Nonprofit Gears Up for Drone Studies on Hwy 82

A local nonprofit is gearing up to use drones and other technology to map a stretch of Highway 82 to best understand wildlife crossing options.

Roaring Fork Safe Passages (RFSP) is in the second stage of its work to plan infrastructure to reduce vehicle-wildlife collisions in the Roaring Fork Valley. An initial prioritization study identified a stretch of Highway 82 from the Aspen-Pitkin County Airport to the Woody Creek area as the best place to invest in terrain mapping and infrastructure feasibility. It runs from milepost 32.5 to 37.3.

According to RFSP, the segment averages 5.2 wildlife-vehicle collisions per mile per year — including 95 reported collisions with elk over 10 years. The Colorado Department of Transportation installed miles of wildlife fencing along parts of the stretch and a culvert at milepost 36.2 in 2000.

Julia Kintsch is the principal of ECO Resolutions, a Denver-based ecological consulting firm contracted by RFSP.

“We know how to design fences better to prevent animals from getting into a fenced section of roadway,” she said. “When you do have a fenced section of roadway and an animal gets in there, then they get trapped inside the fencing. It’s hard for them to exit, and they can be subject to a collision. That’s also bad for everyone.”

For example, cameras have caught many types of wildlife using the culvert. Elk, however, do not use the culvert due to its size. A longer, wider culvert would suit the animals better, she said.

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This culvert, installed by the Colorado Department of Transportation in 2000, works well for many types of wildlife to cross Highway 82 without actually crossing the road. Elk, however, have been found to avoid the culvert because it is too narrow.

Courtesy photo of Roaring Fork Safe Passages

Cecily DeAngelo is RFSP’s director. She said that doing the work at a local level, involving multiple stakeholders, makes opening doors to state and federal funding much easier.

“Once we’ve built coalitions like that, it just makes it a lot easier to be streamlined and in a better fiscal position to then go to CDOT and ask for assistance with this type of project,” she said. “Or ask for this type of project to be moved up in the line or prioritized differently than something that wasn’t necessarily on their work plan in the first place.”

Over the next few months, RFSP will work with a contractor using drone photogrammetry to develop high-precision terrain modeling and renderings, identify potential crossing locations and get cost estimates for the work.

Kintsch said that most options are still up for consideration, including under and overpasses.

Habitat fragmentation, development and recreation are all threats to wildlife. Finding an appropriate spot for a wildlife crossing requires consideration of the surrounding land. Land conserved as open space or publicly owned in some other way is ideal, but increasingly land is being developed. If it’s not a neighborhood they’re navigating, wildlife can cross agricultural space, a commercial development and even a landfill. One popular destination is the Pitkin County Solid Waste Center, where elk are known to bed down in the compost piles and bears find their primary food source.

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One-way gates along the wildlife fencing were once a best practice for wildlife fencing, but now escape ramps are preferred.

Courtesy of Roaring Fork Safe Passages

DeAngelo and Kintsch said that thinking about crossing locations will not relieve wildlife of the challenges they face and it won’t restore past migration patterns, but it is an important piece in the conservation puzzle.

“From the connectivity standpoint, I think we have to ask ourselves this question: ‘Are we OK with potentially losing all ability for animals to move north or south of a highway,’” Kintsch said. “We could lose that because of development, because of the highway, because of traffic, because of the other activities that we engage in.”

Working with local stakeholders to conserve the land that’s left is as important as the connectivity infrastructure, they said.

Pitkin County Open Space and Trails, the city of Aspen and the town of Snowmass Village have all pitched in to fund second-stage operations. The final stage has already been fully funded by private donations, DeAngelo said.

After design work is completed and stakeholders help direct a preferred crossing plan, RFSP will work with CDOT to capture state and federal funding for project implementation.

Smaller goals like existing fence improvements or culvert expansion could come first, while larger-scale projects would take more time, Kintsch said. Escape ramps could be easily installed along the existing fencing, providing a route out of the roadway easier for an animal than a one-way gate.

RFSP is hosting an event to educate the public and bring awareness to wildlife crossing fundraising strategies. From 4:30-6:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 4, at the rooftop of the Gant, RFSP will host Beth Pratt, the woman behind a $90 million fundraising campaign for a wildlife crossing bridge over a 10-lane highway in Los Angeles.

DeAngelo encouraged RSVPs to her email, cecily@roaringforksafepassages.org.

Originally posted in the Aspen Daily News.