Senate Passes Bipartisan Bill to Bolster Water Restoration Projects
Legislation would streamline projects that improve the environmental health of water resources
DENVER, CO – Today, the Senate passed Senator Dylan Roberts’, D-Avon, bipartisan bill to help restore natural water streams.
Stream restoration projects are vital in protecting water supplies, restoring habitats, and recovering from drought, fire, and floods. SB23-270, cosponsored by Senator Cleave Simpson, R-Alamosa, would create a more streamlined process for stream restoration projects to move forward.
“Healthy stream systems improve wildfire resilience, watershed health, and flood safety, plus they support our local economies and farmlands,” said Roberts. “Coloradans want to restore damaged streams in their communities, but too many projects face legal roadblocks and funding challenges that halt these critical projects. This bipartisan bill will simplify the process to complete stream restoration projects, allow access to federal water funding and ultimately, help secure our state’s water future.”
Currently, certain stream restoration projects could be considered an out-of-priority diversion of water, creating an uncertain or impossible path for those projects to proceed. The bill constitutes an important first step by creating a rebuttable presumption that a minor stream restoration project doesn’t impede on downstream water rights – thus allowing smaller projects to move forward without administration by the Division of Water Resources, while the community continues to explore solutions for larger projects. A rebuttable presumption is an assumption made by a court that is taken to be true unless proven otherwise.
The legislation outlines stream restoration projects as those with the purpose of wildfire or flood mitigation; bank stabilization; water quality protection or restoration; habitat, species, or ecosystem restoration; infrastructure protection, and more.
SB23-270 now heads to the House for further consideration. Follow the bill’s progress HERE.