Now scheduled for completion in Fall of 2013, the Yampa River Structures Project will:

• Design.
• Engineer.
• Permit.
• Build.
• Improve.
• Maintain.

The Yampa River is an iconic symbol of Northwest Colorado.  Running wild and free for most of its 250 mile course, from its source in the Flat Tops to majestic confluence with the Green River in Echo Park, the Yampa serves many uses.  In Hayden, the river helps cool the coal turbines, in Maybell it floods fields of hay, in Dinosaur it spawns native fish and in Steamboat Springs it provides a myriad of recreational and environmental uses.

In August of 2012, after months of fundraising, the Friends of the Yampa received a grant from the State of Colorado’s Water Conservation Board to carry out a project titled the Yampa River Structures Project. This project will design, engineer, permit, build and improve on several instream, recreational and environmental rock structures in the Yampa River, in downtown Steamboat Springs, Colorado.

These structure projects include: regrading and replanting riparian habitat, creating formalized river access points, removing debris from the river, repair/enhancing existing boating structures and installing a new boating structure.

This section of river has been identified by the Yampa/White/Green Basin Roundtable as one of the major recreational reaches of the river in the Basins Non-Consumptive Needs Assessment. This reach of river has the “Highest recreation use along the entire Yampa River allowing for multiple recreational opportunities and includes the only Recreational In-Channel Diversion in entire Yampa/White/Green Basin”, according to Phase I of the NCNA.

The Yampa River Structures Project will carryout a portion of the City of Steamboat Springs’ Yampa River Structures Master Plan (YRSMP) which was a combined effort between consultants, the City and the general public to provide  “a framework for instream and riparian area improvements that will optimize the recreational benefits of the river while protecting its ecological integrity.”  The YRSMP wasapproved in November 2008 by the City of Steamboat Springs.  This plan reviewed 6.4 miles of the Yampa River and riparian corridor located along City owned property. It identified over $3.5 million dollars of potential river work.

The YRSMP identified seven 7 locations within the proposed project reach and 5 types  of river structures to work on including: regarding and replanting riparian habitat, creating formalized access points, removing debris from the river, repair/enhancing existing boating structures and installing a new boating structure.

Work is now scheduled to be completed in Fall of 2013.

Read article from Steamboat Pilot regarding this project.