Restoring Rampart Range: Cadets continue Waldo Canyon Scar erosion control effort Published Sept. 27, 2013 By John Van Winkle Academy Public Affairs U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. -- Scores of Academy cadets and other volunteers gathered at the top of the Rampart Range Watershed near Woodland Park Sunday to clear and clean a 250-acre stretch of the Waldo Canyon burn scar. Drainage from the remote watershed brings water along West Monument Creek to the Colorado Springs Utilities' water treatment plant on the Academy, which treats a majority of the city's drinking water. "It's difficult to treat water when it's full of sediment and ash," said Kenneth Carlson, principal soil scientist for Habitat Institute, Inc. Colorado Springs Utilities asked Carlson's company to find solutions to minimize soil erosion and thus protect local drinking water. Habitat's small team, with help from the Coalition of the Upper South Platte group, has targeted three sites in the watershed to concentrate their erosion control work. When the call for volunteers went out, the Academy answered with 163 cadets, faculty and staff for Sunday's project. The rough, steep terrain proved too treacherous for vehicles, so the cadets formed what Carlson called a "human conveyor chain" along the steep hills and canyons and moved nearly 700 bales of wood straw used for erosion control. "It would have taken weeks to do it with just our crew," Carlson said. Cadets and other Academy volunteers plan to return to the watershed area, the Flying W. Ranch and the Mountain Shadows neighborhood Oct. 5.