General Grants – 15 grants totaling $6M

Stillwater Reservoir, located at the headwaters of the Bear River in Routt and Garfield Counties, is currently under a fill restriction due to seepage in the left abutment. The reservoir serves 98% agricultural users, a total of 19 ditches, on the Bear River to supply late-season irrigation water. Since the restriction was set in 2019, the Bear River Reservoir Company has taken incremental steps towards repairing the reservoir to ensure its operation. In 2022, the Colorado River District Board approved a $125,000 award to complete the first phase of work to remove the fill restriction. This included the engineering to repair the abutments and complete construction of the replacement of the outlet infrastructure. The final engineering completed proposes constructing a downstream blanket drain to serve as the filtered exit for the seepage in the left abutment, install a filter collar to prevent possible erosion, and stabilize the river channel below the dam. 

Communities of the North Fork Valley are undertaking a Wildfire Ready Watershed, Wildfire Ready Action Plan, spearheaded by Western Slope Conservation Center (WSCC) with support from other stakeholders. The North Fork and Smith Fork WRAP is composed of local, state, and federal entities as well as private landowners, nonprofit organizations, municipalities, fire districts, agricultural water districts, and domestic water companies. The goals for the North Fork and Smith Fork, WRAP are to: identify values at risk to post-fire conditions; gather and identify relevant data, complete a data- gap analysis; identify and analyze hazards; analyze value susceptibility; and create a pre-fire and post-fire action plan to mitigate hazards and reduce susceptibility. The final goal is to use the WRAP to prioritize funding needs and future projects for protection of at-risk assets from wildfires and enhancement of watershed health.