In mid-May, Colorado TU and its partners with Audubon Rockies and Conservation Colorado hosted a tour for members of the Colorado Water Quality Control Commission as well as staff with the Water Quality Control Division. The tour offered the opportunity to see first-hand isolated wetlands and non-perennial streams that lost protection under the Supreme Court’s Sackett decision in 2023, and which will now be managed under a wetlands protection and permitting program under Colorado state law.
By December 2025, the Commission is charged with adopting rules for a state “dredge and fill” authorization program – similar to the Clean Water Act Section 404 permitting program managed through the US Army Corps of Engineers and Environmental Protection Agency. Perennial streams – those that flow year-round – and wetlands with a surface connection to those more permanent waters will continue to be regulated through the federal program, while Colorado’ state program is needed to maintain protections for isolated wetlands and intermittent and ephemeral streams that do not flow year-round.
On the tour, we visited Two Ponds National Wildlife Refuge and Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge, to see different types of isolated wetlands – ranging from the namesake Two (actually three) Ponds, to a mix of perched groundwater-fed wetlands and ephemeral stream systems cutting across portions of Rocky Flats. While these specific waters were on protected federal lands, they are examples of the kind of waters throughout Colorado that lost their status under the federal Clean Water Act and in future will rely on state regulations for their protection.
In addition to seeing such waters on-the-ground and hearing from the federal land managers who steward them on the refuges, the tour included presentations from outside experts including Gene Reetz (retired from EPA’s regional water program), Abby Burk (restoration and policy expert with Audubon Rockies) and Colorado TU board member Ashley Giles (wetlands ecologist and consultant). Our experts shared with attendees background on the waters we visited including the functions they and similar waters serve within our watersheds across Colorado – as habitat for a range of species, as contributors to downstream watershed and stream health, and as buffers that help mitigate impacts from natural disasters like floods and wildfires.
Our hope is that the first-hand visit and education about these systems will help Colorado’s Water Quality Control Commission to be well-informed about the resources they address in the upcoming rulemaking, helping them to consider thoughtfully the proposals and information presented during the rulemaking, and to ask thoughtful questions to help shape the ultimate policies they adopt from a place of greater up-front knowledge and familiarity.
We are confident that well-informed decision-makers will help produce better final policies that responsibly address wetland and water protection within the context of Colorado’s laws, communities, and watersheds. We deeply appreciate the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s assistance in touring wetlands on their refuge properties, and the Commission and Division representatives who took part in this afternoon of shared learning and conversation.
