There were days in the early 1980s when, if conditions were right, Dave Parri could catch a rainbow trout every 10 minutes while wading in the clear waters of the Colorado River downstream of Granby. 

Parri had traded the overcrowded fisheries of Pennsylvania, where he used to stand shoulder to shoulder with other anglers, for the peaceful waters of Colorado’s High Country when he moved to Grand County in 1979. 

But today the approximately 15-mile stretch of river between Granby and the small community of Parshall — an area once regarded as a premier trout fishery in the U.S. — has fallen into decline. 

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“Only the people who fished the river all through the ’80s know how good it was,” said Parri, a 31-year fly fishing and hunting guide. “What used to be large populations of trout turned into next to nothing.”

The construction of the 445-acre-foot Windy Gap Reservoir in 1985, built near the headwaters of the Colorado River to help divert water to more than a million people in the state’s northern Front Range cities, cut that section of river in two. Its dam constricted high seasonal flows, leading to sediment build up, while the reservoir’s shallow basin increased temperatures downstream. Major food sources for trout vanished. The fish population was decimated. 

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“It was a thriving, ecologically perfect river that had amazing insect life and trout life … and that was all eliminated,” Parri said. “It was an eye-opener for me and a heartbreaker for me at the same time.”

But things are starting to change, again, this time for the better.

A $33 million project now in its final stages is being hailed as a way to reverse the damage and revive the once pristine waters. 

The Colorado River Connectivity Channel, a roughly mile-long waterway carved along the south side of Windy Gap, reunites the river upstream of the dam near Granby. The connection allows for greater flow levels that will keep sediment moving downriver, balance water temperatures and, officials hope, restore aquatic health. 

The initiative is the largest of its kind in Colorado and is being spearheaded by a coalition group that includes Windy Gap’s operator, Northern Water. More than two decades in the making, the channel represents an unprecedented show of collaboration between a water provider, local government officials and environmental advocates. 

“We need long-term partnerships to keep our rivers alive,” said Kirk Klancke, president of the Colorado River Headwaters Chapter of Trout Unlimited, a key advocate for the project. “What we are doing in Grand County, I think, needs to be the precedent for every Western Slope county that’s having water diversion problems.”

There are already signs that the connectivity channel, which began delivering flows last fall, is working. Sculpin — a small, bottom-dwelling fish — was found in the waters in September. A primary food source for trout, the species had disappeared in that section of the river after it was dammed. 

But reaching that milestone was a long and arduous road, weighed down by years of negotiations, planning and fundraising. Recreators, advocates and community leaders hope it marks the beginning of a brighter chapter. 

Sounding the alarm 

It started with the bugs. 

While fishing, Parri remembers spawns of insects so prolific the swarm looked like flurries of snow dancing above the water. During his drives through Byers Canyon, which follows the Colorado River near Hot Sulphur Springs, the sky would be full of stoneflies.

But by the 1990s, locals who’d grown accustomed to bug-splattered windshields noticed their field of vision was becoming clearer. There were fewer and fewer bugs in the area — and that was a problem. 

Grand County property owner and avid angler Bud Isaacs at the time suspected it was indicative of a more widespread environmental problem. He alerted the Colorado chapter of Trout Unlimited — a national nonprofit dedicated to conserving coldwater fisheries — and was among the first to blow the whistle on Windy Gap. Isaacs died in 2022. 

The earliest meetings between Trout Unlimited and Northern Water over how to mitigate the problem began in the late ’90s, but action stalled for years. 

In 2006, Trout Unlimited’s national organization dispatched their lawyer, Mely Whiting, to help in the fight to protect the area’s watershed. Whiting soon embedded herself within the Grand County community, speaking with ranchers, anglers and irrigators who raised concerns over a shrinking Colorado River. 

With Northern Water seeking to build a far larger reservoir on the other side of the Continental Divide, intended to be the new permanent storage area for the water that was being temporarily held at Windy Gap, Whiting and others saw a renewed opportunity to make the connectivity channel a reality. 

Whiting and Trout Unlimited’s local chapter joined forces with Grand County government to push Northern Water to revisit the proposal, which was seen as a condition of the reservoir project moving forward. 

“Our argument was, ‘If you’re going to take more water, at a minimum, you have to fix the problems (Windy Gap) is causing now,'” Whiting said.

The water provider was reluctant at first, according to Whiting. But the group was able to bolster its case when Colorado Parks and Wildlife published a study in 2011 that revealed the fullest extent of the river’s decline. 

“Before that study came out, Northern Water, at multiple meetings, claimed no mitigation would be needed,” Klancke said. “Once they knew that they’d caused the problem, they were willing to deal with the impacts they’ve created up to today and with future impacts.”

Researchers compared insect counts to what was recorded in an original environmental impact study that had been commissioned by Northern Water prior to the reservoir’s construction in 1985. It found there had been a 38% decrease in insect species, including stonefly and mayfly, bugs critical to trout diet, since the river was dammed. 

Seasonal high flows were no longer strong enough to flush out sediment. The buildup created an inhospitable environment for insect hatches and filled in cobbles where sculpin were living. Downstream temperatures also increased, and cases of the fish-killing whirling disease proliferated. 

“This all has cascading effects on the ecology of the river that ultimately manifests itself in the inability of the river to maintain itself as a world-class trout fishery,” said Colorado Parks and Wildlife aquatic biologist Jon Ewert. 

The findings refuted the initial impact study that predicted there would not be any major changes to aquatic life, something Ewert said “they got absolutely wrong.” 

When Northern Water was presented with the data, Ewert said it took “time for it to soak in, for everybody to grasp the implications of the findings” but that it resulted in “them coming to the table.”

Northern Water spokesperson Jeff Stahla said when the organization commissioned its original environmental impact study in the 1980s it “didn’t have an in-house river biology unit, so (Northern Water) depended on what the best available science was at the time.”

Stahla said Northern Water’s primary mission remains being a water provider for its 1 million customers up and down the northern Front Range corridor. But, he added, “I think certainly we have grown as an organization to be much more aware of the river system where we work.”

‘Like trying to go skiing when there’s no snow’

The loss of insects and sculpin devastated the trout population. 

In subsequent studies following the 2011 report, Parks and Wildlife researchers recorded a steep decline in the number of trout over 14 inches long, which are considered the gold standard. 

Prior to the reservoir there were around 50 of those trout per acre in the downstream section of the river while in the best years there could be as many as 100 per acre, according to Ewert. Today, the river can see as little as 12-15 fish over 14 inches per acre and just up to 50 in the best conditions. 

“The best years today are the same as the worst years in the ’80s,” Ewert said. 

Wayne Balnicki, a 22-year resident of Grand County, described the downstream stretch as the “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde river because you never knew what you were going to get.” 

Balnicki has lived in the county full time since 2001 after moving from Denver. For him, the county’s status as a recreation mecca was its greatest allure. 

“My entire career I worked inside of office buildings, and for me a vacation is being outdoors,” said Balnicki, who described fishing as a remedy for both body and mind.

Enamored with the hobby, he became a fly fishing guide in 2011, sharing his love of the river with other eager recreators. 

“But over the years, you notice a trend. There’s less fish, less trout, and they’re smaller — and every year they seem to get smaller and smaller,” Balnicki said. “Eventually, I stopped guiding because it wasn’t fun anymore.”

Balnicki, who retired as a guide in 2020, felt visitors were paying to have a fishing experience that no longer existed — something he said has economic ripple effects throughout the area. 

Nearly half of all jobs in Grand County, 46%, are tourism-related, including outdoor recreation, according to a 2024 quarterly report by the Northwest Colorado Council of Governments. The statistics are similar for the greater region, including counties like Summit, Eagle, Routt and Pitkin. 

A recent study commissioned by Parks and Wildlife shows an estimated $1.1 million Coloradans engaged in water-based activities in the mountain region west of Denver last year. In total, outdoor recreation spending generated $17.8 billion in economic output for the region, supporting over 127,000 jobs and $5.7 billion in labor income. 

Balnicki said the degradation of fisheries, like what has happened below Windy Gap, threatens that economic vitality. 

“The river was slowly dying. It’s like trying to go skiing when there’s no snow,” he said. “It makes it very difficult for people who live up here and who do guide.”

Ewert said despite the reservoir’s impacts, the downstream stretch of the Colorado River is still considered a Gold Medal fishery. The designation is awarded by Parks and Wildlife to state rivers that contain a minimum stock of 12 trout over 14 inches per acre and a minimum of 60 pounds of trout per acre. 

But while the Windy Gap area used to “far exceed that criteria several times over,” it is now “flirting with falling below Gold Medal standards,” Ewert said. 

Mending the river — and trust 

Stakeholder groups involved with the Windy Gap connectivity project are optimistic the efforts will not only halt the river’s decline, but also begin to restore its legacy as a renowned fishery. 

The recent discovery of sculpin both in the channel and downstream is seen as an important marker for river health. Trout, too, have begun to flourish in greater numbers. The fish have been seen traveling downriver from above Windy Gap, traversing nearly the same path as before the reservoir was created. 

“Things can happen surprisingly quickly in the world of trout rivers,” Ewert said. “I have high hopes that we’ll be seeing some immediate positive impacts.”

Nearly half the funding for the $33-million project came from federal dollars, which accounts for over $16 million. The Colorado Water Conservation Board contributed just over $7 million while Northern Water provided nearly $5 million. Other funds include $1.7 million from Trout Unlimited, which it raised in-part from major corporate sponsors, $1 million from the Grand County government and $1 million from the Colorado River District. 

The connectivity channel is linked to a larger initiative by Northern Water to build a new, 90,000-acre-foot reservoir west of Loveland called Chimney Hollow. The reservoir, projected to cost over $550 million, will replace Lake Granby as the permanent storage area for the water that flows into Windy Gap — which has been reduced to about half its original size — and eventually makes its way to the Front Range. Stahla, the Northern Water spokesperson, said the new reservoir is needed to make its water delivery systems more reliable. 

Chimney Hollow is expected to hold water starting next year. Both it and the connectivity channel are scheduled to open for public recreation in 2027, with the later needing time for new foliage — planted alongside its banks to support the ecosystem — to take hold. 

“Water infrastructure is something that you can’t just build overnight,” Stahla said. “Over the past decade, we’ve learned a lot more about river science and how to create an optimal, artificial channel to meet the needs of the fish and the insects.”

Stahla said the effort has mended trust between the water provider and community groups, something he hopes can be modeled across the High Country in places that represent the epicenter of the West’s water woes. 

“The biggest outcome is that the relationships that have been built as part of this project are going to have long-lasting, positive impacts for all the future activities that are being done in the headwaters of the Colorado,” Stahla said. 

Whiting, the Trout Unlimited lawyer, who has since retired, said the project gave stakeholder groups a chance to redefine their relationship — once adversarial — as collaborative. 

Throughout the decades-long process, Whiting never took formal legal action against Northern Water over the impacts of Windy Gap. She ultimately believes that was for the best. 

“Should you put your money in litigation or should you put your money into trying to work together?” Whiting said. “Each community faces their own set of issues, but, if anything, there is some merit in talking. I think, hopefully, we’re facing this challenge together and not just the conservation community on one side and the water developers on the other.”

Longtime anglers say they’re ready to see the fruits of that labor. 

At age 79, Balnicki, the retired fishing guide, hopes to experience the return of the river’s glory days in his lifetime. 

Parri, the longtime outfitter, is nearing the end of his guiding career. But a renewed stretch of river is reason enough to stay out on the water. 

“I don’t know if it will ever get back to how good it used to be,” he said. “But I have nothing but a very, very positive outlook on the future of trout fishing on the Colorado. It will rebound, like anything in nature.”