Hickenlooper Celebrates $21 Million in Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Funding for Colorado River Basin Fish Recovery

Funding Builds on Hickenlooper's Senate Leadership to Reauthorize Fish Recovery Programs

WASHINGTON - Today, U.S. Senator John Hickenlooper applauded the Bureau of Reclamation's announcement of $21 million dollars in Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding for endangered species recovery and conservation throughout the Colorado River Basin. The funding will support a number of projects, including efforts to recover four threatened and endangered fish native to the Upper Colorado River and San Juan River Basins.

"Protecting native fish is essential to maintaining our rivers," said Hickenlooper. "These fish recovery programs are a swimaway success in Colorado, and our Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is building on that momentum across the West."

Hickenlooper was part of the bipartisan group of 22 senators who negotiated and wrote the $1.2 trillion infrastructure law, which includes $8.3 billion for Western water. Hickenlooper - along with Senator Mitt Romney, leads the Senate effort to reauthorize the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery and San Juan River Basin Recovery Implementation programs, both of which received significant funding through this announcement.

The Bureau of Reclamation's announcement includes:

• $1.2 million for the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program to design a fish exclusion feature at Lake Catamount, roughly 8.5 miles south of Steamboat Springs. The feature will prevent nonnative Northern pike from escaping downstream to critical habitat for threatened and endangered fish in the Yampa River.
  
  
• $2.6 million for the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program to address needed repairs that will improve performance and efficiency at the Ouray National Fish Hatchery's Grand Valley and Randlett units in Colorado and Utah, respectively.
  
  
• $1 million for the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program to replace the water control structure at Old Charley Wash, a floodplain wetland near the Green River that provides habitat for rearing threatened and endangered fish.
  
  
• $5.2 million for the San Juan River Basin Recovery Implementation Program to design and construct a fish passage structure on the San Juan River roughly 17 miles west of Farmington, New Mexico.
  
  
• $10 million for the Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Program to build rearing ponds for native fishes at the Yuma Meadows Conservation Area.
  
  
• $1 million for the Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Program to study fish entrainment at Glen Canyon Dam.
  
  

More information is available HERE.

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