Kirk Klancke
Fraser, Colo. District Water Manager

Flyfisherman Kirk Klancke has been working for 25 years to promote stream health in the Fraser River by leading his local TU chapter, educating and fund-raising through Riverstock music festival, and spearheading construction of a sediment basin to improve strangled spawning grounds for trout.

In a part of the country where tourism is our main industry, we should be putting our environment on a pedestal—it’s our golden goose. Denver Water diverts 60 percent of the Fraser River to the east side of the Continental Divide, and stream health from the headwaters down is in jeopardy. We’re campaigning to reach a tremendous compromise between the water company and the recreational users of the river: Let’s narrow the stream channel, flush the sediment from what’s left of the native flows, and create healthier streams. That’s not asking for much to preserve an ecosystem.

Nothing tastes better than the cutthroats I catch myself on the high-altitude lakes of Grand County, Colo., and I want my grandson to have the opportunity to experience that throughout his lifetime. But I think I can say that my generation has done a poor job as stewards.

As a district water manager I lobby for changes to the current Fraser River diversions by day, but my avocation begins where my vocation ends—this has been my life. As president of Trout Unlimited’s Colorado River Headwaters Chapter, I organized Riverstock, a music festival aimed at educating the community on river health and water conservation, and raised $3,500 for Colorado TU.

Construction of the sediment basin was a little more rocky, a little less rock-and-roll. I was not met warmly when I first called Denver Water in 2002, and the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) had been slow to respond while traction sand from the roadway was migrating into the stream. Our U.S. Forest Service district ranger, Craig Magwire, finally got the heads of Denver Water and CDOT in the same room. We said, ‘What don’t you like about this project? Why shouldn’t we move forward?’ They didn’t have an answer.

We can’t stop here. The Fraser is ground zero, a pristine mountain fishery that Eisenhower used to frequent, but I’m looking at other waterways on the West Slope with bull’s-eyes on them. We have to fight for them, too.

—As told to Kristyn Brady