Projects

Colorado Watershed Assembly

Contact Information:
OSM/VISTA: Luke Gallegos
Supervisor: Jeff Crane
Address: 29163 Stingley Gulch Rd, Hotchkiss, CO 81419
Phone: 970-872-2433
Email: luke AT coloradowater DOT org
Website: www.coloradowater.org
US Congressional District: 58
County: Delta

Description of Organization and Mission:

Colorado, like much of the west, continues to grapple with the need to cultivate the state's natural heritage while supporting new development and acting as responsible stewards of land and water resources. While these goals often appear as diametrically opposed, the Assembly operates under the presumption that the watershed approach to natural resource management is the ideal framework for transporting Colorado from the 'Wild West' into the 'New West'. We seek to ensure that when citizens in Colorado encounter a problem at the intersection of nature and human activities, they seek a watershed-based solution.

The Assembly provides ongoing support to local watershed organizations by distributing resources and information to the grassroots, so that local groups can focus time and energy on developing solutions to Colorado's ecological shortfalls. We offer:

• Inflow Network: An electronic information network and database designed to engage watershed groups in State water policy processes and provide up-to-date information on funding opportunities, events, trainings and relevant news topics. Inflow includes the weekly Inflow Newsletter and the monthly Water News. We also send out time-sensitive email alerts to concerned citizens detailing important developments and events throughout Colorado.
  
  
• Watershed Planning: The Assembly provides grant writing assistance, watershed plan coordination, and group development.
• Healthy Rivers Fund: A voluntary state income tax program - initiated and promoted by the Assembly - has provided over $500,000 for projects throughout Colorado over the past six years.
• The Assembly compiles a list of potential funding opportunities for watershed organizations throughout the state on its website. The list is updated regularly.
• Annual "Sustaining Colorado Watersheds Conference": Our annual conference provides opportunities for education and networking with agencies, consultants, planners, and conservation groups.

Annual Sustaining Colorado Watersheds Conference

Goal of OSM/VISTA in the Colorado Watershed Assembly:

The Colorado Watershed Assembly received its first OSM/VISTA in the summer of 2007. Over the next three years the OSM/VISTA's responsibility is to improve the Assembly's capacity to disseminate information to the grassroots. All too often citizen groups in Colorado experience a time, distance, and money handicap when trying to influence regional and state water policy. The OSM/VISTA is charged with developing a framework and funding sources to conveniently engage water-interested groups and individuals.

In the first year, the Assembly's OSM/VISTA has developed the Inflow Network, which allows us to proactively disseminate information based upon interests, affiliations and geography. Over the next two years the VISTA will be charged with improving the system and developing sustainable funding sources to maintain the Inflow Network into the future.