It doesn’t garner many headlines, but The Land and Water Conservation Fund has been making a difference for Colorado’s public lands and outdoor recreation for 50 years. You may not have heard of the program, but if you’ve spent time in Colorado fishing, hunting, hiking, camping, or even visiting your local community parks – odds are, you’ve directly experienced the benefits of the program.

In 1964, Congress created the LWCF to invest in our public lands and provide recreation opportunities to all Americans. Funds come not from taxpayer dollars, but rather from royalties paid by oil and gas development offshore – so that dollars generated from one public resource can be invested into another one. In Colorado, the LWCF has provided more than $230 million for public lands and outdoor recreation. Yet the program will expire on Sept. 30 if Congress doesn’t act to reauthorize it.

The program’s benefits are as diverse as they are significant. LWCF funds helped acquire the Baca Ranch, which paved the way for the establishment of the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. In the aftermath of the 1976 Big Thompson flood, LWCF funds helped acquire home sites destroyed in the flood – helping avoid millions of dollars of losses when floods returned in 2013 and, in the process, providing outstanding public fishing access to one of the Front Range’s great wild trout fisheries. Similar success stories can be told for projects all across the state.

As a businessman who relies on Colorado’s outdoor recreation for my family’s livelihood and that of my employees, I know that public lands and recreation not only benefit our communities and our quality of life, they also are major economic engines for our state. Statewide, outdoor recreation generates more than $30 billion every year. Fishing alone generates more than $1.2 billion and supports more than 14,000 good Colorado jobs.

Investing in our great outdoors may seem obvious for those of us in Colorado – 90 percent of us engage in outdoor recreation every year, we voted to create Great Outdoors Colorado, and our state brand and slogan (“It’s Our Nature”) celebrate our natural resources and the recreation they support. Enjoying our rivers, open lands, and parks is practically written in our DNA. Yet Washington, D.C., is far removed from Colorado, and inside the Beltway the LWCF’s future is very much in doubt with less than 20 days left before it expires.

LWCF is at risk despite enjoying bipartisan support. Sen. Cory Gardner has called it “the nation’s most important conservation program.” Sen. Michael Bennet says it has helped “preserve countless treasures like the Great Sand Dunes and Rocky Mountain National Park as well as to create and maintain local parks, urban nature areas, and state parks.” But even successful programs can fall victim to congressional gridlock.We can’t let that happen to the LWCF. Every elected official in Colorado – and especially all of our representatives in Congress – should support its reauthorization. I thank Sens. Bennet and Gardner for their efforts to date; they need to continue the fight. And I ask Reps. Jared Polis, Scott Tipton, Doug Lamborn, Ken Buck, Ed Perlmutter, Diana DeGette, and Mike Coffman to join them in working to get LWCF reauthorized as quickly as possible. Our public lands, parks and recreation are too important for our state’s economy, heritage, and quality of life to let LWCF and its 50 years of success come to an end.

Tucker Ladd is the Owner of Trouts Fly Fishing in Denver and is acting chairman of the American Fly Fishing Trade Association.