A Generational Win for the Colorado River: Shoshone Water Rights Secured for Instream Flow Protection

On Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025, the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) took one of the crucial consequential actions within the 50-year historical past of Colorado’s Instream Move Program, approving the acquisition of the historic Shoshone Hydroelectric Plant water rights for everlasting instream movement safety. This resolution will echo for generations. It represents years of robust conversations, negotiation, and actually distinctive collaboration amongst individuals who usually disagree however in the end united round a shared reality: now’s the second to do one thing essential for the ecological well being of the Colorado River.  

Why the Shoshone Water Rights Matter 

The Shoshone water rights, relationship to 1902 and 1929, have lengthy anchored regular, year-round flows via Glenwood Canyon, the Grand Valley, and much downstream. Although used for hydropower, the precise is fully non-consumptive—each drop returns to the river. These reliable flows maintain cottonwood and willow forests, wetlands, sandbars, and dynamic aspect channels that gasoline the meals internet and assist nesting, foraging, and migratory birds from Yellow Warblers to Black-crowned Evening Herons, Bald Eagles, and numerous waterfowl. 

But the century-old Shoshone Energy Plant created actual uncertainty about whether or not these return flows would endure. With out motion, a foundational piece of the river’s hydrology—and the ecosystems and economies it helps—might have been misplaced. The CWCB’s resolution secures these flows for the long run. 

Speaker of the Home Consultant Julie McCluskie captured the importance of this second: this chance arose solely via distinctive collaboration—the Colorado River District, Xcel Power and Public Service Firm of Colorado, and CWCB workers working collectively to craft an settlement that pairs ecological advantages with long-term certainty for water customers and communities on each side of the Continental Divide. 

A Main Step for Colorado’s Instream Move Program 

The acquisition of the Shoshone water rights will turn out to be one of many largest instream movement protections in Colorado historical past, safeguarding a whole lot of miles of river habitat, together with stretches that assist endangered fish species. It expands the promise of Colorado’s Instream Move Program, established in 1973 to maintain water in rivers for the preservation of the surroundings. 

Speaker McCluskie additionally highlighted one thing extraordinary about this effort: it introduced collectively “essentially the most unlikely of coalitions”—ranchers and kayakers, conservation teams and chambers of commerce, anglers and municipal water suppliers. Teams that usually stand on reverse sides of water debates discovered widespread function as a result of they acknowledged the generational significance of this second. 

The Colorado Basic Meeting acknowledged this as properly. Following a unanimous suggestion from the CWCB, legislators permitted a bipartisan—and practically unanimous— $20 million appropriation to the Colorado River District to assist safe the Shoshone rights. That vote mirrored a shared understanding throughout areas, divides, and political events that it is a once-in-a-lifetime alternative for Colorado. 

Audubon’s Position—and a Name to Motion for Our Chapters 

Audubon Rockies joined with conservation companions as a celebration to the acquisition course of—a sign of how essential this safety is for birds and river well being. Whereas being a celebration restricted our potential to remark through the public course of, ten impartial Colorado Audubon chapters stepped into that position with power and unity, urging the CWCB to approve the acquisition. 

Collectively, our neighborhood chapters symbolize greater than 34,000 members who perceive that defending water means defending the birds, communities, and economies woven into the material of Colorado’s rivers. The Shoshone instream movement acquisition exhibits what is feasible when statewide voices come along with a shared function. 

A River, a Legacy, a Future 

The Shoshone instream movement acquisition honors greater than a century of stewardship whereas strengthening our resilience in an period of accelerating water change. It protects ecological perform, helps farms, ranches, recreation economies, and communities throughout the basin, and helps be certain that the Colorado River will proceed to maintain birds, fish, wildlife, and folks lengthy into the long run. 

Speaker McCluskie reminded the CWCB that right now’s vote “carries generational weight”—and he or she urged the Board to grab this historic second. They did. 

Colorado selected a future the place the Colorado River retains flowing—not only for us, however for all of the life it sustains. Audubon Rockies applauds the Colorado River District, the CWCB, and the water neighborhood for its collaboration, management, foresight, and dedication to wholesome rivers.  

It is a win for birds. A win for communities. A win for the Colorado River.