Improvements to the
“Ponderosa is too constrained, and the wave is too powerful. So we want to widen it,” Cathy Metz told the Natural Lands Preservation Advisory Board on Monday.
The city had planned to do maintenance on the park in the spring and again this fall, but it was delayed twice. During the fall work could have been done in conjunction with the construction to correct the flow of the river. This work had to be done so the Animas River would continue to flow into Santa Rita River intake for municipal use.
But the city bids for the Whitewater Park construction came in higher than expected, and so the project had to be rebid.
The work done for the intake should reduce the power and velocity of Smelter Rapid, and it also included fish ladders to allow fish to swim upstream, Metz said.
The work within the Whitewater Park will require trackhoes, and it take place over several weeks.
The river and the Animas River Trail will be remain open while during construction.
The project will likely not be the last time the city works on the Whitewater Park.
“We do expect there to be periodic maintenance of this structure,” she said.
The grouted structures are holding up well, but rocks that have just been placed are moving around.
The city does not have any specific plans for more work after the winter project.
The board also heard from Lynn Wickersham, an owner of Animas Biological Studies, on a bird study now in its third season.
The Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship study is a joint project between the city and Colorado Parks and Wildlife to better understand the 38-acre Oxbow Preserve along the Animas River.
Similar MAPS studies are done across North America. They help track bird populations on a large scale.
On a small scale, the studies can help guide conservation decisions, she said.
During study at the Oxbow Preserve, researchers netted fewer birds this year than they have in the previous two years.
In 2016, they captured 280 birds and banded 160. This is down from the more than 300 birds they caught in 2015 and 2014.
But there is not enough data to suggest the bird population is declining, she said.
It could be the birds have started to avoid the nets because the areas around them looked disturbed, she said.
“There is going to be an avoidance factor,” she said.
The most common birds researchers caught were house wrens, black-chinned hummingbirds, gray catbirds, Rufous hummingbirds and song sparrows.
The planned development of the adjacent Oxbow Park could disturb the birds, but it’s not an inappropriate use of the land because the whole area is close to town and in constant disturbance, Wickersham said.
mshinn@durangoherald.com
