Pitkin County recently approved an updated management plan for the North Star Nature Preserve.
The area is a popular destination for recreationists to float down the Roaring Fork River, but it’s also a wildlife-rich ecosystem surrounded by private homeowners.
Balancing those interests has made it a local political flashpoint and the highest priority project for Pitkin County’s Open Space and Trails Board.
Elizabeth Stewart-Severy has closely followed the issue for years, and she covered the recent developments for Aspen Journalism.
Stewart-Severy spoke with Aspen Public Radio’s Michael Fanelli and said discussions around the new management plan were less contentious than in previous years. But users may notice some changes this summer, especially in a record-low water year.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Michael Fanelli: This most recent plan that was just approved at the end of March — it seems like it wasn't as controversial, maybe as actions have been in previous years. It seems like maybe the temperature has come down on this a little bit?
Elizabeth Stewart-Severy: I think it is fair to say that the temperature has come down for sure. The conservation easement at North Star required an update to the management plan every five years, and there was a long range of time where the county did not update the management plan. And we really saw that come to a head in the 2010s — around 2015 — when there was lots of overuse and heavy recreation out there. And the management plan hadn't been updated in a long time.
There have been several updates to the management plan since 2015 and little addendums in the mix there to try to get a handle on that recreational use and improve the visitor experience, while also ensuring that the county is doing everything it can to create the best conditions for wildlife and vegetation out there. So I think that all that work over the past 10 years has really shown that the community — in this round — that everybody wanted the same goal.
Fanelli: Tell me about some of the highlights of this new plan. There’s a new peak use policy, right?
Stewart-Severy: There is a major focus on adaptive management, and the county has worked on that in the past. They've identified 39 different indicators, most of them are ecological conditions with these thresholds that are described as kind of like red flags when the county can know that things need to be readdressed, and a piece of that certainly is peak use. That's probably the area where visitors to the area will see the most changes with what they're used to out at North Star.
And it doesn't seem like it will be anything major, but you might see more signs on the busiest days. There's a possibility that the county will have the parking lot at Wildwood, be just a drop-off area on those super congested days in the summer.
Fanelli: So essentially, they're going to keep an eye on it on these really busy days. And this new plan gives them the power to kind of control crowds, like where they can say, “Okay, no more people today?”
Stewart-Severy: They haven't said that they will cut off use. The county doesn't have jurisdiction, but they can manage the number of cars, and they can manage the number of commercial operators. The number of commercial operators has been a point of contention in the past, certainly at North Star, because there's a lot of people who feel strongly that the original conservation easement does not allow for commercial use of the property. Pitkin County Open Space and Trails staff have been clear that they feel that working with a few commercial operators is beneficial, because then there's a conduit for education and for stewardship of the area that doesn't come when people are just arriving on site without any background knowledge.
Fanelli: But I mean, technically, could they limit the number of river users?
Stewart-Severy: No, so Colorado law is pretty clear that if it's a navigable river, the public is allowed to go on the river as long as they don't touch the bottom or the banks.
Fanelli: A big part of the controversy is the wildlife and habitat, especially for beavers, which are a very important species. It seems like, from reading your story, that there may be disagreement over whether there should be more beavers there.
Stewart-Severy: Yes, we've come to a place where everybody agrees that beavers are good, which is actually major progress. Prior to the early 2000s, a lot of neighbors were actually killing beavers — were just shooting the beavers out there primarily for mosquito control. So when beavers create ponds, it creates that still water that mosquitoes love, and nobody wants that in their backyard. So, beavers had been wiped out of North Star by people who didn’t want standing water, and beavers have been seen as a nuisance for a long time. And the public opinion, based on the science, is really shifting on that. And so the county has been passively welcoming beavers back out at North Star for quite a while now.
There are some neighbors who would like to see the county working on actively reintroducing more beavers. There was some questioning of Jonathan Lowsky, the wildlife biologist, like “when will we know when we've hit max capacity for beavers in this stretch?” And he said that North Star is above what you would expect to see. Beavers per mile of river is much higher at North Star than you would see in a lot of other places. That's a really variable number depending on what the habitat is like.
So this is not an exact black-or-white science, but what is clear is that there are many beaver colonies out at North Star. That beaver activity has encouraged more Willow growth, which provides more cover for animals, and you're seeing a cascade of benefits.
Fanelli: What comes next? What are you following at this point?
Stewart-Severy: Well, it will be interesting to see how the adaptive management shakes out over the course of the summer, and the county does see that the heaviest visitation at North Star depends on conditions during the summer. So if we are in a drought where there is very little water in the river, they may need to take certain actions to protect the river.
So we typically see that the river levels drop, where you're no longer able to float it, later in the summer. We may see that happen much earlier in the summer because of this low snowpack year.
Fanelli: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk today, Elizabeth. I really appreciate it.
Stewart-Severy: You bet, thanks for having me.
