Dolores River Boating Advocates

---General: Dolores River Boating Advocates (DRBA) has a unique niche as a local conservation and whitewater boating advocacy group. We are the only group solely focused on the Dolores River landscape and we are dedicated to working collaboratively toward lasting solutions. We help bring people together around complicated issues facing the Dolores River and we serve as a voice for the river. We educate the public and provide valuable recreational information to those rafting the Dolores River. Our collaboration with other groups in Colorado and our leadership in local conversations about the Dolores River has made us a strong and relevant organization locally and regionally. ---Advocacy, Long-term Protection Work: Our advocacy work is focused on securing long-term protection for the Dolores River Canyon Country below McPhee Reservoir, and guarding against potential damaging development proposals related to the river and adjacent public lands. The National Conservation Area proposal that we have worked on closely with diverse stakeholders made significant progress in 2023. This bi-partisan legislation that would protect a portion of the lower Dolores River in Montezuma, Dolores, and San Miguel Counties, including 76 river miles and almost 70,000 acres, was reintroduced in both the Senate and House in the new session of Congress. The Senate Natural Resources Committee held a hearing on the bill and then in December it passed out of the Committee in a subsequent mark-up session on a unanimous voice vote. We also worked with the Dolores River Coalition which is made up of local, regional, and national conservation and recreation organizations that have an interest in protecting the Dolores River, and in 2023 that Coalition developed a proposal for a Dolores Canyons national monument around the Dolores River in Montrose and Mesa Counties. In 2023 we continued to serve as the co-chair of the Native Fish Monitoring and Recommendation Team which works to benefit native fish and the river environment downstream of McPhee Reservoir. --Stewardship and Partnership Work: Operating within our established MOUs, in 2023 we continued to partner with three Bureau of Land Management field offices spanning four counties to engage in stewardship activities that benefited the Dolores River. Specifically, DRBA coordinated and conducted our annual river campsite maintenance and monitoring on the lower Dolores in partnership with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to improve campsite visibility, quality, and recreational safety. We coordinated a boat launch cleanup and clearing volunteer project at Bradfield Bridge that was attended by 12 volunteers, and we had 2 volunteers that cleaned up fire rings in campsites along the Ponderosa Gorge of the Dolores River. In 2023 we also continued supporting the USFS by providing a bathroom for the 5-month high use period at a popular river take-out adjacent to the town of Dolores. We continued to financially support the maintenance of a USGS river gauge at Slick Rock ---Education Programming: Our River School youth and family education programs continued to evolve and successfully serve a diversity of youth in 2023. We were again able to serve over 600 youth in our community this year. Our youth programs continue to include river trips, school field trips, and in-class programming. We also continued our river trip and Paddle Day programs with the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe to provide fun paddle experiences in partnership with the Tribes summer youth program. We implemented our summer camp program again for middle school age youth, which was once again a huge success. Based on our experience with the first two years of the program, we have decided to offer two sessions and serve over twice as many youths next year. All of this programming is provided at no cost to youth, families, and schools. Much of this work was conducted as part of our partnership with the Montezuma Inspire Coalition, which has a goal of getting all youth in local communities in a meaningful way and inspiring future stewards of the river. We engaged 24 volunteers during the implementation of our youth programs in 2023.---Outreach and Education: We held our annual Permit Party and Silent Auction Fundraiser in person in Dolores, CO after holding the event online for the past two years due to the pandemic. Over 250 people attended the event which included films, a band, a silent auction, and local food and beverages. We engaged 30 volunteers for planning, setup and cleanup, and production of the event. We continued selling the new official Dolores River Guide for the Dolores River that we released in 2021 and it sold out. The guide includes a unique education and outreach section, including information about advocacy work on the Dolores River. The proceeds from selling the guide will be used to produce the next version of the guide which will be released in 2024. We were a sponsor of and participated in the Dolores River Festival in 2023. We had an outreach booth and also provided free raft rides for community members as part of this event. 25 volunteers helped with that effort. We participated in a film/outreach event roadshow around Colorado in 2023 to build support for long term protection, highlighting the values of the Dolores Canyons landscape and the need for protection.