Education & Outreach 

Project WET (Water Education for Teachers)

CWN's new state coordinator for Project WET, Jo Scarbeary, is building Project WET across the state. Thanks to  a grant from the Colorado Water Conservation Board, CWN is able to build this award winning program in Colorado. In partnership with Colorado's Project Wild and Learning Tree, Colorado Project WET helps support 150 education facilitators statewide. Working with the facilitators and other partners, we are building more specialized and longer workshops, reaching out to additional pre-service programs, and partnering with watershed groups, counties and municipalities. Since March, 2007, we've  reached over 300 educators. 

For more information on how to participate or get trained to be a facilitator, please email Jo at jo.scarbeary@coloradowatershed.org 

For the Project WET, Wild, PLT, and FPL Workshop Schedule click here.

Sustaining Colorado's Watershed Conference

CWN successfully chaired the 2007 conference, with total registration over 30% more than last year (281). This conference is in partnership with the Colorado Watershed Assembly, Colorado Riparian Association (CRA), Colorado Lakes and Reservoir Management Association, and AWARE Colorado. CWN will co-host the third annual partner watershed conference this fall in Vail. For more information, contact this year's chair, Carolyn Schott, CRA board chair: cschott@rkymtnhi.com. 

Data Sharing Network

The Colorado Data Sharing Network (CDSN) is a collaborative project that was envisioned by the Colorado Water Quality Monitoring Council (CWQMC) in 2004. The CDSN was formed to solve many of the issues that have historically plagued water quality data management in Colorado. These data management solutions will also seek to satisfy some of the top priorities echoed throughout the Colorado NPS (Non-Point Source) Grant Program, the Colorado WQCD (Water Quality Control Division), United States EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), the CWQMC, and others. Goals of this project are to:

• Establish a water quality data management system that meets the needs of Colorado’s NPS Grant Program and local data providers (manages input, output, and simple data manipulations for monitoring results).

• Establish a web-based map, in compliment to the data management system, that shares monitoring locations, contact information, monitoring objectives, what is monitored and how.

• Actively nurture use of the system for three years through outreach, strategically timed user trainings, guidance documents, and user support.

• Implement a sustainability strategy for future support and use

In order achieve these goals, the CDSN project utilizes existing technologies such as EPA’s STORET (STOrage and RETrieval) database, SIM (Storet Import Module), and Region 10 ArcIMS application (interactive mapping tool). These technologies will be available via the internet, to facilitate access and usability of the network. The use of these tools will greatly reduce technical and fiscal barriers to proper data management, provide a universal format for inter-agency data exchange, allow 319 NPS Grant funded programs to meet their guideline requirements (upload to STORET), and ultimately expedite the availability of water quality datasets to decision makers.  Contact Sarah for more information.

CDSN has gone to every major basin in the state except for the Arkansas and Rio Grand. Those will be visited this spring.

CDSN data swap and training in Glenwood Springs, November 2006

Watershed Planning

CWN offers two types of watershed planning support. 

First, we can provide start up assistance to fledgling watershed groups by extending our 301(c)3 nonprofit status through an operating agreement, as it did for the Cherry Creek Stewardship Partners.  By acting as a fiscal agent, CWN saves the Partners money and allows them to focus on stewardship by handling audits, liability insurance, and general administration.

CWN can also help groups to develop and implement watershed management and monitoring plans.  With experienced watershed coordinators and water resource specialists on staff, CWN will work with organizations and their stakeholders to provide sound solutions that make sense on a local level.  For more information, contact Jacob.