaver habitat and productive fish habitat are two sides of the same coin.”
In 2023 and 2024, the Forest Service partnered with Pitkin County Healthy Rivers Program to conduct a beaver habitat inventory at the headwaters of the Roaring Fork. Middle Thompson was identified as degraded from its historic, beaver-rich condition.
Defiende Nuestra Tierra was in attendance to break down language barriers, offering Spanish-language interpretation, while Ramey identified examples of intact and degraded riparian zones.
“We noticed that the Middle Thompson and Fourmile Creeks both dried out a month earlier than they normally do,” Meagher said. “One way we can hold that water longer and have those flows later in the year is [by] building BDAs higher up in the watershed.”
The organizations have been installing BDAs since 2024, including 22 BDAs at Butler Creek in Rifle to restore 5.5 acres of wetlands. Despite the inclement weather at the Middle Thompson project, the volunteers persevered and built over 40 BDAs in one day.
“Everyone was so excited for the rain, and then we got to see how the dams were backing up and holding water,” Godoy said. “It was fun to see that instant feedback.”
A collaborative ecosystem
The Middle Thompson project attracted the attention of the Roaring Fork Outdoor Coalition, a cross jurisdictional collaboration between local, state and federal governments in the Valley. The Coalition serves as a connector between land managers, nonprofits and community voices to strategically align values, share resources and pursue funding for conservation and outdoor recreation projects and programs. RFOV and Wilderness Workshop are part of its partner network.
“One of the coalition’s goals is to move from identifying regional priorities to actually implementing projects that have tangible benefits on the ground,” Coalition Chair Carly O’Connell said via email. “The Middle Thompson Creek project does that. It addresses watershed and ecological function, while also engaging volunteers in stewardship of the landscape.”
This year, the coalition launched a pilot Pooled Stewardship Investment account to support eight local projects that align with the coalition’s strategic priorities. The investment, totaling $137,000, received funding from Colorado Parks and Wildlife which was then matched by Pitkin County Open Space and Trails, City of Aspen, Town of Snowmass Village and Eagle County Open Space and Natural Resources.
“We are so fortunate to be in this valley where we have so many nonprofits, partners and agencies that work well together and accomplish so many things,” Godoy said.
The Middle Thompson project was identified by a group of nonprofit organizations and local conservation leaders and then evaluated by the coalition’s decision support toolkit. The project received $7,000.
“What excites me most is the broader lesson here: When regional organizations pool resources and work together, relatively modest investments can help get tangible projects on the ground,” O’Connell said.
O’Connell, who is also the Pitkin County Open Space & Trails Senior planner and landscape architect, emphasized the Valley’s interconnectedness.
“A healthy watershed doesn’t stop at a property boundary,” she said. “So our approach to conservation shouldn’t either.”
Roaring Fork Outdoor Volunteers invites the community to attend its Appreciation Party on Oct. 15 from 5 to 8pm at the Colorado Mountain College Spring Valley Campus. Free and open to all, the event will highlight projects, honor volunteers and celebrate stewardship. RSVP by Oct. 6 at www.rfov.org