Core Goals

Core Goals of the Western Hardrock Watershed Team

Wild West Night is an annual fundraiser for the North Fork River Improvement Association in Hotchkiss, CO.

The Western Hardrock Watershed Team (WHWT) is a regional partnership of community/watershed groups committed to addressing the challenges left by more than a century of mining in the West. We recognize that simple capacity is often our greatest challenge, so the WHWT works with state mining offices and the national VISTA program to place full-time OSM/VISTA Volunteer positions that serve the impoverished regions of the Hardrock mining West. Our mission is to fight poverty and provide rural mining communities with the assistance they need to make their watershed communities cleaner, healthier, and safer places to live and work. OSM/VISTAs now serve rural community/watershed organizations in Colorado with plans to expand into other Western states.

Goal 1: Many Western Hardrock volunteer watershed organizations lack the time, skills, and knowledge to effectively and successfully address regional issues of unemployment and poverty, water contamination and degraded aquatic habitat, the need for economic redevelopment, and the challenge of engaging more citizens in these concerns. The Western Hardrock Watershed Team works to build the capacity of participating organizations, enabling their long-term stability and success.

Goal 2: Many of the participating community/watershed organizations have not had the time, knowledge or skills necessary to adequately identify and effectively monitor water quality and to bring this information to the community. The WHWT supports watershed research and water-quality monitoring critical to future funding, project development and implementation, and community support.

Students in Lake City, CO, participates in building a model watershed with the Lake Fork Watershed Stakeholder's Watershed Trailer.

Goal 3: If clean water and its economic benefits are to become community goals, much broader engagement in watershed issues must be developed. The Western Hardrock Watershed Team OSM/VISTAs assist their sponsor organizations in enhancing community awareness and involvement through education and outreach.

Goal 4: Communities throughout the Hardrock Mining West have experienced the periods of boom and bust characteristic of mining. Many communities search for an alternate economy, others are creating a tourist-based economy but still struggle to preserve their mining heritage. Little infrastructure or public river access for recreational development exists, as historically that land is privately owned. The WHWT supports community revitalization through economic redevelopment projects that increase awareness, understanding and access to local history, culture, and the continuing relationship between the river and the community.

Volunteers monitor the headwaters of the Lake Fork of the Gunnison near Lake City, Colorado.

Goal 5: Serving with the WHWT and a sponsoring watershed group is not only a benefit and opportunity for the community and organization; it must also be an opportunity for the individual serving the Watershed Team. All Western Hardrock Watershed Team sponsors will support the OSM/VISTA member to better prepare him or her to become a valuable Team member, broaden his or her ability to engage with watershed and community development issues, and enhance his or her opportunities for professional development and future employment.