The Trump administration will release $47 million in long-awaited federal funding for four Colorado water projects aiming to fight the Colorado River Basin’s prolonged drought.
The Biden administration promised Coloradans up to $152 million in January 2025 to restore ecosystems, repair infrastructure and address drought impacts. The Trump administration immediately froze the grants pending review. The funding whiplash left dozens of project applicants in limbo with no clear idea if they should wait for the money or pursue other options.
One of those applicants was the Southwestern Water Conservation District, which submitted one application to fund 17 projects in southwestern Colorado. The Trump administration released funding for the partnership’s $25.6 million grant Tuesday, but there is still more work to be done before the funds reach Colorado.
“I think it’s very positive. I think we’re very glad,” Steve Wolff, general manager of the Southwestern Water Conservation District, said. “But we’re still several months ‘til working out a contract with Reclamation.”
The funding release announcement came on the heels of a historically dry and warm winter that has prompted early water shortages for some Colorado water users and widespread concerns about water limitations for homes, businesses and environments this summer.
Drought is not new in the Colorado River Basin. The basin, the water supply for 40 million people, has been overstressed by prolonged drought, warming temperatures and persistent human demands for decades.
On Jan. 17, 2025, in the final hours of the Biden administration, the Bureau of Reclamation announced it would spend about $388 million for environmental projects in Colorado and three other Colorado River Basin states. The funding included 17 grant awards in Colorado.
The proposed projects focused on improving habitats, ecological stability and resilience against drought using funding from the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act. Coloradans hoped to use the federal dollars to help fish find shelter when the state’s rivers are at their lowest. They wanted to help farmers and ranchers have a more reliable water supply by fixing decades-old irrigation ditches. Some projects planned to remove dams or turn wastewater lagoons into wetlands.
On Jan. 20, President Donald Trump froze spending under the law as part of a flurry of executive orders issued on his first day in office. During the freeze, agencies were tasked with reviewing funding awards to ensure they aligned with the administration’s policy priorities.
This week’s announcement is the latest in a slow trickle of released funding from the federal agency. In addition to $25.6 million for the southwestern Colorado water projects, the Bureau of Reclamation also released $4.6 million for wetland restoration, floodplain improvements, erosion control and more on conserved lands in western Colorado. The projects aim to reduce sediment transport, and improve water quality and habitat for species like the yellow-billed cuckoo and Gunnison sage grouse.
In a separate grant, $750,000 will go to the Gunnison Basin for habitat improvements for the Gunnison sage grouse.
The feds also released about $16.7 million for work on the Southern Ute Reservation in southwestern Colorado. The tribe will be able to use the money to improve fish passage, water quality and the overall health of the Pine River watershed. Part of the funding was also meant to help address a multimillion-dollar maintenance backlog tied to a deteriorating federal irrigation project, the Pine River Indian Irrigation Project.
About $92 million remained frozen of the tranche originally designated for Colorado projects as of mid-May, and the year-and-a-half wait left many of those projects in jeopardy.
Now, grantees will need to go back and gather information again about the viability, amount of time needed and cost of the original proposals, Wolff said.
Six of the 17 Colorado projects had been awarded a total of more than $59 million by mid-May, according to news releases.
The remaining unfunded drought projects included $40 million awarded to help the Colorado River District purchase powerful Colorado River water rights tied to a small hydropower station, called Shoshone Power Plant, owned by an Xcel Energy subsidiary.
The district’s purchase is supported by a diverse array of Western Slope organizations, from irrigation districts to county governments and environmental groups. The project should add stability and predictability for water users far into the future while having environmental benefits, according to the Colorado River District.
Front Range utilities opposed the purchase, saying it could negatively affect the amount or timing of water flowing into their systems. The case is currently being heard in water court.
“While this is an important step forward, the Administration must still release the full funding Congress approved, including for Shoshone,” Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet said in a news release. “I’ll keep pushing to make sure Colorado gets the certainty and resources we were promised.”
Colorado’s entire Congressional delegation, Democrats and Republicans alike, issued a call in August for top officials in the Department of the Interior and Bureau of Reclamation to release the previously awarded funding, according to news releases Tuesday.
The lawmakers are continuing to push the Bureau of Reclamation to release the rest of the funding, the releases said.
“This year’s extremely poor snowpack has made the Colorado River crisis even more dire. We don’t have time to stall and hope for a wet summer,” Democratic Sen. John Hickenlooper said in a news release. “We’re relieved that this funding from our historic Inflation Reduction Act will continue to flow to help our communities manage the drought impacts on the Upper Basin. We won’t let up until all of the obligated funding is released.”