With funding from GOCO and the CWCB, Colorado Water Trust is launching the first element in its new and expanded Technical Assistance Program. Land trusts have the opportunity to seek assistance in evaluating their organization’s encumbered water rights. In addition, we are looking for participation from the land trust community in revising the Model Conservation Easement Language...Read more.
The Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) gave the initial green light to the Breem Ditch transaction, an innovative instream flow project, which will add much-needed streamflow to sections of Washington Gulch and the Slate River near the Town of Crested Butte...Read more.
Colorado Water Trust is pleased to have been selected as a recipient of a Conservation Excellence Grant, a new grant program from Great Outdoors Colorado. The intent of the new grant program is to provide funding for conservation planning and other activities that improve and expand the capacity of organizations to achieve quality land conservation. CWT is one of 10 recipients of this new grant program. We will be using the funds to breathe new life into our Technical Assistance Program (TAP). The goal of TAP is to increase awareness of the role of water in land conservation and to promote best-practices management of water rights that are included in conservation easements. The program will have three primary elements:
Water Rights Education Workshops. These full-day workshops will be held around the state and will provide information on the basics of water law, the intersection of water and land conservation, and water transactions.
Water Rights Model Language Revision. CWT will update the existing water rights model language to incorporate the current state of the law and make changes to accommodate the needs of land conservation professionals that use it.
Water Rights Consultations. CWT will assist six land trusts in identifying, cataloging, and efficiently managing water rights encumbered by their conservation easements.