SB 22-028

Senate Bill 22-028, now signed into law, establishes a fund to help manage and reduce groundwater use in two specific river basins in Colorado—the Rio Grande and the Republican River. This fund will be used for initiatives like buying and retiring irrigation wells and land to ensure sustainable water usage. The Colorado Water Conservation Board oversees this fund and works with local conservation districts to decide how to spend the money, which is initially funded with $60 million from the state's economic recovery fund. This bill aims to support long-term water sustainability efforts in these river basins.

Official Summary

The act creates the groundwater compact compliance and sustainability fund (fund) to help finance groundwater use reduction and sustainability efforts in the Rio Grande river basin and the Republican river basin, such as efforts to buy and retire irrigation wells and irrigated acreage in the river basins. The Colorado water conservation board (board) administers the fund and can make expenditures from the fund based on recommendations from the board of directors of the Rio Grande water conservation district or the Republican river water conservation district. A conservation district's recommendations must first be approved by the state engineer. For the 2022-23 state fiscal year, $60 million is appropriated from the economic recovery and relief cash fund to the fund and, on August 15, 2024, up to $20 million of any unobligated money in the fund is transferred to the water plan implementation account, which account the board administers to finance efforts to help accomplish critical actions identified in the state water plan. The board and any recipient of money from the fund or the account must comply with the compliance, reporting, record-keeping, and program evaluation requirements that the office of state planning and budgeting and the state controller establish for use of money allocated to the state pursuant to the "American Rescue Plan Act of 2021". (Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)

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