DNR, CWCB and State Forest Service outline wildfire mitigation and watershed projects, highlight funding gaps

State natural-resources officials told the Water Resources and Agriculture Review Committee that strategic forest treatments and watershed-focused restoration are essential to protect Colorado's water infrastructure from wildfire and post-fire flooding.

Lisonbee Lerch, assistant director for forest health and wildfire mitigation at the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, opened the panel by linking forest health to water security and noting Colorado's active wildfire season. "Forest and watershed health are two pillars of work that the DNR focuses on," Lerch said.

Wes Stoll of the Colorado State Forest Service described the state's varied forest types and ongoing insect outbreaks that have increased fuel loads, citing a rise in western spruce budworm and mountain pine beetle impacts. "We have overly dense and unhealthy forests that are susceptible to destructive wildfires," Stoll said, and said fuels management and targeted restoration reduce post-fire risks to water supplies.

Chris Sturm of the Colorado Water Conservation Board walked lawmakers through the statewide susceptibility analysis developed after the 2020 fires, a watershed-scale map that identifies values at risk (reservoirs, municipal intakes, agricultural ditches) across roughly 3,500 small watersheds. Sturm said the initial susceptibility work was funded with an initial $10,000,000 and has been augmented through Colorado Water Plan grants and other sources. "This map is the intersection of all of those values at risk," he said.

Program administrators described three funding tools used to prioritize projects: the competitive Forest Restoration and Wildfire Risk Mitigation program (FIRWIRM), the Colorado Strategic Wildfire Action Program (CoSwap) and CWCB's Wildfire Ready Watersheds/watershed-restoration grants. Courtney Young (DNR) said CoSwap awarded nearly $8.4 million in the last round across workforce and landscape resilience grants and will have a $6 million annual appropriation moving forward.

Speakers highlighted two integrated projects as examples. Around Catamount Reservoirs (Teller County), state and local partners have invested about $6 million in two years to thin fuels and advance stream-restoration work to reduce sedimentation risk to reservoirs used by Colorado Springs Utilities. On the Michigan Ditch project near the Cameron Peak Fire perimeter, presenters described high erosion risk and steep slopes that require tethered machinery or helicopters; they estimated per-acre treatment costs from roughly $5,000 to $25,000 depending on method and noted Fort Collins and congressional-designated funds are part of the funding mix.

Officials urged sustained, strategic investment and said wildfire-ready action plans and the susceptibility analysis will identify tens of millions in project needs that can be pursued through water-plan grants and other funding rounds. Committee members asked about post-fire eligibility; CWCB and state foresters said some grants support post-fire stream restoration, salvage and reforestation, and indicated deadlines for water-plan grant cycles (next deadline Dec. 1).