PRESS RELEASE

For immediate release
August 23, 1999

For more information, call Gary Kimsey, 495-7427 or 221-2957, or Chuck Wanner, 484-0810

Friends Of The Poudre hires executive director

Friends Of The Poudre announced today that it has hired Charles (*Chuck*) Wanner, a Fort Collins civic leader and former business owner, as executive director of the grassroots watershed organization.

Wanner, whose duties began today, will oversee the organization's two main goals: to offer public education about the importance of the Poudre watershed in the lives of northern Colorado citizens and to build coalitions among watershed stakeholders to protect the river as a public resource for now and in the future.

Wanner will also oversee the implementation of a $27,000 grant from River Network, a national watershed organization based in Portland, Ore., which Friends Of The Poudre received in July.

The River Network grant calls for three projects: a water quality monitoring effort to be established for the first time along the length of the 136-mile river; coalition-building among stakeholders involved in river and water issues; and a public education effort which includes a River Ranger Program that relies on volunteers, starting in the summer of 2000, to increase the public's knowledge about the watershed.

Wanner, who holds a 1971 master's degree in public administration from the University of Colorado, Denver, was the owner of the Bike Broker in downtown Fort Collins from 1977 to 1997.

He has two decades of experience in local water issues and is highly knowledgeable about the many complicated issues which have the potential to impact the 1,866-square-mile watershed, particularly Fort Collins and the surrounding urban and rural areas.

Wanner was the volunteer president of a citizens river conservation group, Preserve Our Poudre, from 1981 to 1986. As leader of Preserve Our Poudre, he was instrumental in an effort to forge an agreement among local water developers and environmentalists that resulted in the passage of federal legislation which protected 76 miles of the upper Poudre River under the federal Wild and Scenic Act.

After the Poudre legislation was signed into law in 1986, Preserve Our Poudre, having accomplished its goal, purposely went out of business and was replaced in September 1986 by a new volunteer organization, Friends Of The Poudre, whose two original goals were to keep the river free from new dams and to open the 377-acre Gateway Park in the lower Poudre Canyon.

Thanks to $1.3 million in private and public funding that Friends Of The Poudre took a lead role in raising during the last 13 years, Gateway Park is scheduled to open in a year. The issue of damming the river in the lower Poudre Canyon remains alive.

In early 1998, Friends Of The Poudre expanded its mission to focus on additional issues that impact the watershed. Due to the complicated nature of such watershed issues as water quality, municipal and industrial development, rapid local population growth, flood plain protection, and other matters, Friends Of The Poudre reached a point where it was difficult for volunteers to stay abreast of the issues without help from a full-time, paid executive director.

Friends Of The Poudre is the first environmental group in the Fort Collins area to hire a full-time executive director.

The executive director position is funded by the River Network grant and from other sources through which Friends Of The Poudre raises funds, including the annual Poudre River Festival in June. Wanner's salary will not be publicly disclosed due to personnel and privacy reasons.

FOP