Colorado governor signs package of bills to bolster state’s water security 

Perched above the Dillon Reservoir on the side of a mountain road in Summit County, Gov. Jared Polis signed into law three bills on Thursday aimed at bolstering the state’s water infrastructure. 

The measures come amid the backdrop of chronic drought and increased water demand in the West, which have made finding a path towards water sustainability more urgent. Negotiations between Colorado and six other states over future use of the Colorado River, which serves around 40 million people, remain at a standstill. 

Speaking amid on-and-off snow flurries and bouts of sunshine, Polis said the bills signed on Thursday will help “build a sustainable, livable future” by “securing our water for the state of Colorado.” 

Here’s what the new laws do: 

Better snowpack mapping 

To better measure Colorado’s primary source of water supply, House Bill 1115 establishes a new statewide program for tracking snowpack. 

Snowpack, a key indicator for how much water is frozen in the state’s snowfields, has historically been measured using snow telemetry, or SNOTEL, sites, which date back to the mid-1960s. The sites use pressure-sensitive pillows and sensors to gauge snowpack depth and water weight.

The data is critical for water providers to know how much water to allocate and conserve throughout runoff season, but the technology isn’t an exact science. To help fill in the gaps, HB 1115 charges the Colorado Water Conservation Board with deploying newer methods such as light detection and ranging technology, also known as LiDAR.

Like radar, but using light, LiDAR sends beams from a plane or satellite towards the ground. By measuring the time it takes for the light to be reflected, scientists can calculate the depth of an area and create a 3-D model of the landscape. The flights also use a spectrometer to capture infrared images that show where snow is melting fastest. 

While SNOTEL sites pinpoint data at specific locations and provide a historical record of snowpack, LiDAR can show a full picture of the entire watershed. Lawmakers hope that by using both, the state can more accurately predict its water supply.

The technology has already been used by entities like Denver Water, Northern Water, and the Colorado River Water Conservation District in recent years. 

Still, HB 1115 represents only the first step towards adopting lidar at a statewide level. Tight budget conditions meant lawmakers were unable to allocate the millions of dollars that would likely be needed for the state to run routine lidar flights. 

The law directs roughly $250,000 from an existing cash fund over the next two years to help the program establish initial staffing and data systems. Lawmakers have acknowledged there will likely need to be additional rounds of funding in future years.

Colorado House Speaker Julie McCluskie, a lead sponsor of HB 1115, said the legislature has made inroads in recent years when it comes to water prioritization, listing off accomplishments that include “hundreds of millions of dollars to water projects, raising the importance of water not only to this state but to the entire American West and taking steps to ensure that the future is ours when it comes to the investments we are making.”

HB 1115 is also sponsored by Rep. Matt Soper, R-Delta, and Sens. Dylan Roberts, D-Frisco, and Marc Catlin, R-Montrose. 

More money for water projects 

State voters’ decision to approve a tax on sports betting in 2019 has provided a critical funding source for water projects, delivering as much as $30 million a year for infrastructure and conservation efforts. 

House Bill 1311 takes that a step further by eliminating a tax exemption for revenue generated from free sports bets. 

State law currently imposes a 10% tax on sports betting operators’ profits, but businesses are allowed to deduct free bets when calculating their net proceeds. By eliminating this exemption, the state could take in an additional $3.2 million in the upcoming fiscal year, with that figure increasing to $11.5 million by 2028, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Legislative Council Staff. 

“Securing our water future takes a significant and will take a significant amount of funding,” Roberts said. 

The money will go towards the state’s annual funding bill for water projects overseen by the water conservation board. 

Lawmakers say the added revenue will help push them towards meeting their goal of allocating $100 million a year for water-related initiatives. While lawmakers have gotten close in some years, they have never been able to meet that target. 

HB 1311 is sponsored by McCluskie, Soper, and Roberts. 

Finding solutions to funding woes

While taxes on sports betting have helped shore up state spending on water projects, its other key funding stream risks running dry. 

Severance taxes, which are imposed on nonrenewable energy extraction like oil drilling and coal mining, have long served as the primary source of revenue for water-related initiatives. But revenue collection has proven volatile due to extreme swings in the energy market, with revenue skyrocketing in some years and plummeting the next. 

The legislature’s Joint Budget Committee, which is tasked annually with drafting the state’s spending plan, has complicated matters in recent years by siphoning some of that money to help balance the budget.

Over the past decade, around $412 million in tax revenue has gone to the water conservation board, though about $57 million has been redirected to the state’s general fund, which is the legislature’s discretionary spending account. While severance tax revenue hasn’t yet declined on average, the conservation board says the long-term expectation is that money will decrease in the future. 

Under Senate Bill 40, the state will commission a nine-member task force within the Department of Natural Resources to study the future of severance tax revenue and come up with solutions to better fund the state’s water needs. 

The task force will be required to submit a final report to the legislature in July 2026, with lawmakers hoping to turn those ideas into policy. 

Water is “the biggest issue facing our state over the next few decades,” Roberts said. “It’s why people live here in Colorado, it’s why we can have a beautiful environment and water resources, and we need to keep working at it.”

SB 40 is sponsored by him and Sen. Cleave Simpson, R-Alamosa, as well as Reps. Karen McCormick, D-Longmont, and Matthew Martinez, D-Monte Vista.