The Colorado Water Conservation Board is poised to ask the legislature for $55 million in next year’s budget to turn on the spigot of a $20 billion plan to urge the state’s water users to wean off about 1 percent year.

Thirty million dollars would go into a loan fund to help cities finance repairs and other projects to help save water, and the remaining $25 million would kickstart other parts of the state water conservation plan unveiled a year ago. The plan, 10 years in the making and championed by Gov. John Hickenlooper, would help the state make better use of the water it has in the face of growth along the burgeoning Front Range as well as climate change, which threaten to dry up the Western Slope and rural farm communities on the Eastern Plains.

Backers say all parts of the state working together is the only way to ensure enough water for healthy rivers, sustained agriculture and growing suburbs.

The budget legislators will consider in the session that begins Jan. 11, however, is  projected at $28.5 billion. Though that is 3.3 percent larger than the previous year’s spending plan, the governor’s proposed budget is expected to have $500 million in cuts and delayed spending for such programs as transportation, health care and education. The proposal also calls for the state to hang on to an estimated $32 million in severance taxes from mineral extraction that usually would go to local governments to pay for such projects as water conservation.

Severance taxes have been eyed as a way to pay for part of Colorado’s statewide water plan for replacing leaky pipes, raising the height of dams to expand reservoirs, restoring watersheds and facilitating transfers between the communities that preserve agriculture.

The 1 percent statewide water-saving target would represent 130 billion gallons a year. The average Denver home uses about 115,000 gallons a year, according to Denver Water. The savings target would accommodate more than 1.1 million additional households at that level.

The $20 billion price tag includes water projects and river restoration programs across the state by 2050, with most of the money coming from local governments that benefit from individual projects, federal sources, private enterprise and environmental foundations. Statewide, taxpayers are expected to pony up about $3 billion over the next 34 years.

“In my view it’s a really important conclusion that after the first year we have a lot of objectives; we have a good first year of figuring out what we need to do, and now we have a commitment, at least by the board, to start spending resources to implement the plan,” Bart Miller, Healthy Rivers program director for Boulder-based Western Resource Advocates, said Thursday.

“There’s still a lot of work to be done, but I think this decision yesterday helps us launch into moving down the path toward implementing the plan.”

The plan, drafted from more than 30,000 comments and scores of meetings across the state, should appeal to a broad base of politicians, Miller said.

“In the world of water, much of the issue is and should be bipartisan,” he said. “If you’re talking about water in the West it feels to me that that’s an issue that transcends individual people or individual parties. It’s kind of a basic thing we all need to work together on.”

Miller and other conservation leaders used the one-year anniversary of the plan’s unveiling to urge leaders to continue to progress, despite short-term budget hurdles.

The plan is important, supporters said, because the state’s population is expected to double by 2050 and because climate change could lead to more droughts across the West.

Abby Burk, Western Rivers Program lead for Audubon Rockies, said that while implementing the plan would not be easy, the issues are pressing.

“Now more than ever, Coloradans must continue to work together for implementation of the plan and reach for smart bold actions now in order to secure our water future for people and the environment,” she said.

Matt Rice, Colorado Basin director with American Rivers, called the sweeping conservation effort “an example of people across Colorado, and across a wide array of interests, coming together to forge this important plan for our state’s water future.”

“But any good plan is only as good as its implementation, and now we must urge our leaders to continue working toward fully implementing the principles developed in the final plan,” he said.

Theresa Conley, advocacy director for Conservation Colorado, called the water plan “a reflection of the values Coloradans hold dear.”

“It’s critical our legislators now work diligently to turn those values into action and fully implement the plan to ensure that we are protecting our precious water resources,” she said in a statement.