MEMORANDUM FOR PUBLIC RELEASE From:

Kevin Patterson, Interim Executive Director Chantal Unfug, Division Director

Date:

March 30, 2015

Re:

Capacity Building Grants Awarded to Ten Colorado Watershed Coalitions

We are excited to announce that, on March 4, 2015, the State of Colorado awarded a total of $1,861,819 from the Community Development Block Grant – Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) Watershed Resilience Pilot Program to help flood- and fire‐affected communities build capacity and plan for more resilient watersheds. Coalitions in ten flood- and fire-affected watersheds have recevied grants to hire up to two staff. These new staff will coordinate recovery processes in your district and carry out recovery projects identified in watershed master plans. What’s more, the Colorado Department of Local Affairs was able to leverage state funds to support these new staff in fundraising activities, bolstering capacity to complete multi-objective watershed restoration efforts to maximize resiliency. The historic flooding in 2013 caused roughly $3.36 billion in damage to Colorado’s housing, infrastructure, and economic sectors. As part of the CDBG-DR program, Colorado launched the Watershed Resilience Pilot Program – a holistic program designed to align watershed restoration and risk mitigation with community and economic development goals using a collaborative, multijurisdictional, coalition approach. These watershed program funds support capacity building through watershed coalition staffing, multiobjective planning, and project implementation to address long-term catalytic watershed system improvements. These improvements build resilience in watersheds that sustained damage from recent federally-declared flood and fire disasters. The first allocation of CDBG-DR funds totaling $62.8 million was made available by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) on December 16, 2013. Of those funds, approximately $25 million is available for watershed recovery work, prioritized through watershed coalitions. Approximately 80 percent of funds will be allocated to the hardest-hit counties of Boulder, Larimer, and Weld. For more information on the CDBG-DR Watershed Resilience Pilot Program, see the Program Guidelines and Applications at: http://dola.colorado.gov/cdbg-dr/content/watershed-resilience-pilot-program and http://dola.colorado.gov/cdbg-dr/content/resilience-planning-and-capacity-building. These webpages will be updated with the most current information available.

Governor John W. Hickenlooper | Kevin Patterson, Interim Executive Director 1313 Sherman St., Room 521, Denver, CO 80203 P 303.864.7720 TDD/TYY 303.864.7758 www.dola.colorado.gov Strengthening Colorado Communities