SILVERTHORNE, Colo.— Colorado Gov. Jared Polis today signed into law a bill to restore protections for wetlands and seasonal springs that have been left vulnerable to destruction since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Sackett decision gutted safeguards last spring. Colorado is the first state to enact legislation addressing the protection gap left for state waters by the Sackett decision.

Wetlands in Colorado are the primary habitats of more than 120 species, from the San Luis Valley’s sandhill cranes to northern leopard frogs. More than half of this essential wetland habitat has been lost since the 1800s because of draining, filling and excavating. The Sackett decision held, contrary to scientific evidence, that any wetland without a surface connection to a federally protected water did not warrant protection from destruction and harm.

“I’m grateful legislators and Gov. Polis stepped up quickly to restore essential protections for our state’s spectacular wildlife habitat,” said Alli Henderson, southern Rockies director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Colorado’s swift approval of this bill shows true leadership and protects the beautiful wild places and crucial environmental functions that make our state a great home for wildlife, plants and people.”

Although wetlands make up less than 3% of the Colorado landscape, they play an outsized role in sustaining wildlife –– providing a home for 26% of the state's birds, amphibians, reptiles and mammals. Many more species depend on wetlands and seasonal streams for key portions of their life cycles.

“As climate change worsens the Colorado River megadrought, failing to restore protections for our irreplaceable wetlands and seasonal streams would have been a death sentence for a lot of wetland-dependent wildlife,” said Henderson. “Snow-fed streams, fens and wet meadows are obviously vital to our state’s biodiversity, but they also protect our communities’ drinking water and act as natural firebreaks. With this legislation, Colorado is leading the nation by implementing environmental policy grounded in science.”

Based on United States National Geological Survey’s Hydrography Dataset it is estimated that over two-thirds of Colorado’s waters are temporary in nature and do not have year-round flow. These waters, however, are vital to water quality, quantity and aquatic ecosystem health, contributing to downstream water flows and moving nutrients and sediments.

The law restores most of the federal protections that had been in place for decades preceding the Supreme Court decision and adopts the exclusions and exemptions that have worked for the regulated industries for decades.

It establishes a state permitting program administered by the Water Quality Control Division that focuses first on avoiding impacts to these waters and mitigating and compensating for impacts when they cannot be avoided. The law also sets as the floor the current federal guidelines for issuing permits and requires individual permits to protect downstream uses, including aquatic ecosystems.