Amid federal efforts to keep coal-fired power plants burning, Colorado Democrats are advancing legislation they say will help mitigate the environmental and cost impacts on communities. 

Lawmakers voted along party lines on Wednesday, April 22, to pass House Bill 1226, with 42 Democrats backing the measure and 22 Republicans opposed. The bill now heads to the Senate for more votes. 

The measure comes in response to a federal order by President Donald Trump’s energy department late last year that prevented the scheduled closure of an aging coal plant in Craig. Bill sponsor Jenny Willford, D-Northglenn, said legislative action is needed to ensure that those types of decisions don’t derail Colorado’s clean energy goals or push more costs onto ratepayers. 

“Over the last decade, we’ve made considerable progress toward our climate goals, and we can’t allow federal overreach by the Trump administration to take us backwards,” Willford said on Tuesday ahead of a preliminary vote on the bill. 

Other prime bill sponsors are Rep. Meghan Froelich, D-Englewood, and Sens. Lisa Cutter, D-Littleton, and Mike Weissman, D-Aurora. 

Under the bill, coal plants that are forced to stay open past their retirement date due to federal orders would be required to install pollutant controls to limit further nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide emissions by 2034, as well as report emission data to the state to ensure compliance. Coal plants would also be required to publicly report the costs and energy output associated with staying open past their original retirement date. 

The bill also requires the state’s Public Utilities Commission to approve enough renewable energy development, as proposed by an investor-owned utility provider, to ensure that those providers can stick to the state’s schedule for retiring coal plants. 

Additionally, the bill allows utility operators to receive low-interest, state-backed bonds to help pay for keeping their plants online, which proponents hope will help protect ratepayers from shouldering exorbitant costs. 

Across the country, the Trump administration has intervened in the scheduled closure of coal plants by using section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act, which allows the U.S. Department of Energy to keep power plants running during times of crisis, such as war or energy shortages. 

That was the case for Craig Station Unit 1, one of three coal-fired plants in Moffat County, which was scheduled to close on Dec. 31, 2025. The day before, Energy Secretary Chris Wright issued a 202(c) order requiring the plant to remain open for 90 days due to what he claimed was an energy “emergency” in the region, including a “shortage of electric energy, a shortage of facilities for the generation of electric energy, and other causes.”

The order was extended on March 30 for another 90 days. Because the Energy Department has the authority to keep extending those orders until it deems the energy emergency over, it can keep the plant open indefinitely. Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser and a coalition of environmental groups are suing the Energy Department, claiming the order is illegal. 

Republicans, utility providers react 

Much of the debate on the state bill led by Willford and other Democrats centered around the role of coal in Colorado’s energy future, with Republicans defending the industry as a vital component of the state’s economy. 

“We’ve seen in Craig and in Pueblo now, as they try to transfer from one type of energy to another, that jobs are impacted,” said Rep. Ty Winter, a Republican from Pueblo, where the Xcel Energy-owned Comanche Generating Station is currently slated to see its last coal-fire plant close after 2030.

Winter also warned that the loss of coal plants in Colorado means “we’re pulling energy jobs out of the economy (and) we’re not able to provide enough energy for companies that want to come in and bring industry.” He called Democrats’ bill a “knee-jerk reaction to some federal issues.”

Willford said she supports efforts to aid coal workers who transition into new jobs, but added, “The coal industry has been shrinking for decades due to automation and market forces, not just policy.” 

While coal plant closures have been driven in part by the need for utility providers to adhere to the state’s clean energy goals, other factors include a shift to cheaper renewable energy and natural gas production. 

Nonprofit utility providers, such as the owners of the 40-plus-year-old Craig Station, have also faced mounting costs with keeping aging coal plants online. Craig Station Unit 1 wasn’t in operation when it was ordered to stay open last December due to a mechanical valve failure. Some estimates put the cost of keeping the coal plant open for an additional year at $85 million.

Mark Stutz, a spokesperson for Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, one of the plant’s co-owners, said in an email that Tri-State continues to monitor Democrats’ bill and remain neutral on the proposal. 

He added, “It is important for us to ensure that any additional requirements do not unnecessarily add costs to our rural cooperative members.”

Tri-State and another of the plant’s co-owners, Platte River Power Authority, opposed the Energy Department’s 202(c) order and had asked in January for it to be rescinded, warning of increased costs to its members. 

Platte River Power Authority did not respond to a request for comment on Democrats’ bill, but during a committee hearing in February, a representative for the utility provider warned that the bill would create more challenges. 

Leigh Gibson, Platte River Power Authority senior external affairs specialist, said the bill’s requirement for coal plant operators to install new emission-capturing technology could cost over $100 million over 10 years, which she called not “technically feasible.”

“This would only drive rates up further and for municipal utilities, all costs are passed onto utility customers,” Gibson said. 

Lawmakers later amended the bill to push up the implementation timeline for when coal plants would need to install pollutant controls from 2030 to 2034. 

The Red, White & Blue Fire Protection District covering Breckenridge, Blue River and most of southern Summit County, has begun rolling out a wildfire mitigation campaign encouraging residents to help maximize the area’s fire resilience prior to an expectedly extra hot and dry summer. 

Fire Chief Drew Hoehn outlined the district’s strategy during a presentation to Breckenridge Town Council on Tuesday, April 14, pointing to both increased internal capacity and a shift to increased enforcement of restricted wildfire policies in conjunction with the Summit County Sheriff’s Office. Hoehn and Noelle Valentine, Red, White & Blue’s public outreach coordinator, said both agencies will be stricter in shutting down unsanctioned bonfires often involving local high schoolers. 

“It’s a no-tolerance approach this year, whereas in the past we’ve taken more of an educational approach,” Hoehn said. “It’s certainly a departure from how those parties have been regarded in past years.” 

As worsening drought conditions and an unusually rapid snowpack melt leave much of the state increasingly dry, experts have warned that Colorado is heading into a more active wildfire season. Nowhere in the West are conditions as severe, according to a recent report from the U.S. Drought Monitor. All of Summit County is currently listed as experiencing an “exceptional” drought, which is the most severe designation on the scale

“We just can’t take the risk this year,” Hoehn said.

In preparation for the season, Hoehn said the Red, White & Blue has already been coordinating with partner agencies, including Summit Fire & EMS, and ramping up internal training. 

“We conduct an annual refresher training every year for our wildfire response, and we’ve already had our preseason meetings with all our stakeholders,” Hoen said. 

The fire district also recently promoted three staff members into specialist roles, a move Hoehn said was intended to “create a little extra horsepower for our mitigation inspections, operational planning and administrative capacities. 

Valentine summarized the department’s coordinated public outreach campaign, which she said aims to encourage residents to take an active role in wildfire mitigation.

“We’re looking at our wildfire communications campaign as kind of a six-month marathon,” Valentine said. “We are really focusing on our messaging being appropriately timed.”

Valentine said that officials are working with agencies across the county to maintain consistency when providing information to the public. She noted the department has also identified a need for additional outreach for short-term rental units.

“We are really working hard to make countywide decisions so that there’s no mixed messaging,” Valentine said.

Red, White & Blue has already launched its “Pre-Green Up Clean Up” social media campaign, requesting residents begin mitigation work at their properties as snow continues to melt. 

“My hope is that when everyone’s yards are snow-free again,we can get back on track,” Valentine said. 

The effort is part of a broader strategy broken into three seasonal phases:

• Pre-green up cleanup: Walk your home’s perimeter and remove trash and debris; rake or leaf blow the first 5 feet around your home; trim shrubs and tree branches within 5-10 feet of your home.
• Mid-summer cut and clear: cut and maintain grasses within 30 feet of your home; remove stored items from underneath decks; remove excess vegetation within 5 feet of your home.
• Reduce fall fuels: weed whack wildflowers and grasses within 100 feet of your home; clean gutters, roof and exterior vents; leaf blow often as the aspens drop their leaves. 

“By October we’re really trying to find bite-sized tasks that especially our workforce families can do around their properties in 30 minutes,” Valentine said.

Council member Marika Page asked whether the district could help communicate schedules for county crews collecting downed vegetation placed along roadways for pick-up. Hoehn said the department will place an added emphasis on coordinating and advertising countywide cleanup efforts including the longtime Chipping Program that Page referenced. 

In March, district staff visited elementary schools and sent students home with informational materials, including instructions for assembling emergency “go kits,” which contain necessities like food, water, copies of important documents, evacuation maps, medications and other essentials. Council member Jay Beckerman asked whether outreach would also target older students. Hoehn said they plan to speak with juniors and seniors at Summit High School in May with messaging tailored to address risky behaviors.

“That’s more from a ‘no-bonfires-at-your-parties-in-the-woods’ stance,” Valentine said. 

The district is also reinforcing existing fire regulations. Control, or slash, burning is prohibited from Memorial Day to Labor Day or during periods of elevated fire danger. Some recreational fires are allowed but require permitting. 

For more information on wildfire restrictions, visit the Red, White & Blue Fire Protection District’s website at RWBFire.org. 

With a historic drought hitting the Colorado River basin, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is making preparations to slow releases from the river’s largest reservoir while increasing withdrawals from an Upper Basin reservoir. 

“Given the severity of the risks facing the Colorado River system, it is imperative that we take action quickly to protect a resource that supplies water to 40 million people and supports vital agricultural, hydropower production, tribal, wildlife and recreational uses across the region,” said Andrea Travnice, the Bureau of Reclamation’s assistant secretary of water and science in a Friday, April 17 news release. 

The Colorado River is divided into an upper and lower basin by a 1922 compact agreement, governing the river. States in the Upper Basin — Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — rely predominantly on snowpack for their water supply, while the Lower Basin states — Arizona, California and Nevada — rely on releases from Lake Powell and Lake Mead for their water supply.

This winter, snowpack across the Upper Basin was 23% of normal, marking a historic low. This, paired with the record-breaking heat in March — 13.7 degrees warmer than normal across the entire basin — has caused drought to deepen across the river basin. According to the National Drought Information System, the majority of streamflow forecast points in the Colorado River basin are forecast to produce less than 30% of the normal runoff.

In February, the Upper Colorado River Commission said this winter’s critically low snowpack will result in natural reductions “greater than 40% of the proven water rights” across the four states. 

As a result, the Bureau of Reclamation is anticipating that inflow to Lake Powell will be 29% of the historical average, which it reports is one of the lowest on record. If water levels fall below a certain elevation — below 3,490 feet or roughly 15% of its capacity — it can impact operations, regional power and water supplies as well as reduce hydroelectric power generation. The Bureau is projecting it could hit this minimum power pool level by August.

As of April 19, Lake Powell and Lake Mead were 24% and 32% full, respectively. 

On Friday, the Bureau said it was “moving quickly” to adapt and move forward with plans to reduce additional water from Flaming Gorge Reservoir, an Upper Basin reservoir in Utah and Wyoming that is currently 83% full. The federal agency reported that it will release between 660,000 acre-feet and 1 million acre-feet by April 2027 from the reservoir, drawing it down to 59% capacity.

One acre-foot is around 326,000 gallons of water, or enough water to fill half of an Olympic-size swimming pool.

Additionally, the Bureau is planning to reduce releases from Lake Powell to Lake Mead by 1.48 million acre feet through September. This will “accelerate the downstream decline of Lake Mead, with the potential for up to an additional 40% reduction to Hoover Dam’s hydropower generating capacity as early as this fall,” the federal agency reported in its release. 

According to the agency, neither action will impact the contracted water rights at Lake Powell and Flaming Gorge. Both actions, however, should increase Lake Powell’s elevation by approximately 54 feet to at least 3,500 feet by April 2027 — just above the minimum power pool level. 

The Bureau reported that it will not consider additional releases from other Upper Basin reservoirs — namely Blue Mesa and Navajo reservoirs — due to “their low water levels and poor forecasted inflows. Blue Mesa, located in Gunnison County and the largest reservoir in Colorado, currently sits at 47% full, according to the Bureau. Navajo Reservoir, located on the Colorado-New Mexico border, is 61% full. 

These plans to draw down Flaming Gorge and reduce Lake Powell releases are currently under consideration, with the Bureau expected to finalize both this week. 

On Friday, the Upper Colorado River Commission said in a statement that the four Upper Basin states “are taking unprecedented action to protect critical elevations at Lake Powell in the face of the dire conditions this year.” 

“On top of implementing significant mandatory and uncompensated reductions through each state’s strict regulation of all water rights, each upper division state is also immediately implementing voluntary conservation and efficiency measures,” it adds. 

The planned releases from Flaming Gorge Reservoir are among the measures being taken to support Lake Powell. The four upper state governors released a statement on April 9 on this proposed draw down and the “unprecedented year on the Colorado River.” 

“We must have a clear understanding of how these proposed releases will effectively protect elevations at Lake Powell,” reads the governors’ statement. “Once the releases conclude, we expect that all water released from Flaming Gorge and other upstream reservoirs will be fully recovered. Further, any releases must be appropriately sized. Years like this one remind us that appropriate water storage helps us survive the dry years, and that we must be prepared not only for this year but future dry years, as well as average years.” 

Future operations for Lake Powell and Lake Mead remain unknown

The dire drought conditions across the Colorado River basin come at a time of uncertainty for the future operations of Lake Powell and Lake Mead. The current operational guidelines for the two reservoirs have been under negotiation for many years and are set to expire this year. 

After multiple years and several deadlines passing, the seven basin states have failed to agree on these post 2026 guidelines. The federal agency is moving forward with its National Environmental Policy Act process for the agreement and is preparing to set the operational framework itself in the absence of an interstate agreement. 

The future guidelines will govern how the Bureau operates Lake Powell and Lake Mead, particularly under low reservoir conditions; allocates, reduces or increases annual allocations for consumptive use of water from Lake Mead to the Lower Basin states; stores and delivers water that has been saved through conservation efforts; manages and delivers surplus water; manages activities and makes cuts above Lake Powell and more. 

So far, the states’ disagreements have been rooted in where cuts needed to be made to deal with these worsening conditions. The Lower Basin states offered up some cuts and pushed for basin-wide water use reductions. The Upper Basin states, however, have pushed back, claiming they already face natural water shortages driven primarily by the ups and downs of snowpack.

Despite interstate negotiations missing several key deadlines, the federal government has continued to push the importance of consensus and partnership between the states, tribes and stakeholders that rely on the Colorado River for water.  

“With time running out, there is a need for extraordinary collaboration for 2027 and beyond,” the Bureau of Reclamation said in the Friday release. 

Colorado’s weather modification program is seeing an increased interest in cloud-seeding technology after the record-low snowpack this past winter.

In the past couple of weeks, Weather Modification Program Manager Andrew Rickert said he’s received inquiries from two major ski resorts hoping to learn more about cloud seeding, which can increase the amount of snowfall a storm drops.

“After a year like this, it makes sense that these ski resorts are looking for anything they can do to bolster snowpack,” Rickert said. “They’re very interested in seeing what else they can do to get more precipitation.”

Cloud seeding is a weather-modification technique that has been around since 1946. It involves dispersing silver iodide, or other harmless compounds, to serve as nuclei around which ice crystals can form during a storm, Rickert explained. He said cloud-seeding systems can increase a storm’s snowfall by roughly 8-12% when generators are turned on.

The Colorado Water Conservation Board administers the state’s weather-modification program, which issues permits to contractors who operate seven permitted winter cloud-seeding projects, all of which are located on the Western Slope.

Rickert said he believes that dry years like this “are one of the reasons why we need to look into cloud seeding as a measure to get more snow, to get more moisture out of a system.” But he noted that the technology can only do so much when natural snowfall is low.

“Cloud seeding can’t create storms,” he said. “We need storms to be present with the right characteristics — wind speed, wind direction and the presence of super-cooled liquid water — and when all those things are there, then we can seed the storm to get a little bit more out of it.”

Fewer storms to seed

The ability of cloud seeding to add to Colorado’s snowpack was limited this year compared to past years due in large part to the lack of suitable storms that rolled through the state, Rickert said. He noted, however, that the technology still likely added small amounts of extra precipitation to the storms it did seed.

In Colorado, he said all seven wintertime cloud-seeding programs use ground-based generator systems and operate from Nov. 1 to April 15, with contractors able to get an extension to the end of April if conditions allow.

“We can’t just create a storm out of thin air,” he said. “It’s all dependent on how many storms we have through the course of a winter. We can’t do anything during a season like this when we have such a small number of storms.”

Two of the state’s cloud seeding projects — the Central Colorado Mountains River Basins project, which targets the region from about Winter Park to Aspen, and the San Juan Mountains project — are run by Western Weather Consultants, a Durango-based company.

Western Weather Consultants Lead Forecaster and Assistant Manager Mike Hjermstad said that the regions where both of those projects operate saw far fewer storms suitable for cloud seeding this year. 

In the central mountains, where there are usually 30 to 40 storms that are suitable for cloud seeding, there were only 20 this season, Hjermstad said. In the San Juan Mountains, there were even fewer storms that were suitable to be seeded. Only about 12 storms rolled through all winter long that could be seeded, he said.

Now that the cloud-seeding season has ended, contractors that run cloud-seeding programs in Colorado are compiling reports on when generators were turned on and how long to estimate how much snow they were able to add to the snowpack. 

He said while Western Weather Consultants wasn’t able to do as much cloud seeding this year as in the past, it wasn’t nothing.

“It was totally limited,” he said. “But there is an increase from it, from seeding.”

Potential looking forward

Despite the limited impact this winter, cloud-seeding technology has been rolled out across the West with the goal of adding to the snowpack.

At least nine states currently conduct cloud-seeding operations, including California, Nevada, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico, Texas and North Dakota, according to the Western Governors’ Association.

The Governors’ Association confirmed cloud seeding is a cheap way to boost water supplies. Cloud seeding is able to produce an acre-foot of drinking water for less than $10, compared to the same amount of drinking water costing about $3,000 to produce via desalination, according to the association.

Rickert said that weather modification is often misunderstood, but with the drought conditions that the West has been facing in recent years, the technology could be critical to increasing the region’s water supply. 

In a normal winter, he said it could supply “an additional hundreds of thousands of acres of winter.”

“Weather modification is the only way to actually add physical water to a system,” he added. “When ski resorts are making snow, they’re pulling water from our lakes, streams and rivers to do that. This just uses our silver iodine solution to add snow. It’s the only way to actually add water to a basin, which I believe is a huge benefit.”

Dozens of folding chairs set up in the two-bay garage of Summit Fire & EMS Station 12 filled quickly on Sunday afternoon, April 12, as people filtered in for a talk on wildfire preparedness.

For extra seating, local residents brought over camp chairs and deck furniture. Others stood or sat in the back, some with children resting on their laps or dangling from their shoulders. More than 100 people turned out, a number of them scribbling in notebooks throughout the presentation.

Ami Doyle, a Summit County resident of 27 years who said she had never previously attended a wildfire preparedness event, summed up why she chose to show up: “The lack of snow this past winter has definitely brought the risk.”

Across the Western Slope, local wildfire officials say Colorado’s historically hot, dry winter and record-low snowpack appears to have sparked a sense of urgency in many people ahead of what could be a dangerous fire season.

In Grand County, Grand Fire Protection District No. 1 Chief Brad White said the record-dry winter — and what it could mean for the fire season ahead — is weighing “heavy on everyone’s mind.”

So far this season, White said more homeowners associations have reached out to the fire district than usual to organize preparedness talks. The amount of requests for wildfire risk assessments is also “well above and beyond what we’ve ever seen by this time of year,” he added, with a backlog of hundreds of properties.

Steamboat Springs Fire Chief Chuck Cerasoli said that Routt County has also seen an uptick in the number of homeowners seeking risk assessments. Cerasoli said the mild winter and the “crazy warm” temperatures in March have “everybody on edge.”

Summit Fire & EMS public information officer Steve Lipsher said the attendance at the district’s five wildfire preparedness events this spring “completely blew away our expectations,” and the phone has been “ringing off the hook” with questions about the coming season.

Pitkin County Emergency Manager Chris Breitbach said officials are now trying to harness the public’s concern into proactive wildfire planning and preparedness.

“It’s a fever pitch. The people in the public are very concerned about it,” Breitbach said. “… We don’t want the public’s anxiety to overwhelm them, but we do want it to snap them to attention and say, ‘I really need to act on this.'”

Western Slope a potential ‘bullseye’ for wildfire activity

With drought conditions across the state and a snowpack that has melted off faster than usual, Colorado is heading into a wildfire season that experts expect to be more active than recent years.

Breitbach noted that northwestern Colorado is facing some of the worst drought conditions in the entire country. Almost the entire northwest corner of the state — including nearly all of Summit, Grand, Eagle, Pitkin, Lake, Routt, Moffat and Rio Blanco counties — is under exceptional drought, or Level 4 of 4, according to the latest U.S. Drought Monitor report. Nowhere else in the West are the drought conditions as severe and widespread.

“If you want to put a bullseye in the country, one of them is right over this part of the state,” Breitbach said. “That’s not an opinion. That’s the fact of what the meteorologists and the National Weather Service are sharing with us.”

Across the Western Slope, the spring has kicked off with small amounts of precipitation. That has led to the vegetation to turn green and lessened the fire danger to the extent where fire restrictions are not currently necessary in most Western Slope counties, according to the fire chiefs. But by June, the heat and long-term drought is expected to lead to above-normal wildfire risk on the Western Slope and Front Range, according to the most recent wildland fire potential outlook from the National Interagency Fire Center. 

The report states that the elevated fire danger is expected to continue into July.

“If we don’t get significant precipitation, the things that are greening up now will start to cure out and be available to dry or burn before we have the potential for any monsoon rain,” Vail Fire Chief Mark Novak said.

Novak noted that the way the fire season plays out will depend in large part on how weather patterns play out this summer, and whether or not the mountains see a soaking monsoon season come July and August.

“We hear a lot of talk about wildfire right now, and people asking the question, ‘Are we going to have a bad wildfire season?'” he said. “There’s a lot of variables. We don’t know that yet. But what I like to emphasize to people is right now is the time to start preparing.”

Coloradans need to be ‘ready’ for wildfires this summer

With the likelihood of high wildfire risk this summer, Colorado emergency officials are emphasizing the importance of the first step of the “Ready, Set, Go!” program for wildfire evacuations.

Western Slope residents need to be “ready” to go — with an evacuation kit in their vehicle and a plan for their family, loved ones and pets — in case a wildfire forces evacuations of their neighborhood this summer, the wildfire officials said.

“I can talk until I’m blue in the face about how people need to prepare,” Breitbach said. “‘Actually do it,’ is my response. You actually need to have a go-kit, you actually need to have an evacuation plan. This is not the year to blow it over.”

Every mountain resident should be signed up for local emergency alerts, which is the first way to learn about pre-evacuation notices or evacuation orders, fire officials across the board said. Families also need to be talking about what they’d do in the case of evacuations, including where to meet up and arrangements for pets.

Emergency officials recommended that residents consider what they’d need to do to be ready to evacuate their home under a pre-evacuation notice, including what valuables they’d want to quickly be able to pack in their vehicle.

“All that sort of stuff should be on a checklist for that time that we say is pre-evacuation, or ‘set.’ Then, when it’s time to evacuate, people are ready,” Cerasoli said. “They can ‘go,’ get out of town. They can get out of their house and neighborhood quickly, and they know confidently that they have everything they need.”

Residents should also pack a go-bag with items they’d need if they were away from home due to an evacuation, and keep the bag in their vehicle in case they don’t have the chance to return home. Fire officials recommended that an evacuation bag have two or three days worth of supplies, including toiletries, medications and changes of clothes, as well as some snacks and water.

In the case of a wildfire, officials said that if residents feel that they’re at risk, they shouldn’t wait for the evacuation order — just go.

“Ideally you’re going to be able to avoid ever having the horror of trying to drive through smoke or flames,” Lipsher said. “You do not want that to happen. Leave early. Get out. Then, hang out until you know the threat is over.”

Western Slope urged to ‘do everything you can’

Being “ready” for potential evacuations is the bare minimum that Coloradans should do to prepare for wildfires this spring, according to the fire chiefs.

With the low snowpack, White suggested that homeowners “take the extra time they’ve gotten without the snow to work on their property and get prepped, doing that maintenance work that they might need to do before summer gets busy.”

Most mountain communities offer free wildfire risk and home ignition zone assessments through their local fire district or wildfire council to help homeowners understand how to make their property defensible in the case of a wildfire. 

While those assessments can be helpful, White said there’s no reason to wait on a visit from a professional. The Colorado State Forest Service, and most fire districts, offer online guides and checklists to help homeowners create defensible space around their home to help protect it from wildfires.

This summer, Breitbach said it will be the responsibility of all Western Slope residents to be prepared and help spread the word to neighbors and visitors about any fire bans that are in place. He noted that local first responders, who have been training and reviewing wildfire plans with state and federal partners for months, are ready for the wildfire season — and now it’s on the public to also be prepared. 

“You can’t wait for public safety to take you by the hand and guide you out of your house to a safe location. There’s not enough of us, and there’s too many people,” he said. “So it is a ‘we’ responsibility. It’s not a ‘you’ public safety responsibility. We are going to do everything we can do. We are begging you to do everything you can do as well.”

In partnership with Xcel Energy, the Town of Silverthorne has begun implementing its new Energy Action Plan with the goal of reducing electricity and natural gas consumption and increasing the amount of electricity procured from renewable sources. 

Through Xcel Energy’s Partners in Energy program, Silverthorne town officials worked to design and build upon the town’s Sustainability Strategic Plan. The town completed its energy action plan April 10 and has begun its early implementation, including a community outreach campaign and planned energy audit. 

The plan outlines an array of goals aimed at reducing electricity and natural gas consumption while incentivizing businesses and residents to invest in renewable energy sources. 

By the end of 2029, the town would like to:

• Reduce per capita energy consumption below the measured 2023 baseline of 145 MMBtu (Metric Million British Thermal Unit) per person
• Continue increasing procurement of electricity from renewable sources for Silverthorne buildings above the 2023 baseline of 45% total energy consumption
• Reduce energy use intensity in town government buildings
• Add solar panels to town government buildings and grounds to increase the overall amount of electricity generated from solar panels

The town has begun developing an outreach campaign to inform residents and businesses of cost-saving opportunities and incentives for reducing energy consumption and moving towards renewable sources.  More information on Silverthorne’s sustainability initiatives can be found at Silverthorne.org/sustainability.

Despite pressure from Colorado’s congressional delegation, around $140 million in federal funding previously granted to Western Slope water projects has lingered in limbo for nearly 16 months.

The funds, awarded to 17 Western Slope projects in the final days of President Joe Biden’s administration, were part of the Inflation Reduction Act’s drought mitigation grant opportunity for the Upper Colorado River Basin. This included $40 million granted to the Colorado River District to aid in its purchase of the Shoshone water rights, the oldest and largest non-consumptive right on the Colorado River tied to the hydropower plant in Glenwood Canyon. 

Three days after the awards were announced, President Donald Trump took office, and his Day 1 order, “Unleashing American Energy,” called for all federal agencies to “immediately pause the disbursement of funds appropriated through the Inflation Reduction Act.”

In June, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation released funds for two of the projects in the Orchard Mesa Irrigation District in Palisade, but the rest remain frozen. 

“The funding has not yet been released, and that’s a real concern given current conditions across all of Colorado, but particularly western Colorado,” said Rep. Jeff Hurd, a Republican representing Colorado’s third district spanning the Western Slope, in an interview on Thursday, April 9. “I am continuing to press hard for clarity on timing and next steps because those projects were awarded for a reason and the need has not gone away.”

Hurd joined all members of Colorado’s congressional delegation in August in pushing for the remaining funds to be released in a letter to the top officials at the U.S. Department of the Interior and Bureau of Reclamation.

Since then, Hurd said he has been “actively working the issue at multiple levels.”  

“I’ve raised it directly with the president. I’ve raised it directly with the acting commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation, the Secretary of the Interior, the undersecretary at the Department of Interior,” he said. “My focus has been straightforward: These are projects that are tied to real water needs, and delaying them only increases the risk for communities not only in my district but throughout the Colorado River basin.” 

Hurd said he remains hopeful the funds will be released, especially following what he referred to as a “productive discussion” with Trump.

“It’s gonna require continued pressure and attention,” he said. “There is broad recognition that water and water infrastructure and drought mitigation are not optional in the West, and these sorts of projects — for example, the Shoshone water right, and these other projects — they are practical. They’re targeted and they’re already vetted. So the case for moving forward on them is strong, and I’m gonna keep pushing until we see progress.”

With the funds frozen due to both “bureaucratic reasons” and “politics,” Hurd likened his approach to that of a river. 

“I want to be like water when it comes to these obstacles,” he said. “When water meets an obstacle, it either goes around it or wears it down.”

In an emailed statement, Rep. Joe Neguse, a Democrat representing Colorado’s second district, which spans portions of the northwest Front Range and a few Western Slope counties, said he was committed to pressing the Trump administration to release this “critical drought management funding,” with Hurd and Colorado Democratic Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper.

“There is no more critical lifeline for our state, our communities, and our way of life here in Colorado than the Colorado River, and safeguarding this water source for future generations is an issue that impacts folks of every political stripe,” Neguse said. “This is of the utmost importance to farmers, ranchers, municipalities, conservation organizations, recreation businesses, county commissioners, and civic leaders across our state. And together, we’ll defend the Colorado River for the future of the state we all treasure.”

Which funds are withheld in Colorado 

The Inflation Reduction Act set aside $4 billion toward drought mitigation, including funds for the Bureau of Reclamation’s Upper Colorado River Basin System Conservation and Efficiency program, also known as the Bucket 2E funding. In January, the Bureau under Biden’s administration allocated a total of $388.3 million to 42 projects on tribal land and in states in the Upper Basin. 

This included $152 million for 17 projects in Colorado, including those for wildlife habitat, watershed and stream restoration, water infrastructure improvements and more.  

Only $12 million of this funding for two Orchard Mesa Irrigation District projects  — meant to improve water delivery to the 15-mile reach of the Colorado River, which extends from Grand Junction and the confluence of the Gunnison River and serves as critical habitat for several endangered fish species, as well as install new metering technology in the Grand Valley — has been released to the awardees. 

The largest Colorado award was the $40 million promised to the River District, which represents 15 Western Slope counties. This funding represented a large chunk of the $98.5 million that the River District needs to purchase the Shoshone water rights from Excel Energy. Outside of the frozen federal dollars, the River District has raised $57.2 million from the state Legislature, its board and the various Western Slope municipalities and utilities it serves. 

Matt Aboussie, Colorado River District’s communications director, said the district continues to work closely with the Bureau of Reclamation to secure this promised funding and remains committed to securing the rights. 

“Funding will not be the obstacle that stops this effort,” Aboussie said. “If needed, River District leadership is prepared with alternative funding options and continues to rely on all our communities to get this project across the finish line.”

While the $40 million has been withheld, the Colorado River District has been going through all the other steps to acquire the water rights. In November, it entered into an instream flow agreement with the Colorado Water Conservation Board, which will ensure that flows tied to the water rights will remain in the Colorado River for environmental benefits regardless of the hydroelectric plant’s future.  

The River District has also filed a joint application in water court with the conservation board and Xcel Energy. The water court will make the final determination on the acquisition, including rulings on some of the contested issues surrounding the district’s acquisition of the water rights, such as how much water has historically been granted. As this case gets underway, 63 entities have filed as parties with an interest in the acquisition, including Front Range water providers, cities and counties concerned about their transmountain diversions and around 23 Western Slope entities supporting the River District. 

After a water court decree, the district will need funding and approval from the Colorado Public Utilities Commission to complete the transaction.

Funding needs intensify as drought worsens on the Western Slope 

The need for the funds has intensified following a historically low snowpack and a drought affecting the entire state, including large portions of the Western Slope under the most intense drought conditions. The latest projections for the Colorado River estimate that Lake Powell will receive around one-fifth of its normal water from the basin. 

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis activated the state’s drought task force in March, which will help coordinate a response to the worsening conditions. Local water providers and municipalities are already introducing restrictions to guard limited water resources this summer. This has included declarations and drought restrictions across the Western Slope, including those from the Vail-area water district, the city of Steamboat Springs and the Mt. Werner Water and Sanitation District, Grand County and the towns of Basalt, Yampa, Frisco and Kremmling. 

“These projects are about resilience. They are about liability. They help stretch limited water supplies. They improve storage and delivery systems and most importantly, they give communities in my district certainty and increasingly uncertain environment,” Hurd said.

An unprecedented March heatwave has forecasters shrinking already-low estimates for how much water will flow into the Colorado River during spring runoff, which is already well underway this year.

The latest models show that the Colorado River is projected to deliver only about 1.4 million acre feet of water — roughly one-fifth of normal — to Lake Powell, the nation’s second-largest reservoir.

Colorado River Basin Forecast Center hydrologist Cody Moser said during a water briefing on Tuesday, April 7, that if those projections were to bear out, it would be the third lowest amount of water delivered to Lake Powell in the reservoir’s 63 year history. 

“We are on the extreme end of things,” Moser said. “We had a huge heatwave at the end of March with significant snowmelt.”

The Colorado River Basin spans seven states and two countries, serving as the water supply for 40 million people. Water in the Blue River that originates in Summit County flows to Dillon Reservoir, which is then diverted to the Front Range based on water rights. Some water flows from there to Green Mountain Reservoir, which sends water not used for water rights in the area toward the Colorado River. Dillon smashed multiple record-high daily temperatures so far this year, and snowpack for the Blue River Basin, which encompasses all of Summit County, is at the zeroth percentile, meaning it is the lowest snowpack seen on record, which goes back roughly 30 years.

Lake Powell, which is currently just 23% full, acts as a “bank account” of water that Lower Basin states can draw from during dry years and upper basin states add to after using their share of the Colorado River, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. The entire basin has experienced ongoing shortages amid a water crisis in recent years.

This season’s increasingly dire projections for the Colorado River come at a critical junction. The Colorado River Basin states failed to reach an agreement by a crucial deadline earlier this year, kicking the question of how to manage the river and its reservoir system to the federal government.

At the start of March, snowpack across the Colorado River Basin and projections for the spring runoff were already low, raising concerns of water shortages and an early start to what could be a dangerous fire season across the West. 

Then came a “very dry March” with a record-shattering heatwave that melted large amounts of the snowpack from the “most crucial areas for spring runoff,” Moser said. Nearly all of these areas had less than 50% of average precipitation in March, and have seen less than half of the average precipitation since October, he said.

“Especially during the last half of March, it got extremely warm,” Moser said. “The heatwave moving through melted a bunch of snow. … It was the warmest March on record across the Southwest.”

The Colorado Climate Center reported that March was the warmest in the state’s 132-year record “by a large margin.” This past March, in fact, was hotter than 90% of past Aprils and set 227 new monthly high temperature records across the state, according to the center’s monthly climate summary. Scientists with World Weather Attribution have determined that the heatwave would have been “virtually impossible” without the influence of human-caused climate change, driven by the burning of fossil fuels.

Averaged across Colorado, March was an “astonishing” 13 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the 20th century average, almost 10 degrees warmer than the 1991-2020 average and more than 4 degrees warmer than any previous March, according to the state’s monthly climate summary. 

Large parts of the mountains experienced record-breaking temperatures lasting for days on end and leading to a rapid melt-off of the state’s already historically-low snowpack. Colorado started April with a snowpack that state climatologists said was the worst in at least the past 75 years.

Colorado’s snowpack peaked in early March — a full month earlier than normal — at 8.5 inches of snow-water equivalent, or roughly half of the 30-year median, according to the state’s snow telemetry data. 

Normally, the state’s snowpack peaks on April 8, but by the time that date rolled around this year, the data show the statewide snowpack had declined to just 3.6 inches of snow water equivalent. That’s less than half what it was a month earlier, and just 23% of normal for that point in the season.

The March melt-off and record-low snowpack conditions were matched across the Colorado River Basin. As of April 1, snowpack across the Western mountains that melt into the Colorado River was generally less than 25% of normal, Moser said. He noted that the conditions have led to significantly lower water supply forecasts.

According to the most recent models, the Yampa River is only expected to deliver 30% of the average amount of water to the Colorado River system this spring and summer, which would be the second lowest in 42 years, Moser said. The Colorado River Headwaters Basin, a sub-basin in north-central Colorado, is only expected to supply about 40% of the average amount of water to the larger Colorado River Basin, which would be the third lowest amount in 93 years, he said.

Most of the Colorado River Basin can expect between one to two inches of precipitation this weekend, Moser said. Meanwhile, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s eight to 14 day outlook predicts wetter-than-normal conditions across the West. Offering, “a little bit better news,” he added that above-average soil moisture across the region could increase how efficiently this precipitation and any additional snowmelt runs off into streams and reservoirs.

Representatives from the U.S. Forest Service gave an update on the Frisco Backyard Fuels and Recreation Project to the Frisco Town Council at a March 24 meeting.

The White River National Forest’s acting district ranger Sam Massman and fuels planner Kat Gray spoke at the meeting, highlighting that the Forest Service approved the project’s environmental assessment in February as well as some of the details and first steps of the project.

Massman said the environmental approval came after the Forest Service completed studies on impacts to wildlife, plants and archeological sites. He said there is a “whole suite of things” the Forest Service studies for a project like this, adding that the agency has done its best to accommodate the many different user groups interested in the area.

“We feel good about it, and we’ve approved it, which means that we are changing our focus to implementation,” Massman said.

The Frisco Backyard comprises parts of Mount Royal, Miners Creek, Rainbow Lake, Ophir Mountain and Gold Hill. The full project, phased over 10 years, will include 1,250 acres of wildfire fuel reduction activities, approximately 25 miles of trail work, watershed improvement and more. The first phase will reduce fuels in a prioritized 500-acre area.

Work on trails, trailheads and fuel reduction could all start this summer, according to Massman and Gray. Trail work just west of Summit High School could start in late summer or early fall, Massman said. The projects’ trail plans look to naturally separate trail users to avoid conflict, with cyclists being pulled to the south and east while hikers will be pulled west.

Massman said the project involves “rethinking” the trail system in the Backyard. It will improve existing sanctioned trails, including popular ones like those going to Mount Royal and Rainbow Lake. Massman said the project will also address around 25 miles of unofficial trails, also called social trails, in the area.

“We’re adopting a number of those,” Massman said. “We’re decommissioning a number of those, with the goal of not having duplicate routes, and getting rid of the unsustainable routes that are causing erosion.”

Massman said the Zach’s Stop area for the Rainbow Lakes and Peaks Trailhead in Frisco could see reconstruction as early as this summer. He said parking there has expanded over time and he has seen nearly 60 cars parked in the area before. The reconstruction would define the boundaries of the parking lot, he said, so it will stop “pushing the boundaries” into the forest.

“It’s going to be a little bigger footprint,” Massman said. “It’s not going to be a bigger capacity.”

The reconstruction will define parking spots and add trash cans and bathrooms, he said. The parking lot could be paved, Massman said, but that would likely require the town managing the lot because “the Forest Service isn’t great at managing pavement.”

Gray said fuel reduction work will start this summer with treatments near the town that are “dead-only” treatments, meaning only dead trees will be cut and piled to later be burned. She said over 60 acres will be treated this year. Over the course of the project, funding will come from the town of Frisco, Summit County’s Strong Future fund, Summit Fire & EMS, Denver Water, the Forest Service, state and federal government funds and other sources.

Fuel maintenance will look different in the Backyard than in other areas, Massman said, as public input in 2023 made it clear people did not want to enter into large clear-cut areas while hiking or biking and feel like they were no longer in the woods. 

“That’s great for fire prevention, but it wasn’t quite hitting sort of the goals of the community,” Massman said of large clear-cut areas.

The Forest Service’s fire mitigation plans take recreational use of the Backyard into account, Massman said, and the agency plans to have “lighter” fuel management projects closer to town where people want to walk out of their homes and feel connected to the woods. The project will need larger treatments to be effective in mitigating fire danger, he said, so the treatments will get more intense as they get farther south from town.

Some of the fuel treatment in areas of high recreation, Gray said, will involve cutting lodgepole pines and leaving other trees, like aspen, standing. Massman said forests with only lodgepole pines can look pretty “stark” after they are cut, but that is not the case for much of the Backyard.

“They have tons of other things growing,” Massman said. “We’ve got spruce and fir and aspen and all this stuff growing underneath.”

Massman said the Forest Service has worked with the town’s museum coordinator Blair Miller to plan restoration work at historical sites in the Backyard like Masontown, an old mining town on Mount Royal.

Large swathes of the Colorado Rocky Mountains that are usually covered in snow this time of year started out the month barren, leading climate experts say the state is officially facing its worst snowpack on record.

Of the 64 sites across the mountains where manual snow course data has been collected monthly for more than half a century, 60 either tied or had the lowest measurements on record for April 1, according to the Colorado Climate Center. 

An analysis by the center found that more than one-quarter of the snow course locations had no snow at all — and none of those 18 sites had ever been snowless before at this time of year. Five of the snowless sites had never before had less than 5 inches of snow-water equivalent on April 1.

“There’s no sugar-coating the data right now: after the record-smashing heat in March, the mountain snowpack is in historically bad shape for April 1,” Colorado State Climatologist Russ Schumacher wrote in a blog post Thursday.

Unlike Colorado’s snow telemetry — or SNOTEL — system, which was built out during the mid-1980s, the manual snow course data captures two of the worst snowpack seasons in the state’s history: the winters of 1976-77 and 1980-81.

All winter long, as the SNOTEL system showed Colorado’s snowpack at its lowest levels in decades, climatologists said the snowpack was only the second or third worst on record, pointing to 1976-77 and 1980-81 winters as worse. 

Now, based on the latest snow course data, Schumacher said the state’s snowpack — which is supposed to be peaking this time of year, but instead is almost gone — is in worse shape than even those historically bad years.

“It’s now safe to conclude that this has been the worst year for Colorado snowpack in recorded history,” he said.

March heatwave brought 7 straight days of record-breaking heat

A heatwave, which scientists say would have been “virtually impossible” without the influence of human-caused climate change, roasted Colorado and the West throughout March, crushing temperature records.

Across large parts of the mountains, temperatures remained above the previous record — often by several degrees — for more than seven days in a row, according to the Colorado Climate Center.

“That’s right: a whole week’s worth of days that were warmer than any March day in the last 75 years,” Schumacher said.

Also last month, Colorado set its all-time high temperature for the month of March when the heat hit 99 degrees Fahrenheit in Burlington, breaking the previous March record of 96 degrees set in Holly in 1907.

Schumacher noted that the “record-shattering” heat drove the fastest melt-off of Colorado’s snowpack ever recorded before the start of April.

“There’s no question that this will go down as the warmest March on record for Colorado — around 3-4 (degrees) warmer than any other March in the last 132 years — once all the numbers are tallied,” he said.

Snowpack numbers are not an ‘April Fool’s joke’

Snowpack statewide declined by nearly 5 inches of snow-water equivalent over a two-week period at the end of March, Schumacher said. That’s more than twice as fast as the snowpack has ever melted in March.

Previously, the fastest two-week decline in the snowpack before the start of April was 2.3 inches of snow-water equivalent, according to the data. Even during the month of April, the record shows only two times when the snow-water equivalent dropped by more than 5 inches in a two-week period.

“We wish the snowpack numbers in April were an April Fool’s joke,” Schumacher said.

As of April 1, the snow-water equivalent averaged across Colorado’s 115 snow telemetry sites was 3.3 inches, just 22% of the 30-year median. That’s less than 40% of the water stored in the snow compared to that time in 2012, which was the previous lowest year on record, according to the Colorado Climate Center.

At Middle Fork Campground in Grand County, where snow course records have been kept for roughly 90 years, the data show the previous lowest snowpack ever recorded on April 1 was 5.8 inches of snow-water equivalent. That was during the historically bad year of 1981. This year, there was no snow there.

The story is similar at the Yampa View snow course site in Routt County, according to the Colorado Climate Center. The previous worst April 1 snowpack there was 6.5 inches of snow-water equivalent in 2012, but this year there was no snow there.

‘April has started off like April’

Across Colorado, the record-low snowpack conditions have communities concerned about water shortages and higher wildfire risk this summer.

Governments and water managers are already implementing water restrictions and fire officials are warning residents to prepare for a wildfire season that could be historically destructive, if conditions don’t improve.

“The one bit of good news is that April has started off like April, rather than whatever the March-June hybrid was that we just went through,” Schumacher said. “Widespread precipitation fell in Western Colorado, with snow in the mountains and rain at lower elevations.”

Some of the snow telemetry sites that were snow-free at the end of March have snow on them again after this week’s storm, Schumacher said. While the precipitation won’t be enough to alleviate the snowpack and water deficits, he said “any water from the sky is very welcome at this point.”

Drought conditions are continuing to push across Colorado. The entire state is now at least abnormally dry and more than one-fifth of the state is facing exceptional drought conditions, the highest level, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor map released Thursday. The worst of the drought is centered on the northwest corner of the state.

Looking ahead, Schumacher said forecasts suggest that April will have “more active weather than March had” and while temperatures will probably be above average, they won’t be as summer-like as last month.

“This should help to slow down the melting of the little snow that remains, and perhaps give some temporary increases in snowpack that at the very least keep the situation from degrading as quickly as it has been,” he said.