Investing in the West’s Water Future: Why Congress Must Fully Fund the WaterSMART Program

With drought and local weather pressures intensifying throughout the West, Audubon and companions are sounding the alarm: Congress should absolutely fund the Bureau of Reclamation’s WaterSMART program earlier than it is too late. Alongside a various coalition of 103 nationwide, regional, state, and native organizations representing Tribes, water managers, conservationists, farmers, and enterprise leaders, Audubon submitted a letter final week urging Congress to totally fund the WaterSMART program—an important instrument for serving to communities adapt to a altering local weather and safeguard restricted water sources for birds, folks and native economies. As Congress finalizes appropriations for the approaching fiscal 12 months, this various present of help highlights the widespread want for continued funding on this impactful program and water all through the West.

For the final 15 years, WaterSMART has:

• Funded 2,364 initiatives and research within the West, saving an estimated 1.7 million acre-feet of freshwater per 12 months (sufficient water for 4.6 million folks yearly)
• Leveraged funding to safe an extra $8.75 billion from non-federal companions
• Helped scale up confirmed drought resiliency applications equivalent to upgraded irrigation applied sciences, groundwater storage, and water reuse
• Applied risk-management methods and nature-based options that assist handle drought and wildfire impacts
• Superior collaborative, watershed-scale planning efforts such because the Colorado River Basin Study, which was instrumental in establishing complete modeling and persevering with dialogue towards future options
• Supported water initiatives for the advantage of cities and rural areas, Tribes, wildlife, and wetland enchancment

WaterSMART helps implement the SECURE Water Act, handed by Congress in 2009, to help a sustainable water administration coverage, advancing options from water conservation and drought planning to agricultural enhancements and habitat restoration. Reclamation’s WaterSMART program offers cost-shared funding for initiatives to guage circumstances and attainable future administration methods (i.e., Basin Examine) in addition to to preserve and use water extra effectively, implement nature-based options and ecosystem restoration for birds and different wildlife, and advance drought planning. Many of those initiatives serve a number of functions, enhancing each water supply reliability and general watershed well being. The collective work that’s supported by WaterSMART has gone a good distance to assist keep away from emergency water provide crises throughout the West and in particular in the Colorado River Basin.

In our work to guard folks and birds within the arid West, Audubon is aware of first-hand the advantages of varied WaterSMART applications on the bottom, and has supplied help for challenge companions in search of these extremely aggressive grants.

• Cooperative Watershed Administration Program (CWMP): By WaterSMART, the CWMP helps communities in forming watershed teams to establish, plan, design, and implement initiatives that handle native water wants. Alongside the Decrease Gila River west of Phoenix, Audubon Southwest, in partnership with the Lower Gila River Collaborative, was awarded CWMP funding to enhance ecosystem well being and water administration. The WaterSMART funding builds upon a long time of labor with native companions to advance coordinated restoration. In New Mexico, CWMP was instrumental in establishing the Isleta Reach Stewardship Association, an company and group group targeted on bettering the watershed well being and habitat inside the Isleta attain, a 48-mile span of the Rio Grande River in north central New Mexico.
   
• WaterSMART Grants: Initiatives supported by Reclamation’s WaterSMART Grant program contemplate a variety of water provide options; for instance, the Environmental Water Assets Program advances initiatives implementing nature-based options that lead to sustained water financial savings and supply ecosystem advantages. In 2019, the Utah Division of Water Assets was awarded a WaterSMART Grant to assist develop a statewide water advertising and marketing technique and to check demonstration areas for a voluntary, domestically pushed water financial institution. Audubon greatly appreciated Utah’s proactive efforts and the various collaborators who spent years growing the water banking program.
   
• Basin Research: WaterSMART Basin Research help collaborative planning to assist companions establish, handle, and plan for water provide and demand imbalances. In New Mexico, the Rio Grande Basin Examine contains greater than 36 signatories working to develop water administration resiliency methods beneath local weather warming eventualities. As a part of this course of, Audubon Southwest is co-leading efforts to define and protect environmental flow targets within the Rio Grande of New Mexico. Audubon additionally supported important water planning legislation and funding in 2022 for Utah’s Nice Salt Lake Basin Built-in Basin Plan, together with WaterSMART Basin Research funding.

These WaterSMART-funded applications are important for constructing drought resilience in a warmer and drier West, partially by means of making certain secure, dependable, and environment friendly administration of water sources for folks, agriculture, and ecosystems, in addition to birds.

With out sustained federal funding, we danger dropping the momentum, innovation, and long-term financial and ecological advantages these confirmed applications ship. Audubon and companions throughout the West are calling on Congress to fulfill this second and absolutely fund the WaterSMART program—as a result of resilient communities, thriving ecosystems, and a sustainable water future are all on the road; see the textual content of the letter here.