Colorado Receives $57 Million in Emergency Watershed Funds for Flood Recovery Work

Resources Will Help with Conservation Work Following 2013 Floods

Bennet Led Efforts to Make funds Avaialble

Washington, DC - Colorado U.S. Senator Michael Bennet announced today that Colorado will receive $56.9 million from the Emergency Watershed Protection (EWP) program for conservation work following the September 2013 floods. The funding, part of a nationwide allocation of $84 million, will help ongoing recovery projects to restore stream corridors, remove debris and prevent future flooding.

"Coloradans demonstrated their resiliency following the floods by rebuilding homes, businesses, roads, and bridges," Bennet said. "But the recovery work continues, and this funding is crucial to helping complete these watershed projects. This infusion of resources will go a long way to ensuring our communities can fully recover and will help mitigate against future disasters."

The 2013 floods caused $3 billion in damages in 18 counties in Colorado. This additional EWP funding is the second phase of the project to restore watersheds and help prevent future flood disasters. The first phase invested $12.9 million in 2013. Colorado has an estimated $61 million in projects awaiting funding through the EWP Program.

Work will target about 500 sites in the region. These projects bring together stage agencies, 20 local governments, watershed planning coalitions, and other groups.

Bennet led the effort to ensure Colorado has the federal resources it needs to rebuild in the wake of the 2013 floods. Last May, he successfully included $110 million in an appropriations bill for the EWP program, which could be used to cover Colorado's backlog of EWP projects. He also successfully secured up to $450 million in emergency federal transportation funds to repair Colorado's road, bridges and highways damaged in the flood. He also helped lead the successful effort to bring more than $262 million in federal recovery aid to Colorado through the U.S. Housing and Urban Development's Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) Program.

Bennet is the Ranking Member of the Senate Agriculture Subcommittee on Conservation, Forestry and Natural Resources, which has jurisdiction over the EWP program.

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