Colorado’s Water Plan Shapes the Future as More Funds Flow into Stream Restoration

Because the West’s “headwaters state,” The way forward for water in Colorado carries excessive stakes for its downstream neighbors. Water from the state’s eight main river basins sustains folks residing in nineteen states and Mexico, together with 5 of the USA’ high ten agricultural states. It powers the area’s vitality business, drives a rising leisure economic system, flows via greater than six nationwide parks and fifteen nationwide forests, and helps numerous habitats and the birds that depend upon them. 

A lot of Colorado’s headwater streams, high-elevation moist meadows, and riparian (streamside) wetlands have been degraded from a long time of intensive grazing, conversion to agriculture, and stream diversions to irrigation ditches or constructed ponds. In wholesome situations, these stream and wetland ecosystems present pure water storage, absorbing spring snowmelt like a sponge and slowly releasing that water all through the summer time and into the autumn. These methods assist buffer for wildfire, provide clear water, and preserve excessive groundwater tables which give water resilience throughout instances of drought. Additionally they present habitat for birds and different wildlife. Restoring degraded streams and reconnecting them with their historic floodplains can restore many of those ecosystem providers and bolster drought and local weather resilience. 

Recognizing the significance of those pure methods, state leaders have taken steps to deal with Colorado’s water future. In 2013—simply over ten years into the mega-drought nonetheless devastating the southwestern United States—Governor John Hickenlooper signed an government order directing the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) to develop a statewide plan for managing Colorado’s water sources throughout 4 key sectors: sustainable cities, productive agriculture, a sturdy leisure economic system, and wholesome watersheds.   Colorado’s Water Plan (Water Plan) was adopted in 2015 and was not too long ago up to date in 2023 with an added deal with multi-benefit methods, together with the implementation of nature-based options and stream restoration aims, to extend drought and local weather resilience throughout all 4 sectors. 

Not too long ago, a sequence of state poll initiatives have elevated the quantity of funding obtainable for water initiatives via the state’s Water Plan grant program. In 2019, Colorado voters handed Proposition DD, which legalized sports activities betting and created a tax on winnings that may fund Colorado’s Water Plan. This made $29 million per 12 months obtainable to assist infrastructure upgrades and different water initiatives, together with restoration work. Nevertheless, Proposition DD additionally capped the quantity of tax income that could possibly be collected from the sports activities betting business at $29 million yearly. However simply this previous fall, in 2024, voters handed Proposition JJ with overwhelming (74%) assist. This proposition opens extra funding for Water Plan implementation by eradicating the $29 million cap. In fiscal 12 months 2023-2024, for instance, Proposition JJ would have made a further $900,000 obtainable for Water Plan implementation. With this elevated funding, it’s particularly well timed to contemplate how restoration initiatives can align with the Water Plan’s objectives.

In February 2025, Audubon, with assist from the CWCB, printed a complete memo analyzing how riverscape restoration can advance the objectives and aims outlined within the 2023 Water Plan. The memo gives beneficial evaluation for all these working in direction of a sustainable water future for Colorado. Particularly, this memo is meant to assist venture proponents and grant writers with watershed coalitions, nationwide and statewide environmental NGOs, municipalities, and different entities implementing riverscape restoration in Colorado.