Colorado Water Legislative Forecast | Audubon

Colorado’s 2026 legislative session kicked off this month—and it’s beginning beneath a dry winter sky and a decent price range, creating powerful circumstances on the bottom  and hard selections on the Capitol. With a historic low-snowpack and a sluggish begin to winter, the stakes for rivers, wetlands, and the birds and communities that rely upon them are clear. On the identical time, Colorado lawmakers are navigating an estimated $850 million state price range shortfall , which is able to make prioritization and partnership much more important. Audubon’s water priorities this session are centered on outcomes that assist birds and the wetlands, streams, and rivers all of us want—and on bringing individuals collectively to seek out sturdy, workable options.

Colorado River Negotiations

Colorado is deep into the Colorado River negotiations  for practically two years with little seen progress. On this period of aridity, the perfect path ahead is flexibility and flexibility—the flexibility to reply to hydrologic extremes, defend crucial environmental assets, and maintain communities complete.

The following milestone is evident: if the seven Colorado River Basin states (AZ, CA, CO, NM, NV, UT, and WY) can agree on a river administration plan by the federal February 14, 2026 deadline, Audubon will work with companions to assist Colorado succeed. We’re hopeful the states can attain settlement and keep away from authorized fights—as a result of in a courtroom, problem-solving and compromise are changed by authorized positioning, and the outcomes are sometimes worse for each communities and the river.

As we navigate this, we are going to maintain emphasizing what’s typically ignored: wholesome rivers and wetlands are crucial pure infrastructure for communities, and engines of the economic system. They stabilize flows, enhance water high quality, and maintain habitats that birds and folks depend on throughout the Basin.

Water Funding

With fiscal stress mounting, Colorado should use restricted {dollars} properly. In 2026, we are going to advocate for water funding insurance policies and investments that ship measurable resilience outcomes—initiatives that scale back danger and supply a number of advantages, together with drought resilience, wildfire restoration, water high quality safety, and habitat for birds and different wildlife.

Audubon will work with companions to guard and strengthen funding pathways that assist:

• Wetlands and riparian restoration, with sensible implementation capability to help with planning and work on-the-ground, to construct drought, fireplace, and flood resilience.
• Watershed-scale restoration efforts that defend water provides and habitat.

In lean years, we want commonsense investments that maintain Colorado adaptable.
 

Watershed Well being

Watershed well being is the throughline from headwater forests to the rivers that maintain our communities and migratory birds. A dry winter and low snowpack increase the stakes for headwater forest well being, post-fire restoration, and floodplain perform—as a result of when landscapes are degraded, runoff comes quicker and dirtier, impacts are extra damaging, and late-season flows shrink

This session, we may even be very clear on protection: Colorado ought to defend present pathways that assist stream and wetland restoration. Throughout the state, restoration companions are already demonstrating early successes that enhance habitat, scale back erosion, rebuild floodplain perform, and assist working lands. These are win-win initiatives, and we are going to proceed to work to tell the water neighborhood about these win-wins and advocate for the insurance policies and applications that assist and permit such work to proceed.   

Lastly, we are going to assist the rollout of Colorado’s Beaver Conservation and Administration Technique in a means that’s science-based and workable. Colorado Parks & Wildlife expects to publish the ultimate Beaver Conservation and Management Strategy  in late February 2026, and getting implementation proper will take many partnerships— collaborating with companies, landowners, water managers, and practitioners so advantages may be realized whereas addressing reputable water and street infrastructure administration wants to deal with and scale back frequent beaver-human conflicts. 

What this implies for birds: Once we defend watershed well being from forest to river—headwaters, riparian corridors, and wetlands—we defend the locations the place birds focus within the arid West: breeding habitat, migration stopovers, and the drought refuges that maintain populations in powerful years. Species just like the Southwestern Willow Flycatcher and Yellow Warbler depend on dense, linked riparian habitat tied to dependable floor water and saturated soils, whereas Colorado’s high-country streams assist birds just like the American Dipper, which is dependent upon chilly, clear, flowing water year-round—and on rivers that keep linked and resilient by means of drought and disturbance.

We’ll share motion alternatives all through the session so you may lend your voice to defending and strengthening Colorado’s wetlands, streams, and rivers. If you happen to haven’t already, be a part of our Western Water Action Network  to remain within the loop and able to act when it counts.