A road may not seem like a traditional conservation project, but in Colorado’s San Juan National Forest, improvements to Cottonwood Road are helping pave the way for healthier forests, improved wildlife habitat, better public access and more effective forest management.
The National Wild Turkey Federation partnered with the USDA Forest Service to complete the Cottonwood Road project on approximately 7.5 miles of National Forest System Road 532, north of Dolores, Colorado. The project reconditioned and resurfaced the road, improved drainage infrastructure and replaced a weight-restricted, one-lane bridge over Mavreeso Creek with a large culvert. The work was designed not only to address immediate safety and access concerns, but also to support future active forest management on the Dolores Ranger District.
For NWTF members, that connection is important. Healthy forests require active management, and access is often a critical piece of the equation. By improving Cottonwood Road, the project reduces the distance timber and forest products need to be hauled from future management projects. It also creates an alternate route for timber-hauling trucks, reducing the need for heavy truck traffic through the town of Dolores.
That means the benefits of the project extend well beyond the road itself.
“Having reliable infrastructure in place is an important part of being able to implement active forest management projects,” said Molly Pitts, NWTF Active Forest Management manager. “Projects like Cottonwood Road demonstrate how strategic investments and strong partnerships can improve access while helping create the conditions needed to improve forest health and wildlife habitat.”
Over the course of the project, crews addressed narrow sections of roadway and limited sight distance, removed roadside vegetation to improve visibility, added gravel and resurfaced the full 7.5-mile stretch. Crews also cleaned and replaced culverts and extended existing culverts to accommodate the wider roadway.
The project also addressed water-quality concerns by replacing drainage structures that were no longer functioning properly and improving the road’s ability to move water across the landscape.
At Mavreeso Creek, crews removed the existing one-lane, weight-restricted bridge and installed a large culvert structure. Local streambed material was placed through the new structure and along disturbed streambanks, with erosion-control measures and seeding incorporated into the work. Together, those improvements create a more durable transportation system while helping reduce impacts to surrounding resources.
“It was a pleasure to work with NWTF and MEDVED Global to accomplish an important transportation system project that will benefit the community, land management efforts, and recreational users for decades to come,” said Cody Jones, civil engineering technician with the San Juan National Forest.
For NWTF, the Cottonwood Road project represents an important aspect of conservation work that is sometimes overlooked: good infrastructure can make good land management possible. Across the West, many forests face a combination of dense vegetation, wildfire risk, changing forest conditions and limited capacity to conduct needed management. Improving roads and other infrastructure can help land managers more efficiently access areas where forest treatments are needed and make it more feasible to remove forest products from those projects.
Active forest management can help create a healthier mosaic of forest conditions, including openings, diverse vegetation and varied age classes that provide food, cover and nesting habitat for wild turkeys and other wildlife. Improving access to conduct that work is therefore an important part of the larger conservation picture.
The improved road width, surface and visibility provide safer, more reliable access for recreational users traveling through the San Juan National Forest. The improvements are expected to serve forest visitors, land managers and the local community for years to come.
The Cottonwood Road project was implemented through a partnership between NWTF and the Forest Service under a Supplemental Project Agreement with Forest Service Region 2.
For NWTF, partnerships like this demonstrate the value of working across agencies and organizations to accomplish conservation projects that deliver multiple benefits at once.
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