While Congress debates a massive disaster relief package for the victims of Superstorm Sandy, Colorado's Democratic senators yesterday filed a bill seeking more money for a federal program to help stabilize and restore watersheds affected by last summer's devastating wildfires.

The bill, S. 3669, introduced by Sens. Mark Udall and Michael Bennet, asks Congress to allocate $89.4 million to the Agriculture Department's Emergency Watershed Protection (EWP) program that, among other things, helps restore watersheds damaged by wildfires and drought. The goal, according to a spokesman for Bennet, is for the appropriation to be included in any Sandy relief package.

This past summer was the most destructive wildfire season in Colorado's history. The High Park blaze near Fort Collins and the Waldo Canyon fire in Colorado Springs burned tens of thousands of acres, destroyed nearly 600 homes and at one time displaced tens of thousands of residents. As a result of the High Park wildfire, for example, the region remains at a high risk of water quality degradation, flood hazard and road washouts months after the blaze was extinguished.

The latest bill follows President Obama's $60.4 billion emergency request to Congress to help communities rebuild and recover in the wake of the October hurricane that already ranks among the most expensive catastrophes in U.S. history. It remains uncertain whether Congress will approve a Sandy disaster relief package before the 112th Congress adjourns within the month (E&E Daily, Dec. 11).

The president's emergency request included $30 million in additional funding for the EWP program. But a statement from the senators says the scope of EWP funding in the president's request "is currently unclear" and does not address what they see as "a national backlog for an oversubscribed EWP program" administered by USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service.

The senators' bill comes a little more than a week after six members of Colorado's congressional delegation, including Bennet and Udall, wrote three separate letters to the White House and leaders in the Senate and House requesting that Sandy storm relief packages include additional money for the EWP program (Greenwire, Dec. 3).

The EWP program supports projects to restore damage to watersheds and drinking water infrastructure, including debris-clogged stream channels, unstable stream banks and damaged public infrastructure, as well as damaged upland sites stripped of protective vegetation by fire or drought.

Though the Federal Emergency Management Agency provides immediate assistance to areas affected by natural disasters like wildfires, assistance in long-term recovery efforts has been lacking due to shortfalls in the EWP program funding, Udall and Bennet say.

Bennet chairs the Senate Agriculture Subcommittee on Conservation, Forestry and Natural Resources, which has jurisdiction over the EWP program.

"This bill will ensure adequate resources to help Colorado communities restore the stability of their watersheds and protect their drinking water infrastructure," Bennet said yesterday in a statement. "The measure will also help other states struck by major disasters that have urgent EWP needs."

In a separate letter last week, Udall and Bennet asked Senate Appropriations Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) and ranking member Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) to include additional funding for the EWP program in any "supplemental appropriations measure" for Sandy relief.

"Even though the fires have long since been extinguished, communities in Larimer, Weld and El Paso counties are to this day grappling with the long-term threat to their water supplies and the ongoing threat of flash flooding," Udall said yesterday in a statement. "This legislation will help ensure that Colorado's wildfires and their lingering effects are not forgotten as Congress takes up how to allocate new disaster-relief funds. Failing to address these damages could ultimately cost Coloradans and all taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars in the future."

Streater writes from Colorado Springs, Colo.