headwaters fall 2012: agriculture-- rooted in colorado

H e a d w a t e r s | F a l l 2 0 1 2 1

Colorado Foundation For Water eduCation | Fall 2012

Quality + Scarcity + Opportunity = Water

Keeping Water on Colorado’s Farms

Coping With Drought and a Competitive Water Market

Agricultural Water Rights 101

Tasting the Fruits of the North Fork Valley’s Labor

C o l o r a d o F o u n d a t i o n f o r W a t e r E d u c a t i o n | y o u r w a t e r c o l o r a d o . o r g

Defining Values

On Tour With CFWEBuckle up, because a CFWE tour is coming to a water site near you! These interactive programs help participants to define and understand the many values and uses associated with water in Colorado.

In August 2012, CFWE hosted the Morgan County Dairy Tour with generous sponsor support. A diverse group of 50 water professionals, public officials and educators came together to learn about agriculture’s importance to Colorado’s rural economies. Attendees mingled with cows at the impres-sive Quail Ridge Dairy and saw how milk is processed at Leprino Foods, the world’s largest mozzarel-la cheese producer! Expert speakers also examined the dairy industry’s role in future water demands and local food production. Look for future agriculture tours in the fall of 2013.

CFWE tour participants got an inside look at the dairy industry in August.

Join us in exploring the value of water in your life at any of these upcoming CFWE tours:

• December 14, 2012—Bottled Beverage Industry in the Denver Metro area

• March 8, 2013—Climate and Colo-rado’s Water Future at the National Ice Core Laboratory in Lakewood

• May 2013—Urban Waters Bike Tour in Denver

• May 2013—Lower Colorado River Basin in and around the Grand Valley

• June 2013—Upper Colorado River Basin in the headwaters area

• July 2013—Interstate Tour along the Platte River system in Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska

CFWE Mission in Motion

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Creating Knowledge

Connect With “Your Water Colorado” BlogGain and share water knowledge by reading and commenting on the “Your Water Colo-rado” blog. If you’re ready for the stories in Headwaters to come to life, to receive regular water news updates in your inbox, or to share thoughts on Colorado water, subscribe to the blog. Since its January launch, the blog has received 11,000 views on 80 posts.

Visit blog.yourwatercolorado.org and sign up for the RSS feed so you don’t miss a word.

Strengthening Leadership

Upcoming Class of Water LeadersAs the 2012 class of Water Leaders graduated last spring, CFWE was fortunate to have an opportu-nity to strengthen the way in which we cultivate leadership in Colorado water. Staff, Board and pro-gram alumni worked with the OMNI Institute on an independent and formative program evaluation. We were able to articulate exactly how the Water Leaders Program positively impacts the Colorado water profession by developing a pipeline of emerging water leaders across various fields—leaders with the knowledge and skills to navigate the complex world of Colorado water. The evaluation’s re-sults are helping CFWE make several program modifications to improve our effectiveness in training the water leaders of tomorrow. Look for greater application of the Colorado water resources field in program content; increased engagement with past, current and future employers of program partici-pants; more effective marketing and recruitment tools; and revitalization of the Alumni Network. In late 2012, applications will be available for the next class at www.yourwatercolorado.org. Please join us in sharing this professional development opportunity with your colleagues and networks!

Increasing Awareness

Water 2012’s Impact and Next StepsThe year 2012 may be winding down, but Colo-rado’s Year of Water is still going strong! As of September 30, Water 2012 had surpassed its goal of reaching 500,000 Coloradans with the message of celebrating our state’s water re-sources. Water 2012 could never have reached this goal without the initiative’s 41 financial sponsors, the 186 organizations who held local Water 2012 events, or the 600-plus individuals who offered their time, expertise and support.

To date, Water 2012 has reached:

• 46,200 readers and library patrons through book club and library displays

• 2,800 civic club members through the Speakers Bureau

• 8,200 youth and college students through K-12 activities and university networking events

• 27,000 attendees at local Water 2012 events

• 321,000 newspaper readers in Pueblo, Alamosa, Grand Junction and many other cities through water-related articles, and

• 100,000 Western Slope radio listeners through public service announcements.

And we aren’t done yet! Check the com-munity calendar at www.water2012.org for more author talks, university networking events and educational tours and programs continuing through the end of the year.

Hear an in-depth recap of the year’s accomplishments, plus ideas for moving forward, at a celebratory luncheon on Jan.

30 at the Denver Marriott Tech Center. Join Water 2012, along with Colorado Water Con-gress, as we thank sponsors and volunteers and celebrate hard work by all. Find registra-tion information at www.cowatercongress.org/AnnualConvention.

The Boulder Water Festival hosted fourth- and fifth-graders in May.

Growing Capacity

CFWE Welcomes New Staff The Colorado Foundation for Water Education is “lean and mean,” educating 10,000 Coloradans annually with only three full-time staff. Being efficient is important, and the organization has doubled its reach in the last five years without adding staff. But the time for growth has come! Help us welcome three new members to the CFWE team who will help ensure we meet grow-ing demands for water education in Colorado.

Caitlin Coleman, Program AssociateCaitlin started with CFWE as an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer in 2011. She is so talented; we just had to keep her! Caitlin’s journalism background serves us well as she writes for Headwaters, oversees ex-ternal communications, and assists with educa-tional programs.

Jennifer Geurts, Administrative AssistantJennie came on board in mid-2012, and her friendly presence and organizational skills keep the office running smoothly. She came to us from the National Park Service, where she led tours of national landmarks like Harpers Ferry, Carlsbad Caverns and Oregon Caves.

Adam Hicks, Development OfficerAdam is our newest recruit, and will be CFWE’s first full-time fundraiser. His expertise in sales, marketing and business development will help us expand our presence and grow our support base into new areas.

CFWE’s expanded staff includes: (back row left to right) Adam Hicks, Nicole Seltzer, Nona Shipman, (front row left to right) Jennie Geurts, Caitlin Coleman and Kristin Maharg.

Executive Director

The Colorado Foundation for Water Education’s staff and board members work hard to educate Coloradans about the scarcity and value of water.We believe Coloradans should make informed decisions about this most valuable re-source—decisions based upon a thorough understanding of water’s complexities and the trade-offs of various options.

Our work raises the “water literacy” of Colorado decision-makers and the general public by examining water issues in an unbiased manner. In 2012, CFWE directly touched more than 30,000 Coloradans. Over 250 state decision-makers, educators and natural resource professionals learned about climate science, dairy production, urban water planning and groundwater scarcity on CFWE tours. Our basic water presentation has been given more than 125 times to 2,700 community leaders. Almost 20,000 Coloradans have read CFWE’s water information in print and electronic format, many of whom take the next step and at-tend our workshops or tours. And we helped to reach yet another 500,000 people by sup-porting the Water 2012 year-long celebration.

CFWE is the only statewide water education organization committed to presenting a di-versity of perspectives on today’s complex issues in order to nurture thoughtful dialogue. And with more than 450 members suggesting CFWE shed light on different viewpoints and subject matter, we do our best to provide a wide range of coverage.

We are proud to present this issue of Headwaters that focuses on agriculture. Farmers and ranchers play an important role in water issues. To provide food and fiber to the rest of us, they receive more than 85 percent of the state’s water deliveries. A majority of the senior water rights in Colorado are held by those involved in agriculture, and most of Colorado’s earliest river diversions, dams and ditches were built for its benefit. Agriculture continues to be a large economic driver, and is the lifeblood of rural communities.

All Coloradans should know about the importance of water to agriculture, so we’ve dedicated numerous resources to telling its stories. In addition to publishing this issue of Headwaters, CFWE held two tours on irrigation systems in Weld County in 2011 and a tour of Ft. Morgan-area dairies and cheesemaking in 2012. What do you want to know about agriculture in Colorado? Staff is seeking additional ideas for tours, presentations and articles. Let us know at [email protected].

CFWE has many ways for you to learn about water! Headwaters is our most visible, and we hope it sparks your interest enough for you to take the next step. On the inside front cover, as well as at www.yourwatercolorado.org, you’ll find a slew of ideas such as:

u Join a conversation, or start a new one, at the “Your Water Colorado” blog.

u Learn your water history by reading new books on Denver Water, the Colorado Water Conservation Board and the Colorado River District.

u Book a presentation through CFWE’s Water 2012 Speakers Bureau.

u Inspire Colorado’s youth through the River of Words poetry and photo contest.

u Get out and see water! CFWE will have a busy tour season in 2013, with three multi-day tours—the upper and lower Colorado River and the Platte River through Wyoming and Nebraska.

I look forward to exploring with you the diversity, history, beauty and challenge that is Colorado water!

2 C o l o r a d o F o u n d a t i o n f o r W a t e r E d u c a t i o n | y o u r w a t e r c o l o r a d o . o r g

Mat

thew

Sta

ver

Nicole Seltzer, CFWE Executive Director

CFWE is the only

statewide water

education organization

committed to

presenting a diversity

of perspectives on

today’s complex issues

in order to nurture

thoughtful dialogue.

ContentsFall 2012

20 A Public ResourceBy Allen BestColorado’s doctrine of prior appropriation is a legal system governing water’s use. A look at how the system evolved, how it actually works, and, in a water-short year like 2012, how it plays out for the state’s farmers and ranchers.

Water is…8 LifeHow much water does it take to feed a human being? It depends on your diet.

On the cover: USDA researcher Tom Trout pictured in a corn field in northern Colorado. Photo by Matthew Staver

9 Scarcity How the 2012 drought played out across Colorado; Baby steps toward legalizing rainwater capture for limited irrigation.

10 FireBy March, Colorado was primed for wildfire—a recap of the 2012 fire season; How fire impacts watersheds; Mitigation efforts by land and water managers that could keep eroding sediments at bay.

11 QualityColorado moves to control excessive nutrients stemming from human waste in state waterways; How water resources are being protected at Leadville’s newly re-opened Climax molybdenum mine.

12 OpportunityFor a new generation, Colorado’s agricultural industry beckons; Resources for agricultural career training and youth educational programs; Bringing agricultural awareness into Colorado’s classrooms.

36 Travel Calling all local foodies, homesteaders and agricultural dabblers, the North Fork Valley’s farmstays, wine tasting rooms, farm-to-table dinners and pick-your-own orchards await. Take a weekend to savor homegrown Colorado at its finest. By Cally Carswell

13 Grown in Colorado By Caitlin ColemanColorado boasts ideal growing conditions for a wide range of products once water is added to the mix. The state’s farms and ranches provide a bounty that reaches 115 nations and, in Colorado, is one of the leading drivers of the state’s economy.

29 The Ever-Evolving FarmerBy Joshua ZaffosAccess to water boosts yields and minimizes risk in an inherently risky industry, where the up-front costs are high and the returns uncertain. Faced with drought and an increasingly competitive marketplace for water rights, farmers must innovate to survive.

24 Keeping Water on the FarmBy Jerd Smith

Farms need water. Cities and industries need it too. Why creative approaches are necessary to maximize Colorado’s ability to maintain the best of both worlds.

Background and inset photos by Matthew Staver. Dairy photo courtesy of the Colorado Farm Bureau.

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R o o t e d i n Colorado

Colorado Foundation for Water Education1580 Logan St., Suite 410 • Denver, CO 80203303-377-4433 • www.yourwatercolorado.org

Board MembersRita Crumpton

President

Justice Gregory J. Hobbs, Jr.1st Vice President

Reagan WaskomAssistant Secretary

Alan MatloszTreasurer

Steve FearnAssistant Treasurer

Becky BrooksNick Colglazier

Lisa DarlingEric HecoxPete Kasper

Trina McGuire-CollierReed Morris

Sen. Gail Schwartz Travis Smith

Gregg Ten EyckChris Treese

StaffNicole Seltzer

Executive Director

Kristin MahargProgram Manager

Caitlin ColemanProgram Associate

Jennie GeurtsAdministrative Assistant

Adam HicksDevelopment Officer

Nona ShipmanWater 2012 Assistant Project Coordinator

Mission statEMEnt The mission of the Colorado Foundation for Water Education is to promote better understanding of water resources through education and information. The Foundation does not take an advocacy position on any water issue.

acknowledgments The Colorado Foundation for Water Education thanks the people and organizations who provided review, comment and assistance in the development of this issue.

Headwaters Magazine is published three times a year by the Colorado Foundation for Water Education. Headwaters is designed to provide Colorado citizens with balanced and accurate information on a variety of subjects related to water resources. Copyright 2012 by the Colorado Foundation for Water Education. ISSN: 1546-0584 Edited by Jayla Poppleton. Designed by Emmett Jordan.

ContributorsJerd Smith is a Boulder-based writer and editor with a special interest in water and conservation issues. Writing for this issue (“Keeping Water on the Farm,” page 24), Jerd was struck by the new ideas being tried that even 10 years ago would never have been considered. “These are interesting times on Colorado farms, with policy makers, farmers and environmentalists searching for new, more precise engineering and legal mechanisms to help keep water on farms,” she says. “But this new era will require more cooperation among city and farm interests, and that may be among the most difficult tasks Coloradans must undertake.”

Joshua Zaffos writes on the environment and science from Fort Collins, where he watched the effects of drought (and wildfire) in close proximity throughout the sum-mer. “Meeting and speaking with farmers to hear about how they’re enduring dry times—while in the midst of a drought—was fascinating and heartening,” says Josh of reporting for this issue (“The Ever-Evolving Farmer,” page 29). “I heard my share of unexpected responses, portraying reasons for both concern and optimism when con-sidering Colorado’s future food production, natural landscape and agricultural legacy.”

Caitlin Coleman is a writer and program associate with the Colorado Foundation for Water Education. Originally from New York state, she has been interested in western water resources for years but hadn’t closely examined water for agriculture until researching her article for this issue (“Grown in Colorado,” page 13). “Now, I can’t stop looking for Colorado Proud labeling in grocery stores, spouting off economic facts or observing, as I travel, how irrigation systems differ,” Caitlin says. “It’s always interesting to talk with different people, learn new things and internalize that, but when reporting on commodities that you think about daily—food and water—the value is magnified.”

Allen Best began writing about water in Colorado in 1977 at his first journalism job in Kremmling. But his intuitive understanding of water was formed as a boy in the South Platte Valley. His grandparents, who irrigated crops with water from the North Sterling Reservoir, had indoor plumbing. His other grandparents, who dryland farmed north of Fort Morgan, had an outhouse. His assignment for this issue (“A Public Resource,” page 20), gave him renewed respect for the pioneering efforts of farmers—and made him pine to ask questions of his long-gone grandparents and parents.

Bryan Kelsen has been working as a photojournalist in southern Colorado since 1987. Growing up in northeast Iowa gave him an appreciation for the importance of agricul-ture, while subsequently living in Pueblo has given him an understanding of the value water provides to agricultural operations. “As urban areas in Colorado continue to grow, I believe it is important to be mindful of agricultural and recreational uses when allocat-ing water for urban use,” says Bryan, whose photographs appear in two stories for this issue (“Grown in Colorado,” page 13, and “The Ever-Evolving Farmer,” page 29).

Matthew Staver is a freelance editorial and documentary photographer based in Den-ver. He’s a third-generation Coloradan, a second-generation photographer and the first to jump at an opportunity to spend time on a farm. He has fond boyhood memo-ries of picking raspberries and marveling at gigantic rhubarb plants in his grandpar-ents’ garden, and plucking up dirty carrots and red strawberries from the garden his parents cultivated in their backyard. For now, Matthew is content to water his tiny plot with a hose, but he and his wife hope to someday own a small farm. He believes that new techniques and concerns addressed in this issue of Headwaters, illustrated throughout by his photographs, will allow him and other farmers to grow crops into the distant future.

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It wasn’t obvious a drought was in full bloom on the Sundays I spent walking past tables brimming with brightly colored produce at our local farmers’ market this summer. The lettuce and beets, potatoes and onions, sweet corn and squash. The ripe, juicy melons and tomatoes bursting with flavor. And the growers generously visiting us from the West Slope, bearing peaches, apples, pears—everything fresh, delicious, grown in Colorado. What could be better?

For the farmers, a little more water, perhaps—or maybe a lot. Those who weathered the drought, who brought their goods to market, fared alright. Commodity prices rose as the supply reaching the market fell off; higher payments provided some compensation to farm-ers who sacrificed certain acres of crops in order to give others a fighting chance of getting enough water. Still, it was a rough year, with many crops lost and cattle sold off, usually at too-low prices because feed costs had grown prohibitively expensive. For those without irrigation water—or enough of it— this year’s drought was grim indeed.

Dry times, which may increase in frequency and severity according to many researchers, are not the only cause of irrigation shortages. A complex irrigation system has evolved in Colorado over the past 150 years, with a system of water rights and irrigation ditches that serve whole communities of farmers. That system is currently struggling to adapt in an era when more and more water is being transferred from agriculture to cities, drying up farm-land in the process. Those cities have oft been painted the villain in this scenario, but which one of us doesn’t rely on the water supply they provide?

It must also be noted, the sale of water rights takes place between willing parties on both sides of the deal. Farmers reap healthy sums from such sales. While it’s their right to make the choice to sell—and capitalize on what is likely their most valuable asset—they might be less likely to do so if other viable options were on the table.

And so, cities are now working with water planners and farmers to change the paradigm from drying up ag land to figuring out how to protect it. When we began work on this issue of Headwaters, we immediately made note that state water resource planners (at least those working together to script a healthy water future via the statewide Interbasin Compact Committee, or IBCC) agree on one particular issue, more so than any other: that irrigated agriculture in Colorado should be maintained. What we set out to do was find out why agriculture is so valued by such a variety of interests, and how the industry could be sustained under the pressure of shrinking—and increasingly competitive—water resources.

We invite you to explore the value agriculture brings to our state, and the myriad efforts underway to sustain it, from cities working with farmers to find flexible options for sharing water supplies, to researchers testing irrigation techniques and technologies, to administra-tors and legislators looking to adjust and fine-tune water law in order to accommodate to-day’s challenging scenarios. Farmers and ranchers provide a service that none of us could live without: They feed us, and feed us well. And now they need our support.

Jayla Poppleton

TenT h i n g s To D o

I n T h i s I s s u e :

1 Go on tour with CFWE(inside front cover).

2 Enter the Headwaters photo contest (page 6).

3 Pick up CFWE’s Water 101 drought fact sheet (page 9).

4 Take a peek at Colorado’s new nutrient standards (page 11).

5 Investigate agricultural career options and youth educational programs (page 12).

6 View a snapshot of Colorado agriculture (page 16).

7 Brush up on Colorado water law (page 20).

8 Learn about opportunities for farmers to temporarily lease their water to cities (page 26).

9 Study the differences between three irrigation systems (page 32).

10 Visit the North Fork Valley for a hands-on agricultural experience (page 36).

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Editor

Jayla Poppleton, Editor


Headwaters Photo Contest See your photo in the next issue of Headwaters magazine! The Colorado Foundation for Water Education is now accepting entries of professional and amateur photographs that tie in with the topical focus of upcoming issues. The winning photo will appear on this two-page format, while other photos may be used throughout the magazine. Find contest rules and details on future topics at www.yourwatercolorado.org.

High Country Meadow Winning photo submission by Amy JohnsonEarly summer brings new growth to an irrigated hayfield near Granby.

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Fall 2012 photo contest runners-up (left to right): Hayfield near Ridgway by Debie Schmitt; Spring irrigation in the La Plata River Basin by Bruce Whitehead; and Grazing in the shadow of Routt County’s Elk Mountain by Jay Fetcher

Life > Scarcity > Fire > Quality > Opportunity

Water is Colorado

Water is Life

We are what we eat

It takes a lot of water to produce the foods we love. To sustain

a caloric intake of 2,000 calories per day for a year would take

73,000 gallons of water on an all-potato diet, and 2.1 million

gallons if consuming nothing but ground beef. The classic meat

and potato combo? 1.1 million gallons of water.

How much water is used to make the ingredients for an all-American cheeseburger and fries, and what do we get when we eat it? (Nutrition and water usage information given is for 100 grams of each food. Water usage figures are worldwide averages and vary considerably based on climate, soils, irrigation methods and crop genetics.)

Tomato5.7 gallons of water

18 calories0.88 grams protein94.52 grams water

Potato7.7 gallons of water


Lettuce2.9 gallons of water


Sources: USDA Food and Nutrition Information Center, Water Footprint Network

Whole wheat bread42.5 gallons of water247 calories12.95 grams protein38.58 grams water

American cheese133.7 gallons of water366 calories18.13 grams protein39.61 grams water

Lean ground beef406.9 gallons of water137 calories21.41 grams protein73.28 grams water


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Water is Scarcity

Saving Rain Rainwater capture—the interception of stormwa-ter runoff for use in landscaping—could change the way Coloradans talk about water conservation.

“Once you implement water conservation into your land plan, the next big savings is rain-water capture,” says Harold Smethills, manag-ing director of the 3,120-acre planned Sterling Ranch development near Chatfield Reservoir in south Denver metro. Sterling Ranch aims to use one-third the water typically needed per house-hold in Douglas County.

Together with the Denver Botanic Gardens, project developers are demonstrating rainwater capture at Allis Ranch near their own future site. The project uses captured runoff from the roof of an old farmhouse to irrigate test gardens, which demonstrate a range of water-wise plant selec-tion and irrigation systems. If all goes as planned, Sterling Ranch will be Colorado’s first community

where rainwater-fed cisterns will be used to irrigate lawns, gardens and parks.

Collecting rain has long been off-limits in Colo-rado. Like all precipitation, rainwater is subject to Colorado water law; before it touches ground, somebody already owns the rights to use it, at least once it reaches streams or aquifers. Harvest-ing rainwater is treated as diverting water out of priority—you must replace to the stream an equal amount to that intercepted. State administrators’ understanding of the dynamic is changing, howev-er. A 2007 study by Leonard Rice Engineers found that during dry years in Douglas County no rainfall made it to the stream, while in wet years, a maxi-mum of 15 percent made it back to the stream, says Kevin Rein, Colorado Deputy State Engineer.

That study led to two pieces of legislation in 2009, one allowing limited collection of precipita-tion for residential rural landowners who rely on

domestic wells (the legislation the test site is cur-rently operating under), and another providing for the eventual permitting of 10 projects to cache rainwater for beneficial but non-essential use in subdivisions across the state. Sterling Ranch is the first and, at the moment, only permitted proj-ect of those 10.

If the pilot projects prove themselves, they might pave the way for broader application of rain-water capture, says Rein, with only the obligation to replace what would have historically made it to the stream. —Caitlin Coleman

Recipe for Drought By Caitlin Coleman

The 2012 winter season saw the lowest statewide snowpack accumulation since 2002—in some of Colorado’s river basins, 2012 became the new minimum snowpack on record. Then came March, April and May 2012, Colorado’s warmest spring in 118 years. By April, Colorado State Climatologist Nolan Doesken had already concluded that 98 percent of the state was in extreme drought, with the most severe droughts at the time in the Arkansas Basin. Record temperatures hastened melting of already-low snowpack. High temperatures continued into the summer, stressing crops, cattle and streams. A snapshot of what the drought looked like across Colorado:

Colorado called for assistance: A federal

disaster declaration was made for

62 of Colorado’s 64 counties on July

3, enabling farmers and ranchers to

qualify for federal emergency loans.

Endangered fish recovery measures stalled: The

Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish

Recovery Program was unable to operate

most fish passages and fish screens in the

Grand Valley due to low flows. Recovery

program staff instead spent much of the

summer managing non-native fish such as

small-mouth bass, which flourish during

warm years like 2012.

Full reservoirs were a saving grace:

Across the state, reservoir storage

volumes started high—thanks to

the 2010-2011 winter’s abundant

snowpack—and remained close to

average for the first half of the summer.

However, reservoirs received very little

inflow to shore up for 2013. Colorado became a tinderbox: By early June, most of the snow was gone, more than 80 percent of stream gauges were recording below-normal flows, and soils throughout Colorado were very dry, set-ting the stage for widespread wildfires. Satellite monitoring showed the driest vegetation in the northwestern and eastern parts of the state.

By the end of August: About 80 percent of the state was still in extreme or exceptional drought—at the same time last year, only about 13 percent of Colorado suffered from extreme drought levels.

Whitewater rafting lost customers: According to Dave Costlow with the

Colorado River Outfitters Association,

the perception of drought may have

hurt commercial rafting companies as

much as the drought itself. Many rivers

were raft-worthy in June and July, par-

ticularly those maintained by reservoir

releases, Costlow says.

Crop yields fell: By early September, only 18 percent of Colorado’s sorghum crop was rated in good condition by the USDA. Colorado corn crops were look-ing similarly bleak—64 percent in poor or very poor condition. Some farmers saw a 20 to 30 percent reduction in yields. Still others abandoned their crops in early summer after running out of water.

Pasture and range conditions suffered:

Ranchers were forced to supplement

with hay, often paying double historical

prices due to the short supply. Produc-

tion challenges related to drought in

the Midwest also spiked the price of

corn, another feed staple, up to $8.20

per bushel in August, a nearly 60

percent increase from just two months

earlier. Some ranch managers simply

sold their herds early.

By early September: All stream gauges

in the upper Colorado River Basin re-

corded normal or above-normal flows;

some late-summer precipitation helped

the basin’s situation but didn’t pull the

region out of drought. All seven states

that share the Colorado River will be

waiting with bated breath to see what

kind of precipitation the next water

year brings.

Learn more about drought’s impacts via the Colorado Foundation for Water Education’s new Water 101 drought fact sheet, available at www.yourwatercolorado.org.

Water is Fire

Colorado on Fire Below-average snowpack, minimal spring pre-cipitation, and record-breaking March heat set the stage for a devastating 2012 fire sea-son across Colorado. The High Park Fire tore through the canyons and valleys northwest of Fort Collins in June, burning 87,000 acres and destroying 259 homes. Just weeks later, the Waldo Canyon Fire outside Colorado Springs became the most destructive fire in Colorado history, burning 347 homes before firefight-ers and rain contained it in early July. As of mid-August, 1,242 fires had burned more than 231,000 acres statewide.

“The dry and warm conditions allowed fuels to dry out several weeks ahead of schedule. In March, we were thinking this could be ugly,” says Tim Mathewson, a meteorologist with the Lakewood-based Rocky Mountain Coordina-tion Center, which facilitates wildfire response in Colorado, Wyoming and other states.

The last year in which spring snowpack was so dramatically low was 2002, the year of the Hayman Fire—the state’s largest fire on record. That year, 4,600 fires scorched nearly 620,000 acres, far outstripping the 2012 totals.

Projections for next year’s fire season will not be made until spring 2013, and will largely depend once again on winter snowpack and spring conditions. However, the rust-red trees that are the telltale sign of mountain pine bee-tle kill across the Rockies have raised future fire risk for many communities. Under the right conditions, many of the beetle kill forests will be primed for large, intense fires.

On the bright side, Mathewson notes the current transition from a La Niña to an El Niño cycle. While La Niña typically brings drier con-ditions to Colorado, El Niño, though a little more unpredictable, normally results in wetter summer conditions. This is true especially in the southeastern corner of the state—which could provide some relief to a region ham-mered by drought now for two years running.

—Josh McDaniel

After the BurnIn the aftermath of the 2012 fire season, water and land managers are scrambling to minimize the impacts to watersheds. Sediment-loading of water supplies for drinking and irrigation is one of the biggest post-fire concerns. Flooding and debris flows—fast-moving mixtures of rock, mud and vegetation down steep slopes—could also damage roads, bridges, culverts, and even homes and other structures.

Todd Boldt, district conservationist for the Natural Resources Conservation Service, has been coordinating mitigation efforts in response to the High Park Fire. Together with other government agencies, he is working to mulch and seed around 5,600 acres in drainages hit by the most severe fire. Such treatments can reduce runoff and sedimentation by 20 percent. The work isn’t cheap—ini-tial costs for mulching and seeding on Forest Service land have been around $7 million, with another $17 million in mitigation measures identified, including mulching and seeding private land, installing flood diversion structures, and repairing roads.

Officials handling the post-fire response to the Waldo Canyon Fire outside of Colorado Springs are similarly concerned about the lack of vegetation cover on uplands. Peak flows are expected to be three to four times above average in drainages that suffered moderate- or high-severity fire, and the amounts of sediment and debris moving downstream could be substantial.

Steven Sanchez, soil and water program manager for the Pike and San Isabel National For-ests, says the experience gained from restoring watersheds after the 2002 Hayman Fire will result in a more effective response to the Waldo Canyon Fire, because the two occurred on similar, highly erodible soils. “We have learned that you have to quickly get ground cover in place to hold it together,” says Sanchez. The Forest Service is applying mulch to over 3,000 acres, prioritizing headwaters regions, fishery and wildlife habitat, and other sensitive and high value areas in the forest.

Meanwhile, Colorado Springs Utilities is working to install sediment basins and in-stream structures to trap sediments, slow runoff and reduce erosion in important drainages. —Josh McDaniel

Fire’s Impact on Watersheds• Charred hillsides have less living vegetation and leaf litter to intercept rain and slow runoff, increas-

ing the likelihood of flooding and making slopes more vulnerable to erosion.• Runoff, measured as discharge from specific drainages, has already increased in the range of 200 to

500 percent in the area impacted by northern Colorado’s High Park Fire, according to Todd Boldt of the Natural Resources Conservation Service.

• High-intensity fires can create hydrophobic soils that repel water given certain conditions: an in-tense, slow-moving fire; a thick layer of litter and ground fuels; and coarsely textured soils such as sand or decomposed granite.

• Hydrophobic soils not only increase the rate of water runoff and subsequent soil erosion, but can also make it difficult for seeds to germinate and for the roots of surviving plants to obtain moisture, says Deborah Kennard, a fire ecology professor at Colorado Mesa University.

• Thicker hydrophobic layers can persist for more than a year. Plant roots and soil microorganisms and animals help break down hydrophobic layers.

1 0 C o l o r a d o F o u n d a t i o n f o r W a t e r E d u c a t i o n | y o u r w a t e r c o l o r a d o . o r g

Flames ignite on the north side of the Poudre Canyon, just below the Grey Rock trailhead, on May 14, the first

day of the High Park Fire. On July 7, heavy rains washed ash and debris from the High Park Fire into the Poudre

River, killing fish (left) and causing mudslides (right).

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Water is Quality

Reining in NutrientsAfter more than a decade of examining the state’s nutrient pollution prob-lem, the Colorado Water Quality Control Commission established stan-dards in June 2012 for nutrient levels in Colorado waterways.

Present in human and animal waste as well as commercial fertilizers, nu-trients like nitrogen and phosphorous behave the same way in water as they do when they’re applied to crops or your lawn—they make things grow. When nutrient-boosted algae and plants die off, entire sections of lakes and rivers become oxygen-deprived dead zones.

“This leads to catastrophic failure of primary aquatic ecosystems,” says Steve Gunderson, director of the Water Quality Control Division of the Colo-rado Department of Public Health and the Environment (CDPHE). In drink-ing-water stores, excess organic material from decomposing plants makes water smell and taste bad, and can react with chlorine to produce carcino-genic chemicals.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency requires that states limit nitro-gen and phosphorous pollution or face stiff regulation; Colorado is now await-ing EPA approval of its own tailored approach to preventing water quality from further deteriorating as the state’s population balloons.

Wastewater facilities in Colorado’s urban areas and ski resorts will bear the brunt of the new regulations. These point sources are like funnels, dis-charging treated—but nitrogen- and phosphorous-rich—effluents directly into rivers. The CDPHE will require 46 facilities, accounting for 76 percent of the state’s domestic wastewater volume, to install additional treatment. Total costs are estimated at $1.5 billion—just 5 percent of the potential in-

vestment if the EPA were to step in with tougher rules.The new standards will also affect nonpoint sources such as crop produc-

ers. For the next 10 years, farmers will be encouraged to voluntarily man-age nutrients through best management practices, including reducing the amount of fertilizer applied and using techniques that prevent nitrogen- and phosphorous-laden irrigation water from percolating into groundwater and streams. Farms, however, will not be required to measure or treat runoff.

One reason for this is that no reliable system exists for measuring the nutrients running off an agricultural field, says Gary Teague, a former Water Quality Control Commissioner and livestock operator in Fort Morgan. State regulations already require that large confined livestock operations capture 100 percent of their manure and runoff in impoundment facilities.

The Colorado Environmental Coalition was involved in the rulemaking and supports the agricultural exemptions. Still, agriculture is not the regulations’ primary target, says Becky Long, a coalition spokesperson. “The reality is that there’s another source—people.” —Katy Neusteter

Climax Comes Back With Climax Mine’s August 2012 reopening, mo-lybdenum is again big business in Leadville. The mine largely ceased production 25 years ago thanks to the plummeting market for molybde-num, a metal used to strengthen steel. Recent development booms in countries like China, In-dia, and Brazil have heightened steel’s demand, and Climax is back to grinding molybdenite ore on Fremont Pass.

Climax was never totally dormant. Water from the mine’s vertical shaft—which was allowed to flood with runoff and groundwater after Cli-max closed in 1987—has been continuously pumped and treated so that it wouldn’t over-flow and send mining acids and trace metals into nearby watersheds.

Sitting at the headwaters of the Arkansas Riv-er, Tenmile Creek and Eagle River, Climax is the steward of roughly 30,000 acre feet of water an-nually, says Eric E. Kinneberg, spokesperson for Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold, the Phoenix-based company that owns the mine. Climax pro-tects water quality using an array of practices that include recycling process water and treating water before discharging into streams, Kinneberg says.

In 2007, a new facility was built at Climax to

clean up tailings pond water before it emptied into Tenmile Creek, where, if left untreated, its load of heavy metals could kill aquatic life. Now, Free-port-McMoRan is constructing a water treatment plant at the lowest part of the mine to intercept runoff from the entire site. Plus, it has installed monitoring wells the state will inspect quarterly.

“This site has been mined for 100 years, so there’s been a lot of contamination that has al-ready occurred,” says Tony Waldron, a program supervisor in the Colorado Division of Reclama-tion Mining and Safety. “We want to make sure [Climax] isn’t excessively impacting groundwa-ter.” The division is working to establish base-lines to ensure the mine doesn’t exceed stan-dards, which vary by watershed. “Surface water will definitely have to be treated in perpetuity,” he adds.

Steve Swanson, executive director of the Blue River Watershed Group, which works to protect wa-ter quality in Summit County, has been impressed with Freeport-McMoRan. “They seem to really be concerned about doing the right thing. When the new treatment facility goes into operation, it will be state of the art—there won’t be a facility like it any-where in the country.” —Katy Neusteter

Climax Mine Stats & Facts• Climax lies 13 miles northeast of Leadville on Fremont Pass.

• The area receives 23 feet of snow per year on average.

• The mine property covers 14,339 acres; the open pit is 1.5 miles across.

• Climax will bring 400 full-time jobs to the area.

• Freeport-McMoRan expects to mine 20 million pounds of molybdenum from Climax in 2013; prices are currently around $15 per pound.

• It cost Freeport-McMoRan $760 million to restart Climax.

Find Colorado’s new nutrient standards online at www.cdphe.state.co.us by searching for “Regulation 31 pdf file,” clicking on “Water Quality Control

Commission Regulations,” opening “Regulation 31,” and going to page 66. Or, scan this QR code with your smart phone.

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Climax’s open pit mine is again producing molybdenum.


Water is Opportunity

A Wide Open Future The average age of a farm operator in Colorado is 57. As both the world and state population continues to grow over the next decade, the future will hold more mouths to feed and a heap of opportunity for young people stepping into agriculture.

Yet many young people lack the capital to purchase land, equipment and water rights; they also may lack remaining funds to front operating expenses or, for out-of-staters, the know-how to recognize the importance of irrigation water in a semi-arid state like Colorado. These are some of the big-gest challenges to building a viable farming business, says Jennifer Tucker Visitacion with Guidestone Colorado, an or-ganization working to strengthen the food economy along the Arkansas River.

Tilling the ground isn’t the only way to get involved in agricul-ture, though. As career center liaison for the College of Agricultural Sciences at Colorado State University, Beka Crocket sees a lot of interest in ranch management, conventional and organic farming, and animal production, but says there are hundreds of jobs that relate to agriculture. Career options range from grain merchandis-ing, accounting, engineering, seed production and zoo keeping to entomology, agronomy, quality assurance, soil conservation, ethanol production and grain elevator management. Consulting, teaching, research and sales are still more options. The agricul-tural education majors that saw the highest employment rates in 2012 included soil and crop science, environmental horticulture, agricultural education and agricultural business. —Caitlin Coleman

Agricultural Career ToolkitPrograms across Colorado help people interested in agriculture get on the land or gain needed skills:

• Colorado Building Farmers helps new farmers and ranchers explore farming as a business and refine their business management, production and marketing skills. The classroom program is offered through Colorado State University Extension in at least eight counties around the state. www.extension.colostate.edu/boulder/ag/CBF.shtml

• To overcome financial hurdles, the Colorado Agricultural Development Authority offers tax-exempt bonds for low-interest financing for the purchase of land and equipment. Land Link, a model used nationwide, matches retiring farmers with young counterparts needing land, while financially protecting both. Land Link is slowly becoming available across Colorado; a new matchmaking database launched in May. www.guidestonecolorado.org

• Opportunities for young people include programming by 4-H and the Future Farmers of America. An extracurricular program of Colorado State Extension, 4-H has no career bent, but a heavy agricultural focus with an aim toward leadership development for children ages 8 to 18. Future Farmers of America enrolls about 5,700 students in high school agricultural classes in 100 Colorado schools. Enrollees take on internships, apprenticeships or employment to gain real career experience. www.colorado4h.org or www.ffa.cccs.edu

• Academic programs for other agricultural careers are offered through Colorado’s top universities. Choose from the 39 graduate degree programs in the College of Agricultural Sciences at Colorado State University including economics, genetics and more; study engineering or law at the University of Colorado or University of Denver; check out the new Water Studies minor at Metropolitan State University’s One World One Water Center or the water centers at Colorado Mesa University and Colorado State University. www.agsci.colostate.edu

Classroom Connection For many of Colorado’s children and their families, there’s a disconnect between food and farming.

“Kids are three or four generations removed from the land,” says Bette Blinde, executive director of the Colorado Foundation for Agriculture. CFA encourages educators to use agriculture as a theme to teach academic subjects and to help children understand where their food and fibers come from. “One of our goals is to expose students to agricultural business so they can consider selecting a career in agriculture,” says Blinde.

During the group’s week-long Food, Fiber & More Summer Agriculture Institute, as many as 50 educators with little to no agricultural background visit farming and ranching operations, see technol-ogy and career opportunities, and experience food and fiber production. “When you get the teachers excited about agriculture they carry that excitement through to their students,” says Blinde.

CFA also provides agricultural teaching resources to educators. During its 21-year history, CFA has distributed more than 7 million copies of its Colorado Reader series, featuring more than 200 agricul-tural and natural resource topics. —Caitlin Coleman

Teachers take to the field with the Colorado Foundation for Agriculture’s summer program: Food, Fiber & More.

Agronomy includes crop genetics and breeding.

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Learn the technology behind modern farming.

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From fields of sunflowers to plains painted gold with corn and wheat; from ranges dotted with cattle to luscious orchards, vineyards and vegetable farms; Colorado produces a bounty of agricultural products. And Coloradans who bite into a sweet peach, chew through a juicy hamburger, sip a glass of artisan wine, or fuel up with a gasoline and ethanol mix, are likely consuming Colorado’s irrigation water while they’re at it.

When Major Stephen Long made his early expedition to Colorado’s Eastern Plains, or the “Great American Desert,” as he called it in 1820, he declared the region unfit for cultivation and uninhabitable for people sustaining themselves with agriculture. But later, when early farmers applied water to the region’s mineral-rich soils, life blos-somed. “You just couldn’t stop stuff from growing,” says Dan Hobbs, an organic veg-etable farmer and seed producer, who irri-gates from the Arkansas River.

Over the past 150 years, Colorado’s combi-nation of high-quality irrigation water from the mountains, its diversity of soils, and the arid climate—which reduces the incidence of crop disease—have supported local agriculture’s growth into a $40 billion industry. It remains one of the state’s largest economic sectors and employs 7 percent of the workforce.

But what if we took the water out of ag-riculture? Queue the eerie music. Now dis-solve the corn, fade out some cows, erase the onions and potatoes, board up a few factories, close a dozen schools and fo-cus on that list of Colorado ghost towns—it seems to scroll infinitely on and on.

“It’s a bit of a doomsday scenario,” says Gregory Graff, an agricultural economist at Colorado State University. Graff is imagin-ing a situation that he doesn’t believe plau-sible—a Colorado where there’s no water for irrigation. “If we were to go all the way to zero irrigation we’d do a lot more graz-

ing,” Graff says. Livestock, after all, can be raised (and often are) through much of the year on unwatered pastures rather than being fed corn, alfalfa and hay grown in ir-rigated fields. “It would certainly decrease the agricultural footprint drastically—but I really don’t believe in that scenario.”

The mosaic of Colorado is, however, changing, with farm and ranch land giving way as cities grow. Additionally, as state population booms, cities are bolstering their water supplies by buying up agricultural wa-ter rights and drying up farmland. This trend is projected to continue.

Though no one expects to find all of Colorado’s irrigation headgates closed, the state’s irrigated farm lands have been shrink-ing even as the production of food and fibers remains valuable. With about 86 percent of Colorado’s water diversions going toward ir-rigated agriculture on only about 4.5 percent of the state’s land, even a 10 percent reduc-tion in irrigation water—a more likely future—will mean a different Colorado economically and probably environmentally.

A Multi-Billion-Dollar IndustryColorado’s farm and ranch production is currently a $6.4 billion industry in farmgate receipts, according to a 2011 CSU report. Yet there are many activities tied to produc-tion beyond the farmgate. The CSU study estimates that Colorado’s agricultural pro-duction, manufacturing, processing and in-

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puts contribute more than $40 billion to the state’s economy annually. This vast industry is still fueled primarily by family farmers—husbands, wives and their children.

Nearly $2 billion of Colorado’s agricultural sales are attributable to international sales. Colorado is currently ranked 24th in the na-tion in agricultural exports, with that number on the rise—Colorado’s agricultural exports increased by about 40 percent over the past two years. Over the past 40 years, while total farm sales in Colorado tripled from $1.7 bil-lion in 1973 to $6.4 billion today, Colorado’s agricultural exports grew from $110 million to $1.84 billion—a 16-fold increase. “Those exports really create one of the driving forces for Colorado agriculture,” says Tim Larsen, international marketing specialist with the Colorado Department of Agriculture.

Not surprisingly, cattle along with dairy, corn, wheat and produce are Colorado’s big agricultural moneymakers and contributions to the global food market. “The rest of the world really needs Colorado’s wheat and they need our dairy products and our beef,” says James Pritchett, another agricultural economist at Colorado State University.

Colorado exports 80 percent of all wheat grown here internationally, is the top pro-ducer of millet in the country and ranks within the top five states in fed cattle, sheep, sunflower, lettuce, spinach, potato and can-taloupe production.

Already, an estimated one of every three

Colorado food and agricultural suppli-ers sells some of their product outside the United States. Colorado products were im-ported by 115 countries in 2012. But to see expanded sales, Larsen believes finding ad-ditional markets is key. In fact, it’s Larsen’s job to continue growing agricultural export opportunities for the state’s food produc-ers. In the coming months, he’ll be meeting with buyers from South and Central America about potatoes, onions and dried beans, and bringing in Japanese importers of alco-holic beverages to sell them on Colorado’s 107 wineries, 139 breweries and 30 distill-eries. Next he’ll hit Europe for an organic show and a pet food show.

Terry Fankhauser, executive vice presi-dent of the Colorado Cattleman’s Associa-tion, agrees with Larsen’s focus beyond our borders: “We produce more product than people can eat in this country.” The United States consumes about 16 percent of the beef produced worldwide, but produces nearly 25 percent of the world’s beef sup-ply, Fankhauser says—and that is with less than 10 percent of the world’s cattle. “We’ve gotten more efficient and more effective in using genetics and yielding more, which means we’re using less water and resources to produce more.”

The United Nations estimates feeding a world population of more than 9 billion people by 2050 will require 70 percent greater food production than today’s levels. “If it’s not an

H e a d w a t e r s | F a l l 2 0 1 2 1 5

Gregory Graff contemplates shrinking agricultural water supplies from a barren field at the CSU Agricultural Research Develop-ment and Education Center near Ft. Collins.

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Agritourism—Colorado’s farmers and ranchers are increasingly developing tourism opportunities associated with their operations, ranging from corn mazes to dude ranches and bird watching. Colorado’s growing wine industry—now numbering 107 wineries statewide, most in and near the Grand Valley—is a big factor here.

Specialty Crops—Winding through the Paonia area, a growing hops industry is supplanting overnight shipments from Washington state to supply Colorado’s many breweries. Lavender farms are also budding on the West Slope as an alternative cash crop that can co-exist with orchards and vineyards. Flowers are distilled into essential oils or used for cooking.

In-State Market Connections Colorado’s farmgate receipts totaled nearly $7 billion in 2011, but total economic activity balloons to $40 billion when inputs, processing and multiplier effects are considered. Below, one value-boosting progression from field to table follows alfalfa hay to the American take-out staple—pizza.

Colorado raised 2.9 million acres in corn and hay in 2011, with a harvest valued at $1.85 billion.

In 2011, there were 128,000 dairy cows in Colorado. Each cow ate an average of 20,000 pounds of feed and yielded 23,430 pounds of milk in return.

About 2,200 Coloradans are employed by 130 dairy farms. Together they produced 3 billion pounds—or 349 million gallons—of milk in 2011, at a value of $522 million.

Currently, Colorado dairies produce 93 percent of the milk consumed directly or turned into milk products here. Leprino Foods, headquartered in Denver, will nearly double Colorado cheese production—and up the demand for milk—with its new Greeley plant in 2013.

The world’s largest producer of mozzarella cheese, Leprino supplies many popular pizza chains. In 2011, Domino’s purchased cheese from Leprino exclusively to top 6 million pizzas sold here, and to supply its franchises nationwide.

This illustration sponsored by the Colorado Department of Agriculture. Sources: Colorado Department of Agriculture, USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, CSU Extension. Illustrations by Steven Stankiewicz

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Top Producer—Colorado is the nation’s No. 1 producer of millet, an ancient and gluten-free grain used for flour and cereal as well as bird seed. The state also ranks in the top 10 for production of lettuce, potatoes, onions, wheat, barley and dry beans as well as cattle and sheep.

Sweet Relief—The authentic, world-renowned Rocky Ford cantaloupe made a comeback in 2012. Rocky Ford growers invested nearly $1 million in upgraded safety procedures and implemented a public relations and marketing campaign to build consumer confidence after the listeria outbreak in 2011.

Colorado’s agricultural industry is among the most diverse in the nation. The products that characterize the state’s unique regions are as varied as the soils, climate and geography. Water sources also vary, from the groundwater-rich San Luis Valley to the river-fed Western Slope to the transmountain-diversion dependent Eastern Plains. But in Colorado’s arid climate, one factor remains consistent: Irrigation water makes much of this edible abundance possible. —Jayla Poppleton

Colorado Products Reach A Global Market Colorado’s international agricultural exports are projected to surpass $2 billion in 2013, doubling from just over $1 billion in 2009. Beef is the primary driver of this trend, but wheat, vegetables and feed grains also make a sizeable contribution. Colorado food and agricultural products were imported by buyers from 115 countries during 2012, with Canada, Mexico, Japan, China, and South Korea accounting for 79 percent of Colorado’s ag exports as of September 2012.

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option to curb population, then it has to be an option to figure out how we produce more food,” Fankhauser says. Fortunately, the greater non-irrigated mass of the state is ideal for range cattle production, says Fankhaus-er. “Cattle here are healthier; they’re robust; they’re in great shape.” In fact, Colorado’s 2.6 million beef cattle and calves comprise the nation’s 10th largest cattle herd.

Hovering just under $2 billion out of na-tional export sales of $163 billion, Colorado still doesn’t play a tremendous role in meet-ing global food demands. Still, agricultural exports provide more stability in commodity prices and offer a big growth opportunity for the state’s producers, making them vital to Colorado’s economy. “We’ll never feed the world,” says Larsen. “But in key sectors, such as beef, wheat, potatoes and millet, we are already one of the primary exporters. We can be a global market leader.”

As for meeting in-state demand, Graff says, “It’s not Colorado farmers feeding Colorado households on some sort of one-to-one relationship. Colorado farmers grow

for the world and Colorado consumers buy from the world. There’s no exclusivity.” Na-tional and local food sourcing, at least in traditional large grocery stores, shows up merely as a cost factor. When a grocery conglomerate can import tomatoes more reliably and at a lower cost than purchasing locally, they’ll import. But while produce is in season in Colorado grocery stores typically source locally because it’s inexpensive.

The same concept applies international-ly—Colorado produces beef at a lower cost than Japan or Korea because of our vast farm and ranchland, says Larsen. “They put a 40 percent import duty on our beef, and we still are in the Japanese market for a price lower than the Japanese-produced beef.”

When it comes to international imports, Colorado is largely importing products that add to quality of life, Larsen says. We ob-tain a lot of our fresh produce in the winter by importing it along with other year-round commodities like seafood, coffee and liquor.

It’s more difficult to track interstate trade, but Pritchett and Graff are working on col-lecting that information so researchers, the public and the state all have a better un-derstanding of those flows of goods and services. Graff is also working with Gov. John Hickenlooper’s administration on an economic development initiative called “Colorado Blueprint.” His studies will inform decision-making and help make agriculture a more intentional component of the state’s economic development effort.

The Value of WaterAgricultural markets and impacted stake-holders trickle down from those internation-al and national markets to the local level—to the Dan Hobbs-variety organic growers and

to larger-scale producers who are planting and watering seeds or purchasing feeder crops to fatten livestock. Markets also im-pact rural communities across the state—more than half of Colorado’s counties are considered “ag-dependent.” In 24 of Colo-rado’s 64 counties, one in every 10 jobs is tied to agriculture; in 12 counties, it’s one in 43. “All these communities are connected to agriculture—it’s the base,” Hobbs says. “Look at a community like Ordway where a lot of the water has been sold out—it’s struggling mightily.”

Water for irrigation is key to much of the economic activity in Colorado’s rural com-munities. “Water is an important factor of production—you just wouldn’t be able to produce the same amount of crop or types of crops without that irrigation water,” Pritchett says.

In 2006, Pritchett captured the value of irrigation water by studying the amount of economic activity generated by an acre of irrigated farmland. Average values ranged from about $1,235 per irrigated acre in the San Luis Valley to $335 per acre in the Arkan-sas Valley, but fluctuated widely depending on whether land was devoted to high-value crops or crops requiring substantial inputs. A 2012 report by the National Agricultural Sta-tistics Service cites that an acre of irrigated cropland in Colorado is worth an average of $3,160 in real estate value alone, while an acre of non-irrigated cropland is worth $880, on average.

Other research has attempted to take into account more ancillary benefits of ag-ricultural water, such as created wetlands. A 2012 study of the North Poudre Irrigation Company’s 56.8-acre area in northeastern Colorado found that 92 percent of the total

On his 30-acre farm, Dan Hobbs grows organic vegetable and seed crops, including nine varieties of garlic.

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The Colorado Proud label, launched by the Colorado Department of Agriculture in 1999, provides product recognition for locally produced foodstuffs in grocery stores and restaurants.

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wetland area in the region was a result of ag-ricultural water storage and seepage through unlined irrigation ditches. Many consider that leakage to be waste water, says CSU wild-life biology professor Rick Knight. “Very few Coloradans appreciate that it’s creating wet-lands; it’s probably creating the majority of wetlands in Colorado,” he says.

A similar study identified 1,400 acres of irrigation-dependent wetlands in the Box-elder Creek watershed nearby. The study found those wetlands added $2,200 per acre of value annually, for both the environ-mental and recreational benefits provided. The wetlands added some value simply by improving water quality, and additional value if hunting, fishing or bird watching was also available. “This study provides evidence of the potential magnitude of the benefits Col-orado gets indirectly from agriculture,” says agricultural economist Chris Goemans, who worked on the study. “We need to consider what impacts moving water out of agricul-ture will have and how it will affect us.”

Shifting Dynamics“It’s going to be a pretty different look-ing landscape in the countryside here in about 30 years,” Hobbs predicts. Mid-scale farms are beginning to disappear as farm size grows both bigger and smaller. To keep up with production costs, large farms are expanding further by amassing other agricultural parcels, while some land is being divided for small farms, which are becoming popular among people new to agriculture such as young people without a family farming legacy, hobby farmers and retirees.

At the same time, the local food move-ment has been expanding. “People are in-

terested in where their food comes from. There are all kinds of new opportunities,” says Hobbs, citing the development of new cooperatives, which he helps foster with the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union.

According to Bill Stevenson, RMFU cooperative specialist, 68 cooperative projects in Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico are currently underway with RMFU support. Cooperatives are user-owned, user-operated and user-benefiting organi-zations, Stevenson says. They allow food producers to market their fresh products in ways that are more efficient than what is otherwise available to them. That may be through a cooperative market, through a truck service that delivers fresh produce from farmgate to market, or through some other mechanism.

“The basic goal is to strengthen these family farm businesses and knit them to-gether in such a way that they can build an economy of scale,” Hobbs says. “The rea-son for these co-ops is to do together what you cannot do alone.”

The state’s Colorado Proud labeling pro-gram, launched in 1999, has also been pro-viding marketing opportunities for producers and making it easier for consumers to iden-tify local products. Participating producers brightly label their product with the Colorado Proud logo and are listed on the website so that consumers can easily identify Colorado-grown and produced products when grocery shopping or visiting restaurants.

Despite increasing consumer demand for locally produced foodstuffs, water for irri-gation will likely continue to be sold out of agriculture to satisfy thirsty cities, though probably not in a quick horror-flick fashion. “Agriculture still accounts for 85 to 90 per-

cent of water withdrawals in the state. Going down to zero, that’s hard to fathom,” Graff says. “Going down to 75 percent is going to be painful enough, and that’s probably the more realistic picture.”

What water remains will be more expen-sive, and it won’t make sense to irrigate lower value crops. “Those will be the acres we’ll lose, so we’ll have fewer irrigated acres of wheat and sorghum,” Pritchett says. “The values of fruits and vegetables and acres of those will stay constant—probably increase as population increases. You can’t have those crops without irrigation.”

The loss will extend beyond a change in production patchwork—it will dispropor-tionately injure Colorado’s small rural towns. “So much of what they do has an agricultur-al pace to it,” Pritchett says. “You can’t re-place the intensity of activity you have with irrigated agriculture with dryland agriculture. There would be less demand for goods and less demand for services in small towns. Those towns would suffer.”

Fankhauser also warns against moving too much water out of agriculture too quick-ly: “We don’t want to arrive at a time where we recognize that we need agriculture—that we need food—and the infrastructure that it takes to produce it is gone. We shouldn’t be talking about water leaving agriculture. We should be talking about how agriculture is going to need more water than it has now. We’re behind.”

No matter what, we will continue to be the spigot of the American West—we have the mountains, Graff says. “It’s a question of how much water there is in any given year, and then the competition with alternative uses of water. Those are social questions for society to answer.” q

Dan Hobbs raises a floodgate over one of the lateral canals that irrigate his farm, an appropriate metaphor for the work he is doing in Pueblo County to unleash the cooperative power of a network of growers in reaching local markets.

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Frank A. eckhardt Jr. planted onions and

sugar beets last spring with confidence.

Studying the fast-receding snows along the

Continental divide, he was more leery about

corn and pinto beans. Soft-spoken and gentle in demeanor, Eckhardt farms 3,500 acres along the South Platte

River near Peckham, a wink of a place 10 miles south of Greeley. The land’s water is supplied primarily by two mutual irrigation companies, Farmers Independent and Western Mutual.

Snowmelt from the mountains delivers the water to both. By July, the lower South Platte River consists primarily of treated wastewater effluent from metropolitan Denver and return flows from irrigated fields upstream. Occasional rainstorms spike the flows.

Relatively senior water rights benefit Eckhardt and his two sons plus their neighbors, who together are the primary stakeholders in the two companies. Their most senior rights date to Nov. 20, 1865, when the first ditch of Farmers Independent was completed. That date makes it 10th in priority on the South Platte River below Denver. Two miles farther down, the slightly newer Western Mutual Ditch is 13th.

Holding more senior rights gives the Eckhardts high confidence of obtaining sufficient water to irrigate their land. Seniors such as the Eckhardts can “call” for their water and get it, assuming they do not impair the ability of an even more senior water right holder to draw water from the river. Those who claimed later rights, whether upstream or downstream, have lower or junior priorities. They can draw only after the rights of the seniors have been satisfied, making their water security a bit more tenuous.

Planting in 2011, a record year for runoff, was an act of common sense. But 2012 was the complete opposite. The little snow that fell last winter had mostly melted by April. To reduce their risk, the Eckhardts left 700 acres of their rented land fallow. But they went ahead and planted corn, to be used as feed for livestock, and after Memorial Day, pinto beans. It was a decision they would come to rue.

The Roots of Prior AppropriationFarming has occurred in Colorado for at least a millennium, probably longer. The Ancestral Pueblo people, sometimes called the Anasazi, held back rainwater for drinking water use in at least four reservoirs in what is now Mesa Verde National Park. Much later, irrigation oc-curred in conjunction with posts operated by the Bent brothers and other merchants of fur.

A Public ResourceWith a Private Right to Use

by Allen Best


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Pick up a copy of the book “Colorado Water Law for Non-Lawyers” by P. Andrew Jones and Tom Cech, or access the Citizen’s Guide to Colorado Water Law at www.yourwatercolorado.org, to learn more about the prior appropriation doctrine.

In 1852, Mexican-American settlers put into service the San Luis People’s Ditch, the oldest continuously operated ditch in Colorado.

Discovery of gold along the Front Range spawned the rush of 1859 and the rapid ex-pansion of irrigated agriculture. While most newcomers sifted riverbeds with pans, a few hundred saw a surer path by taking up the plow. Among these new farmers was Frank Eckhardt’s grandfather, Robert A. Eckhardt. After two years in Black Hawk, he and other settlers in 1861 furrowed the sandy loam along the South Platte into ditches, using horses, mules and no small amount of their own labor. In later decades, the Farmers and Western ditches were enlarged and expanded. With each expansion came applications for new, and more junior, water rights as necessary to irrigate additional lands.

Colorado’s body of law governing water use, called the doctrine of prior appropriation, differs altogether from riparian law, which was adopted in western Europe and then the eastern United States. Riparian law recognizes owners of land across which streams and rivers flow as those who can make use of that water, within reason. Prior appropriation, on the other hand, assumes public ownership of the water independent of the property it crosses. An appropriation from a state water court grants the right to use a portion of the public’s resource for a beneficial use in a specific amount and location as specified in a legal decree. While greater rainfall creates a thicket of rivers, creeks and streams in the East, aridity more broadly prevails in the American West, shaping new attitudes about allocation of a scarce resource.

Influenced by Spanish miners, the new attitudes and laws first took root in the mining camps of California. A decade later, they were transplanted to Gregory Gulch, between what later became Central City and Black Hawk, and other early camps in Colorado. Rules for water use paralleled those of mining claims. Mining claims had to be worked, and water had to be used. No hoarding, no speculat-ing was allowed. In cases where the use of water by one miner might affect another miner’s use, the older or prior use had priority. And finally, water could be conveyed away from the riparian area. Indeed, other landowners had to accommodate these conveyances, whether they be wooden flumes or—as became the case with agriculture—wide ditches. These principles from the mining camps were adopted by the territorial legislature in 1861 and then put into the Constitution at statehood in 1876.

Studying the mining camp and agricultural laws, David B. Schorr detects a deep-seated egalitarianism rooted in Jacksonian democracy and Jeffer-son’s concept of the yeoman farmer. Rules were all aimed at stifling monopoly control and speculation. Water was reserved for those who put it to actual use. This was not socialism, says Schorr, a law professor whose academic research has focused on Colorado water law. Rather, the reformers saw private property, widely distributed, “as a bulwark of liberty and human dignity.”

Mutual ditch companies, a clear articulation of this yeoman and egalitarian impulse, differ little from the acequias—community-operated waterways used in Spain and its colonies—including those in the American Southwest. They are rooted in communal effort and reward.

Members of the Farmers Independent Ditch, for example, must pay $150 annually per share owned, where a share is about 22 acre feet of water. The money is used primarily to pay a ditch rider, somebody who tracks and administers water allocation during irrigation season and burns weeds and in other ways maintains the infrastructure. Sometimes that infrastruc-ture must be replaced. Two years ago, owners were assessed $24 per share to replace a diversion on the South Platte River that had stood since the 1930s.

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Frank Eckhardt farms land that has been in the family since 1860. He holds senior water rights that give him an advantage in dry years; still, in a year like 2012, all bets are off.


Monthly meetings last four to five hours, much of the discussion focused on water filings located upstream in metropolitan Denver. Attorney bills are rising. “Any-more, we have so many court cases,” says Eckhardt, who is president of both the Farmers Independent and the Western Mutual ditch companies. “We have to pro-tect our senior rights.”

Some of the shares are now owned by individuals or entities who will want to move the water right to a diversion point elsewhere, probably near Denver. Agricul-tural water rights constitute most of the longest-held water rights in Colorado. As such, cities want to buy or lease those rights, because they have the highest pri-orities, an important consideration in low-water years. Already, a few farms along the Farmers Independent and Western Mutual ditches have been dried up, and Eckhardt expects that trend to accelerate, creating challenges for continued operations by re-maining farmers.

Changes in use of water rights can be made permanently through a state water court pro-cess or sometimes temporarily through an administrative process overseen by the state water engineer. Because a change in the use of a water right can affect other water users along a river, such changes can be blocked if other senior or junior users can show injury. But it takes time to sort out the implications

of these changes. That’s one reason Colorado has so many water attorneys.

Expansion of InfrastructureEarly on, Colorado lawmakers authorized legislation leading to the establishment of irrigation districts to undertake the more ambitious jobs of creating reservoirs and constructing elaborate canals to deliver wa-ter to benches above river valleys. Later yet came the Northern Colorado Water Conser-vancy District and the Colorado River Water Conservation District, followed by other wa-ter conservancy and conservation districts, all with the power to finance the construc-tion and operation of reservoirs to further agricultural production.

During the 20th century, the federal gov-ernment played a major role in the significant expansion of agriculture in Colorado. Among the first projects resulting from the Reclama-tion Act of 1902 was a tunnel to allow deliv-ery of water from the Gunnison River to the flowering orchards and fertile fields around Montrose and Delta. The Colorado-Big Thompson and Fryingpan-Arkansas projects were even larger in scope, yielding Colora-do River Basin water to farms of the South Platte and Arkansas valleys respectively.

Reservoir storage better allows farmers to ride out droughts. As such, reservoir wa-ter is very valuable, as has been evident in drought years of this decade. The value can

be seen in the desert-like environment of the North Fork of the Gunnison Valley. The first farmers and fruit growers to the Paonia and Hotchkiss area tapped directly from Le-roux and other creeks. But after the burst of spring runoff, little water remains. To remedy their needs, water is detained atop Grand Mesa in the Overland Reservoir and other impoundments. A winding, 33-mile-long ditch that drops 4,000 feet in elevation de-livers water for roughly 60 days each sum-mer to apple growers and other sharehold-ers. This year, the water ran short—with a probable 20 percent reduction in the apple harvest on Rogers Mesa.

Irrigators in the North Fork Valley also benefit from the ability of Blue Mesa, Paonia and other federal reservoirs to release water to fulfill calls from senior users downstream.

Efficiency and reasonable use, taking no more water than what is required to achieve a task, are at the core of Colorado water law. Irrigators continue to innovate to wring out efficiencies. Those efficiencies matter even more in drought years.

In northern Colorado, the Cache La Pou-dre Management Company delivers water to 35,000 acres that grow corn, carrots, onions, barley, and other vegetables and grains. The ditch, located near Windsor, has a senior right of 1870—very good, but not quite good enough for everybody this year. Installation of remotely controlled

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headgates has helped improve efficiencies, stretching water supplies up to a day or two during irrigation, says Dale Trowbridge, general manager.

In the North Fork Valley, Hugh Sanburg has also been able to achieve greater effi-ciency on the Cedar Park Ranch. With other family members, he has 2,400 acres 15 miles northeast of Delta, of which 500 are irrigated to grow alfalfa, grasses and small grains. They have an 1883 decree, which in August was still delivering water, although an 1896 degree had been called out to ful-fill the rights of more senior, downstream users. Since Sanburg’s father was born in 1928, that had occurred only twice before.

To improve efficiency and save labor, Sanburg has deployed a terraced irrigation system, with gates every 30 inches that al-low better moderation of water with less direct manipulation of siphon pipes. He be-lieves his is the only such system outside Arizona. “It costs a little more up front, but long term, we like to think it pays for itself,” he says.

No Guarantees, Even For SeniorsIn the South Platte Valley, no short-term solution was available to Eckhardt and his neighbors this year. Many rely upon wells in-stalled beginning in the 1930s that can draw water from aquifers. In the late 1960s, rec-ognizing that wells could also draw down the adjoining river, depriving downstream users with senior rights, Colorado lawmak-ers instituted change. Subsequent court decisions further clarified the responsibility of state water administrators to curb well pumping by junior users unless they supply sufficient replacement, or augmentation, water to avoid harming seniors.

As corn plants emerged on the Eckhardt

farm, temperatures soared above 100 de-grees and winds of 30 miles per hour made the plants thirstier. The Eckhardts had 13 wells, but were legally entitled to use just nine, and then on a limited basis—they have too little augmentation water to run the wells in a water-short year. In June, they and other farmers from Brighton to Greeley and beyond appealed to Gov. John Hick-enlooper to allow them to briefly draw a limited amount of water from the aquifers, despite being out of priority. If granted, the action may have also provided relief from flooding basements and crop damage re-sulting from localized high water tables. Hickenlooper refused, stating he lacked authority to override the prior appropriation system. Unless it rained, the farmers would get no relief.

“We were just hoping for the skies to open up,” says Eckhardt. A storm delivered three-quarters of an inch of rain in early July, but it wasn’t enough. Finally, on July 15, the Eck-hardts stopped trying. They quit delivering too little water to 700 acres. The corn, by then waist-high, stayed green another week to 10 days, then began drying up, turning October brown. “It hurt me, and them [his sons], to let something go,” says Eckhardt.

Most hope 2012 was an anomaly that won’t soon be repeated. Still, only in the rarest of years is there enough water here for everything and everybody. The prior ap-propriation doctrine cannot assure every user of a water supply, but it provides a mechanism to fairly distribute a limited re-source, with as much certainty as possible in an arid climate, to those who have es-tablished, maintained and used their water rights—which farmers like Frank Eckhardt Jr. and his family have been doing for nearly 150 years. q

Frank Eckhardt and sons, David (left) and Steven (right), harvested 450 acres of sugar beets this year, with an estimated 15 percent drop in production due to irrigation water shortages.

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Most summer nights Chad Schafer has little time to visit. He’s busy going from field

to field, setting the tubes that draw water from narrow ditches along Weld County

Road 41 and sending it into his fields. Because of this year’s drought and careful rationing by his irriga-

tion district, Schafer gets his water for just 24 hours twice a week, before it is diverted to another farmer down the line. When the water is on hand, he spends hours before and after the evening meal, man-aging the water and changing its settings in the fields.

Just as his father before taught him, Schafer is teaching his 10-year-old and 7-year-old sons to set the irrigation tubes in the eve-ning. The 10-year-old is rapidly getting the hang of the work. The 7-year-old, who also loves to be at his father’s side, is good primarily for conversation, Schafer says. But that’s okay, he says. “That’s how they learn.”

The drought is the worst in the region in 10 years and may be a harbinger of a weather pattern that will bring desperately dry periods more often. The prospect of more frequent droughts is worrisome, but it is not the only issue that bothers Schafer. Through the quiet summer evening, as he slowly guides a meticulously kept pick-up along the two-lane country highways, Schafer points to stark, barren fields whose waters have been sold off for spectacular sums to cities up and down the Front Range. Even when the drought is over, this water will never come back.

On one 160-acre parcel he and his father once leased and cultivat-ed every year, Schafer says the water sold for more than $1 million. Now a handful of homes dot the landscape. Lawns are the only green that remains on these former corn, potato and sugar beet fields.

Despite his carefully groomed farm operation and healthy crops, Schafer, at 39, worries about the coming years and how much of his family’s water future he can control. Since his great grandfather came to Greeley in 1912 from Russia to grow sugar beets, Schafer’s family has been making its living farming. They moved to Gilcrest in the 1940s.

Chad left Gilcrest briefly when he was 19 to go to a nearby junior college. “But I missed it so much, I had to come back,” he says. His father co-signed Chad’s first loan the next year. He rented a nearby field and planted an onion crop, which he was able to successfully harvest and sell. He paid off the loan and hasn’t looked back.

Keeping Water

on the FarmBy Jerd Smith

Chad Schafer works with 10-year-old son Cale (near left) and 7-year-old son Colby to change the siphon tubes that fill fur-

rows running between rows of recently planted wheat.

It takes 1.4 acre feet of water to irrigate one acre of corn over a growing season, based on the statewide average. For one acre of hay, it’s 1.9 acre

feet—the same amount required by 10 people living in Denver for one year. Sources: National Resource Conservation Service and Denver Water

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Moving Water Off the FarmStatewide, though the vast majority of Colo-rado’s current water supplies go to agricul-ture, there’s less available than there once was because cities are buying up agricultural water at prices of more than $10,000 an acre foot. Farmers such as Schafer, who would like to buy more land and water, can’t afford those sums. The South Platte Basin is ground zero for these permanent transfers. With more than 900,000 acres of irrigated lands, the South Platte is the state’s largest irrigated agricultural economy, dwarfing the 300,000-plus acres of irrigated land in the Arkansas Basin. It’s also home to metro Denver.

The story of how the South Platte Ba-sin’s agricultural water is shifting to urban uses is told clearly in the water records of the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District. In 1957, the district first began dis-tributing the water it brings from the head-waters of the upper Colorado on the West Slope through the Alva B. Adams Tunnel into the South Platte Basin. Back then, 85 percent of its water was owned by farmers. The district, which serves Larimer, Boulder, Weld, Broomfield, Logan, Morgan, Sedg-wick and Washington counties, was home to just 150,000 people.

Fast forward 55 years. Now just 34 per-cent of that water is owned by farmers and 850,000 people populate the district. Two new storage projects the district wants to build will help quench the thirst of such cit-ies as Broomfield, Erie and Greeley, but it’s unlikely any new supplies will flow back to dried-up farms. “Those projects will help slow down the transfer of agricultural water to cities,” says Northern Water spokesman Brian Werner. “But now we have to be as cre-ative as we can with the water we have left.”

Todd Doherty, who works for the state’s water policy arm, the Colorado Water Con-servation Board, agrees. In 2004, the board completed its Statewide Water Supply Initia-tive, identifying for the first time how much water each of Colorado’s eight major river basins controlled, how that water was used, and how much water each region would need in the future for cities, farms and in-dustry. The study revealed dramatic short-ages among fast-growing cities. With nearly all of Colorado’s water supplies already claimed, those cities are looking at nearby farms to help bridge the gaps in their water supply portfolios. In the South Platte Basin, where the Schafers farm, nearly one-third of irrigated farms and ranches will be dried up in the next 30 years if Colorado cannot find better ways to partner with farms so water can be shared, rather than removed permanently. The same scenario is likely to play out in other parts of the state. In the Arkansas Basin, for instance, some 73,000 irrigated acres could be dried up.

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Toward the Win-WinSince 2007, lawmakers have authorized the CWCB to spend $4 million on studies and pilot projects testing alternatives to perma-nent water transfers that could meet cities’ needs while keeping water on farms. Sev-eral such programs are underway, though in some cases, implementation is bumping up against the confines of Colorado water law, says Doherty. The dynamic of return flows, where some irrigation water has historically returned to the stream to satisfy water right holders farther downstream, for example, has complex implications when it comes to enacting change.

One of the goals of the pilot projects is to determine whether Colorado’s water laws need to be amended in order to make tem-porary water transfers easier to implement, while protecting the rights of existing water right owners.

One high-profile effort is the Super Ditch in the Arkansas Basin. The cooperative ditch is actually a legal entity that binds the water supplies and delivery systems of seven ir-rigation companies. The conglomerate will allow farmers who own shares in those ditch companies to fallow lands in dry years and lease their unused water back to cities such as Fountain, outside Colorado Springs. Un-der temporary authorization from the state, the pilot was allowed to begin this summer, but not without dispute.

Tri-State Generation and Transmission, along with several irrigation companies with systems downstream of the Super Ditch, challenged the project in water court, con-cerned that their own water rights—and abil-ity to fulfill them—would be harmed, possibly through transit losses or evaporation.

Tri-State, a large power cooperative that serves 44 rural co-ops in Colorado, believes the state exceeded its authority and wants the Super Ditch to go through a full-fledged court case before the program begins. Lee Boughey, senior manager of public affairs for Tri-State, says the company doesn’t op-pose the concept of rotational fallowing, but wants the program fully vetted before it’s al-lowed to operate.

Jay Winner, general manager of the Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District and of the Super Ditch, says that’s exactly why the pilot is necessary—to test the proj-ect’s viability. Legal challenges or no, Winner says he isn’t going away. He believes water leasing and rotational fallowing is the future of Colorado water and says projects like the Super Ditch provide an opportunity for farm-ers to generate income from their water sup-plies just as they do from their crops. Such an option was unheard of 50 years ago when the only legal mechanism for cities to access farm water was to buy it permanently and re-move it from the land. Known as “buy and dry,” this crippled rural farm communities in places like the Arkansas Basin.

Crowley County, for instance, once had a thriving agricultural economy. But early pur-chases by cities left the county with so little water that its farm economy failed. Now the county is one of the poorest in Colorado and the nation, with per capita income of just $18,966 and a poverty rate of 21 percent, according to U.S. Census data.

Those early, painful events, however, are helping inform Colorado’s modern ap-proach to sharing agricultural water, with cities up and down the Front Range putting money into researching options alongside state agencies and nonprofits.

Southeast of Denver, the city of Parker is backing an innovative program in which farmers use regulated deficit irrigation to purposefully under-irrigate their fields while maintaining a crop yield that, while reduced, is economically justified. The saved water can be put into the river and credited back to cities that in turn pay farmers for the new supplies. “So far they’re seeing about a 30 percent water savings on corn and alfalfa,” Doherty says, “and they’re still getting a crop that is profitable.”

One of the challenges with regulated defi-cit irrigation, however, is in the record keep-ing the state must do to track how much water is applied, how much is saved, and how much is delivered to new users. “It’s going to be difficult to administer because the water commissioner can’t just go by a field [under deficit irrigation] and say, ‘Okay, it’s fallowed.’ The administration piece is the biggest hurdle there,” says Doherty.

Another initiative aimed at sharing irriga-tion water with cities is a broad-based look at water banking. Here such entities as the Colorado River Water Conservation District, The Nature Conservancy, the state of Colo-rado and Front Range water utilities, among others, are evaluating existing reservoirs, such as the new Lake Nighthorse outside Durango, to see if adequate space exists for farmers to store water they might save via fallowing or deficit irrigation. Such water, if it can be harvested properly, could help cities stave off the need to build new reservoirs or to purchase more agricultural water outright. A water bank could also store saved water that could be released into the Colorado River to satisfy demands from downstream states during dry years, ensuring municipali-ties’ high country diversions could continue.

Dan Birch, deputy general manager of the Colorado River District, has been lead-ing the water banking work. The going isn’t easy. Talks have been underway with vari-ous users for five years. Birch estimates that given the skepticism and fear among water right holders, it could easily take an-other five to 10 years to create a functioning program. In the meantime, the River District recently completed a study evaluating prob-able supply and demand for the water bank: It estimates demand for 300,000 to 400,000

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acre feet of water with roughly 1 million acre feet of potential supply annually.

But unlike the Front Range, whose growers raise crops such as corn that can be easily adapted to fallowing, the West Slope’s more predominant orchards, vine-yards and alfalfa hay fields are ill-suited to such programs. The study showed the West Slope on its own could derive only about 80,000 acre feet of water via rotational fal-lowing programs. “It’s a different beast over here,” says Birch. “But we’re going to have to find new mechanisms or cities will have no choice but to ‘buy and dry.’”

One potential legal mechanism that com-bines protection of agricultural lands along with irrigation water is a new tack on con-servation easements. Easements are legal tools that give landowners tax credits in exchange for agreeing not to develop their lands. Now the state and others are look-ing at whether conservation easements that tie water to those same lands could be involved in rotational fallowing programs. Farms, for instance, whose lands are pro-tected from development via easements could agree to fallow their fields in alternat-ing years and lease that water to cities in exchange for income.

Temporary fallowing could also be used for farmers to help fellow farmers. The Yam-pa Valley, for example, is one of the few re-gions in Colorado where irrigated agriculture

may actually grow—by as much as 40,000 acres, according to the Statewide Water Supply Initiative. But rather than building a new reservoir to capture additional early season runoff for farmers, The Nature Con-servancy is helping fund an experimental rotational fallowing program.

The idea, according to Taylor Hawes, the organization’s Colorado River Program di-rector, is for water-rich farmers at the top of the river to fallow hay fields in alternating years and send the saved water downstream to ranchers in the lower valley who need additional water. Along the way, the Yampa River’s fish and wetlands will benefit as more water stays in the stream. Farmers would be paid for the water they send down the line.

Lest the Farms GoThe Colorado Agricultural Water Alliance (CAWA), comprised by leaders of agricultural organizations from around the state, has met with both farmers and municipal water users as well as legislators and members of a state-wide subcommittee on alternatives to per-manent transfers. One thing that’s become evident: Both sides would prefer control. Where municipalities would feel more secu-rity through purchasing water from farmers and leasing it back to them in dry years, agri-cultural stakeholders prefer ideas akin to the Super Ditch, where cities contract with an ir-rigation company or district to provide water

on a temporary or rotating basis. “Instead of buying an individual’s water—that can put them out of business—it wouldn’t have to be the same farmers giving up water every year,” explains Charlie Bartlett, a producer in Merino, near Sterling, and chair of CAWA.

Bartlett and other members of CAWA want to keep people thinking about the big picture and working together. “We all need each other in this state. I provide food that I produce, but I also need medical care, at-torneys, all kinds of other goods and ser-vices that the people in the cities provide,” says Bartlett. “At the same time, much of the water we use on the farm goes back to cities, just in a different form. Milk, for ex-ample, is 80 to 90 percent water. Are these things that we’re willing to give up?”

As cities, industries and farmers look for new ways to use existing supplies, wa-ter engineering experts say a tremendous amount of research and testing of crops and hydrological systems lies ahead. Cur-rently, any time the designated use of water changes, it has to go through water court, where engineers determine how much is actually available to be transferred. Farm-ers who save water through efficiency mea-sures, for example, are currently prohibited from transferring the saved water to a mu-nicipality unless they can prove actual sav-ings in crop water consumption, rather than overall application.


Deriving verifiable data is complicat-ed and involves analyzing historical crop and water diversion records, among other things. Those data can vacillate widely from region-to-region and from year-to-year. De-pending on available records and engineer-ing studies, the effort to quantify the water legally available to be transferred can also vary dramatically. This kind of uncertainty could be sharply reduced with better sci-ence and technology and perhaps changes to Colorado water law, Doherty says.

In the Arkansas Basin, engineers are de-veloping a model that will help standardize and improve calculations on variables such as how much water a particular crop uses and how much water returns to the stream after it is applied to the land. “We have a top-notch group of engineers sitting down and

really trying to work through that,” Doherty says. “If this is successful, you could have a model in which you could punch in some input and get return flows and consump-tive use quantified without going through a huge, complicated court case.”

“We hope Colorado water law is flex-ible enough to have these things occur,” Doherty adds. “But at the same time we want to make sure that water right holders are protected from injury. There may need to be a legislative fix.”

In the interim, farmers such as Chad Schafer continue to see less land they can afford to purchase outright or to lease. Schafer could earn more money, grow his operations and provide a legacy for his own children if he could expand his farm. But an 80-acre irrigated farm nearby sold recently

for $1 million, he says—a price that is out of his reach.

Schafer also sees few young farmers com-ing into his community. “There is only one other guy I know of here who is younger than me, and my dad is getting ready to retire.”

If Colorado is able to slow the loss of ir-rigated agricultural lands, farmers who sur-vive will operate in a world where food is becoming a more and more valuable com-modity and that should translate into higher crop prices. For the multi-generation Scha-fer farmers, that scenario could provide a way forward as long as their water remains close to home.

Schafer says the temptation to sell for many people is simply too great to resist. “As long as I control it, we will not sell. But for a lot of people, they see the dollar signs.” q

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Counties since 1941

841 E. 2nd Avenue Durango, CO • (970) 247-1302 • www.swwcd.org

Supporting Water Educationfor 71 Years

Chad Schafer stands amid a failed corn crop spanning 60 acres, in which he had invested nearly $18,000 in seed, fertilizer and labor expenses at the start of the 2012 season.

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As the calendar turned to 2012, Colorado’s farmers and ranchers resumed their annual winter sport: watching mountain snowpack measurements and reservoir levels. A dry winter did little to bolster existing state water supplies. For weeks, heavy winds raked the eastern plains and western mesas, sapping moisture from the ground. Even though many reservoirs and lakes contained sufficient water, observers saw early indications of drought, reminiscent of the harsh conditions of 2002. Worst fears became reality as winter turned to spring, and then most of Colorado experienced its hottest summer on record, dating back to 1895.

The Ever-Evolving FarmerWhy Colorado’s producers

must adapt to a more tenuous water supply and how they’re making it work

By Joshua Zaffos

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Arkansas Valley pinto beans


Along the Bessemer Ditch near Pueb-lo, Tom Rusler, whose family grows a mix of onions, pinto beans and corn and also raises cattle, was among many agricul-tural producers who didn’t take anything for granted. After assessing the snowpack, reservoir levels and projected streamflows in the Arkansas River Basin, Rusler decided to fallow 30 percent of his family’s fields. “We learned from the last decade, and we planned ahead,” says Rusler.

Rollbacks in planting during dry years reduce short-term crop losses in a profes-sion defined by its risks and unexpected costs. Longer-term adaptations in farming practices, crop rotations, water use and ir-rigation technology are helping farmers use water more efficiently, while innovative new partnerships are also exploring how farming can persist in the face of limited water sup-plies. Some strategies move farther afield: Rusler’s past investments in an onion pack-ing shed and equipment for processing and packaging beans have supported his family through the lean times.

Lessons for Colorado farmers and ranch-ers haven’t come easy—or cheap. Nor have they all come soon enough to keep some farmers in business. In addition to lingering drought conditions, increased demands for water from communities and industry have combined to diminish supplies for irrigated farms. Amid the pressure, some farmers have sold off water rights to cities or energy companies, while others, including Rusler and his family, are forging ahead into the parched future.

“We know there’s interest [in buying our water], and there are days when you think about that,” Rusler says, “but we’re so busy with how we make our living, we just keep our nose to the grindstone.”

Limiting FactorsFarmers across the state share Rusler’s shrewd outlook and stick-to-itiveness; such an attitude is one more crop raised through tough times in a rapidly urbanizing land-scape. Still, irrigated agriculture is already facing likely declines. Steady population growth is continually increasing communi-ties’ demands for firm water supplies. At the same time, the expanding oil and natural gas industry is leasing surplus water that cities have stocked up, competing with farms that frequently lease the same sup-plies at a much cheaper rate.

Legal obligations to downstream states also constrain resources. Interstate water compacts and endangered species recov-ery plans mandate certain river flows reach beyond state lines. Additionally, groundwa-ter wells in the Rio Grande, Republican and South Platte river basins have been shown to affect streamflows, leading to pumping re-strictions and increasing demand from farm-ers seeking a more sustainable water source.

Such factors are partially responsible for the over-allocation of nearly every river sys-tem in Colorado, meaning that water rights held by expectant users exceed the actual supply of water available during most years.

Growing cities have turned to a “buy and

dry” strategy in recent decades—purchasing farmers’ water rights and drying up agricul-tural lands to prepare for increasing demand. Such practices have played a role in drying up at least 400,000 acres—about 12.5 per-cent—of the state’s irrigated farmland dur-ing the last decade, though other factors, such as housing developments, have also contributed. Even though agriculture still accounts for approximately 86 percent of the state’s water diversions, both city utility managers and rural families now generally recognize that buy and dry is threatening the state’s agricultural legacy, food production and open space. The situation is especially dire throughout eastern Colorado: The South Platte Basin, which covers much of north-eastern Colorado and the Denver metro area, counts nine of the state’s top 10 agricultural-production counties, while the southeastern Arkansas Basin is the state’s next most sig-nificant agricultural region. These same re-gions are projected to house the majority of incoming residents.

Scaling BackConsidering the outlook, it’s little wonder that farmers choose to focus on their field labors. But ignoring problems or resisting change isn’t an option. Families and farm operators have responded to the pressures of shrinking water supplies by updating ag-ricultural practices and water management techniques to stretch their resources. One such shift has been a move away from more water-intensive crops.

In the San Luis Valley, unsustainable groundwater depletions led to restrictions on well pumping, threatening the region’s potato farmers. In response, the local water district instituted a fallowing program that pays farmers to idle fields or cap water use. “We’re afraid we’re going to run out of wa-ter completely,” says Anna Brownell, whose

Tom Rusler (above) and harvest time on the Rusler Ranch near Pueblo (top).

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family grows certified seed potatoes as the Zapata Seed Company. Brownell, who has recently returned to the farm to work with her father and brother, says the family has conserved water by growing Sudan grass and radishes, instead of barley and wheat, as cover crops while rotating fields between potatoes. By carefully tracking water use during the growing season, the Brownells make sure they don’t exceed their legal share or have to pay for excess pumping. Operators in the valley who have failed to take similar measures have been forced to abandon potato fields mid-season after run-ning out of water, losing large investments in seeds, fertilizer and labor.

In the South Platte Basin, Dave Dechant farms over 2,000 acres near Fort Lupton. Impacted by well-pumping restrictions and drought effects over the last decade, Dechant has halted irrigation on several fields and turned to dryland farming on those acres using drought-tolerant crop strains and seeds. After growing mostly al-falfa—which is in high demand from region-al dairies—Dechant has tried farming sun-flowers and more corn and wheat in recent years since those crops use less water. He has also reduced his production from four to three cuttings of alfalfa.

The adjustments have allowed him to make the most of available supplies, but they’ve also complicated his operations. Fewer cut-tings mean less income. Birds feasted on the sunflowers. During the harsh past sum-mer, his dryland crops were a failure. If the dry conditions persist, Dechant says he’ll be forced to plant even less alfalfa and turn off more sprinklers. “I don’t want to sell my water, and I don’t like seeing farm ground dried up to go to the cities,” says Dechant, but he admits he’s contemplated that out-come. Even if plans for new water storage in northeastern Colorado come to fruition, he

concludes, “I don’t see too bright a future for irrigated farming on the Front Range.”

Researchers, however, are working to al-ter that outlook.

Experimental SavingsA few miles outside the city of Greeley, where city blocks give way to cornfields and gas drilling pads, Tom Trout leads studies on U.S. Department of Agriculture experi-mental farmland. Trout, research leader for the USDA Agricultural Research Service’s Water Management Research Unit in Ft. Collins, has managed the agency’s 50-acre Limited Irrigation Research Farm in Gree-ley since 2006. “We believe the limiting re-source in the future is going to be water,” Trout says. “We’re trying to figure out how to sustain productive irrigated agriculture with less water. It’s a tall order.”

Trout and other researchers have planted corn, wheat, pinto beans and sunflowers—common regional crops—and monitored how they’ve responded to different tilling practices as well as irrigation levels and techniques. Colorado State University sci-entists working on-site are also examining how different combinations and rotations of crops affect field productivity. CSU soil sci-entist Neil Hansen has demonstrated that an alfalfa farmer can use limited irrigation in

spring and fall and let the crop go dormant in the summer and still achieve viable pro-duction. Such results are helping land man-agers optimize outcomes using less water, a strategy called deficit irrigation.

Instrumentation, such as infrared ther-mometers and weather stations, can track crop stress and measure temperatures, sunlight, wind and humidity to inform what conditions trigger harvest declines or in-creases in weeds. Trout says he can’t yet offer prescriptions for deficit irrigation, but the research is already influencing on-the-ground operations around the state.

One major finding so far has been the benefit of strip tilling—a practice that dis-turbs a small percentage of the soil while leaving most of the past season’s crop resi-due behind in the form of cornstalks and wheat stubble. Prior to the 2002 drought, most farmers carried out conventional till-age programs, fully clearing fields of leftover vegetation. Thorough tilling was easier for controlling weeds and managing ditches, especially since most fields were historically watered through flood irrigation where wa-ter is released in field-length furrows. While generally considered inefficient, flood irri-gation dates back to the first generation of farmers who helped settle Colorado.

Strip tilling or no-till practices save labor and reduce fuel consumption and equip-ment wear, protect against erosion and crop stress, and increase crop yields. The leftover organic materials temper the sun’s heat and reduce evaporation and runoff while increasing soil health. Strip tilling also captures and retains field moisture from snow in the winter and rain in the spring, which supports early season crop growth, so farmers can save their allocated water for later in the season, Trout says.

Many farmers across the state have ad-opted strip tilling and no-till strategies dur-

Dave Dechant farms near Ft. Lupton.

Continued on page 34

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In 2008, Americans spent less than 9.6 percent of their disposable income on food (compared to 18.6 percent in 1955). The share farmers receive hovers at 19 cents of every dollar. Source: Colorado Farm Bureau

The three most common methods of irrigation in Colorado are surface, drip and sprinkler. Farm-ers considering their options are most commonly looking to upgrade from existing surface systems to sprinkler or drip and must consider the advantages and disadvantages of each method. Good irrigation design is essential, along with effective control and management of the irrigation system, if quality crops are to be produced while minimizing water applications.

Watering the Fields

Best for: Grains, pastures, sugar beets, and deep-rooted crops like alfalfa

Energy Use: Low or no energy requirement

Up-front cost: ± $250 per acre (higher if the land must be lev-eled or graded to a suitable slope)

Advantages: Least expensive; minimal pressure head require-ment; can rapidly get water to stressed crops given water is available; well-suited for most low cash value crops; adapt-able to surge methods to improve efficiency; long useful life.

Disadvantages: High labor requirement; difficult to achieve even water distribution; moderate surface evaporation; substantial deep percolation below the root zone especially at the top of the field or in sandy areas; significant surface runoff (surface return flows); more opportunity for water quality problems due to return flows carrying salts, seleni-um, nutrients and other water-soluble chemicals to streams.

Best for: High value crops such as onions, lettuce, sweet corn, and tree crops

Energy Use: Moderate energy requirement (usually less than sprinklers)

Up-front cost: ± $1,500 per acre

Advantages: Even water distribution; high application ef-ficiency; very low evaporation; no surface runoff; lends itself well to full automation and scientific irrigation scheduling; enables light, frequent irrigations; excellent crop response and higher yield potential; small labor requirement assuming automation; reduced fertilizer losses; dry field surfaces for harvest; direct fertilizer injection is common.

Disadvantages: Requires installation with specialized equip-ment and a GPS-driven tractor; requires water filtration; limited ability to keep pace with highest crop water needs during warm conditions; more difficult to germinate a crop during the spring; more difficult to intentionally leach damaging salts out of the root zone; spent drip tape must frequently be disposed of; burrowing rodents can damage the system; requires high level of management to achieve long life and operate at high efficiency.

drip irrigationSurface irrigation

Drip IrrigationSurface Irrigation


The center pivot sprinkler was designed in 1949 in Colorado by Frank Zybach. His original idea was to reduce labor requirements and do everything with the center pivot, including harvest. Currently, 47 percent of Colorado’s irrigated land employs center pivot sprinklers. Source: USDA NASS 2008 Irrigation Survey

Best for: Medium and deep-rooted crops such as field corn and alfalfa, sandy or loamy soils

Energy Use High energy requirement if pumping required to achieve sufficient pressure

Up-front cost: ± $1,000 per acre

Advantages: Potential for even water distribution and higher yields; limited runoff; small labor requirement; reduced deep percolation and fertilizer losses; lends itself to scientific irrigation scheduling; enables light, frequent irrigations; fertilizer injection is possible.

Disadvantages: Evaporative losses can be up to 10 percent of applied water; field corners are generally fallowed or about 20 percent of the irrigable acreage; end guns or corner arms can account for some of the loss but create uniformity problems for the rest of the nozzles; operating costs can be high if pumping is required; can increase disease problems in some crops.

Center Pivot Sprinkler Irrigation

Center Pivot Sprinkler irrigation

Fallowed Field

Fallowing, or taking a field out of production, is the most common approach to free up consumptive use water for leasing programs. Temporary or rotational fallowing can also benefit soil productivity for future harvests. Left barren, however, the soil will be susceptible to wind erosion and weed growth. Farmers may plant sterile sorghum or dryland wheat during temporary fallowing to recoup some of their land’s income potential and provide a protective cover crop. If the field is to be permanently fallowed, the water right change decree often specifies that a grass cover crop be well established to control weeds.

Fallowing

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Pilot leasing and fallowing programs around the state have proposed paying farmers anywhere from $250 to $500 per acre foot of consumptive use water made available to cities. Meanwhile, energy companies have reportedly paid as much as $3,000 per acre foot to lease agricultural water or extra supplies from cities. An acre foot equals 325,851 gallons.

To find out more about irrigation technologies and efficiencies and how they can impact streamflows, check out the Colorado Water Institute’s Agricultural Water Conservation Clearinghouse: www.agwaterconservation.colostate.edu.

Sources: CSU Extension, Regenesis Management Group, USDA Agricultural Research Service, and Irrigation AssociationGraphic courtesy of Regenesis Management Group


ing the past decade, following the guidance of the USDA, county extension agents and seed companies, including Monsanto. The shift has been enabled by an increase in sprinkler and center pivot irrigation instead of conventional flood irrigation, also improving efficiency and tracking of water use. Tech-nology has played a role, too: Some farmers utilize global positioning system (GPS) soft-ware when tilling, spraying or seeding fields to maximize the benefits of strip tilling.

Learning CurveThe transition hasn’t been without its chal-lenges. “When you change to new prac-tices, it’s a learning experience,” says Kent Peppler, president of the grassroots Rocky Mountain Farmers Union and a fourth-gen-eration farmer in Mead, a small town near Longmont. Peppler, who raises about 500 acres of corn, wheat and alfalfa, points out that flood irrigation typically allows farmers who recognize crop stress to rapidly release water and boost field moisture during hot periods, while sprinklers can only apply wa-ter at a more limited rate. Additionally, in-stalling center pivots is an expensive under-taking without financial assistance.

A fiercer critique from many farmers is that they do not benefit from incentives for more efficient irrigation. In fact, the consequenc-es of greater irrigation efficiency along the lower Arkansas River have been increased

costs to farm and ranch operators.On about 1,200 acres south of Rocky

Ford, Rollie Jacquart has coped with wa-ter shortages by planting more sorghum instead of alfalfa and corn. Sorghum uses about one-third less water than corn, Jac-quart estimates, but he can still sell the crop to cattle ranches and feedlots.

Jacquart, like many other farmers, has in-stalled center pivots on some of his fields, but says the move is about saving labor, not water. Because sprinklers apply water more efficiently to crops than flooding, less water percolates deeper into the ground to eventually return to the river system to be reused. That presents a problem for state water administrators who are responsible for sending a certain volume of water down-stream to Kansas under the terms of an in-terstate water compact and related lawsuit. The river system—and others in the state—relies on those return flows to fulfill such ob-ligations. Irrigators are caught in the middle, and local water districts and ditch compa-nies must augment shortages by acquiring water from other sources.

Farmers with center pivot sprinklers have borne the brunt of this arrangement. Through a plan with the State Engineer’s Office, which oversees water rights and resources, the Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District uses funds collected from irrigators to seasonally buy municipal water stored in

reservoirs and deliver it to the river to boost flows. The plan has led to resentment from farmers, and as reservoir levels drop and supplies decline, it costs more to purchase the water. Rusler, among others, credits the district with doing a good job of administer-ing the system. But farmers and ranchers say the plan discourages them from more widely installing sprinkler systems on all their fields. Certainly such consequences are among the reasons few farmers have considered even higher-efficiency drip irrigation systems, es-pecially since they are expensive and require significant know-how.

The catch-22 in the Arkansas Basin hasn’t gone unnoticed in other parts of the state either. “The problem you see in the Ar-kansas Valley is going to move north,” says Peppler, referring to similar downstream ob-ligations for the South Platte and Republi-can rivers that could trigger a comparable chain of events.

Staying in BusinessBy August 2012, all of Colorado was suf-fering drought; severe and extreme condi-tions dominated 90 percent of the state, and many farmers had exhausted available water supplies. If a dry winter follows, res-ervoirs will be critically low. Water prices are projected to roughly double in 2013, hiking costs for irrigators.

On the Grand Mesa in western Colora-

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SILVER BULLET RESULTS: HEALTHY, PRODUCTIVE ANIMALSSilver Bullet systems can increase water and feed intake and improve overall health of livestock. “Silver Bullet has dramatically reduced bacteria and biofilm in our cows’ drinking water, and they are thriving,” said Ken McCarty of McCarty Family Farms in Rexford, Kansas.

WILL IT WORK FOR ME? Yes, and trying it is risk-free. The system is rented on a monthly basis, so there is no large upfront cost; just a one-time installation fee.

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H e a d w a t e r s | F a l l 2 0 1 2 3 5

do, fourth-generation rancher Carlyle Cur-rier and others endured early summer heat and strong winds that dried out the ground even before cattle were moved onto pas-tures. Currier, who uses linear, or side-roll, sprinklers to irrigate, says reservoir storage helped dampen the drought’s impact, but he still wound up with half his anticipated hay production and was forced to buy more forage. Widespread drought throughout the West and Midwest also raised the price of hay and other feed crops, further cutting into ranchers’ bottom lines.

Volatile crop yields, commodity prices and other market effects are risks that ag-ricultural producers must live with. Water scarcity and its consequences can exac-erbate such risks, and when water, seed, fertilizer or feed costs rise and crop prices drop, the loss in revenue and production ripple through local communities and the state economy.

Many producers protect themselves with crop insurance. Sam Sonnenberg, a Sterling-based crop insurance agent, says nearly 95 percent of Eastern Plains corn growers carry crop and hail insurance. The federally subsi-dized coverage provides protection if a cata-strophic storm or pest outbreak occurs, or if yields don’t meet farmers’ average produc-tion. Due to this year’s drought in Colorado and beyond, the industry is projecting record claims and payments, Sonnenberg says, surpassing last year’s then-record figures.

But livestock and some crops, including alfalfa, are not eligible for the federally sub-sidized insurance packages, so decisions to plant alternatives to corn—and potentially conserve water—can expose operators to higher risks.

Ever-innovating to remain viable, farmers have teamed up with city representatives, water attorneys, engineers and environ-mentalists on several proposals to share

water without selling off agricultural sup-plies, while also creating a new revenue stream for strapped land managers.

A pilot project with irrigators on Lake Canal will take a first crack at temporarily transferring water to the city of Fort Collins and environmental interests through an “in-terruptible water supply agreement.” The city and The Nature Conservancy will pay $30,000 for 60 acre feet of water from Lake Canal irrigators during certain years, but not more than three years each decade. The agreement, allowed through a 2003 law, will compensate farmers who lease their water without requiring approval from state water courts or compromising their future.

“It’s all about how do we get valid research and, more specifically, transfer water from ag-riculture to other demands and not enhance the detrimental aspects of buy and dry,” says Stephen Smith, an irrigation engineer with Re-genesis Management Group, based in Den-ver, which is facilitating the project.

Regenesis will monitor the water transfers and impacts to farm fields using software de-veloped in conjunction with the USDA Limited Irrigation Research Farm managed by Tom Trout. The data tracking will add to what re-searchers know about how fields respond to deficit irrigation, dryland farming or fallowing. Grants from the Colorado Water Conservation Board are supporting the effort, which is slated to start in 2013. Another CWCB grant project involving Regenesis, in partnership with the Colorado Corn Growers Association, Ducks Unlimited and Aurora Water, is exploring a “flex market” for water, enabling willing irriga-tors to lease water to cities or other interests without permanently changing the legal use.

The infusion of revenue from water leas-ing can help families ride out dry times, while mitigating the costs of efficiency measures. Incoming funds can be used to purchase sprinkler or even drip irrigation systems,

Smith says, and the USDA’s Environmental Quality Incentives Program, known as EQIP, will provide cost-share financial assistance for such improvements.

For now, many farmers are taking a wait-and-see approach; others express skepti-cism to the benefits of water leasing. One lingering problem is that farmers cannot halt production for a year without losing long-term customers or labor, says Rusler. Neither can fruit growers just turn off water for a sea-son without losing orchards or vineyards.

Those concerns notwithstanding, farm-ers and ranchers recognize that something has to give. Even if a wet and snowy winter refills reservoirs, financial pressures to sell agricultural water and convert it for mu-nicipal or industrial purposes aren’t going to recede. Expansion of existing reservoirs and new storage projects may ease some of the strain, and many farmers and ranchers consider such developments essential. But additional storage won’t halt the growth—or overturn drought and climate trends.

Despite his doubts, Rusler encouraged his sons to follow him into agriculture and they are already helping with operations. This new generation of farmers and ranchers is bud-ding all over the state, hoping to preserve rural family spreads and maintain Colorado’s food-production legacy. At the same time, many rural children are choosing careers away from the farm, persuaded by their relatives to steer clear of agriculture’s inherent risks.

Ask 10 farmers for an opinion on the drought-constrained future of agriculture and you’ll hear back at least as many dif-ferent viewpoints. There is fear and bitter-ness, along with poise and hope. Those rural streaks of independence also breed resilience and resourcefulness.

“Farmers are unsung heroes when it comes to being businessmen,” says Pep-pler. “Morning to night, we live this stuff.” q

Available in Edition from

Sargent [email protected]

303.795.9131


Go. See. Do. Act.

For the LocavoreWine and dine on a get-your-hands-dirty traipse through the North Fork Valley

For more than a century, the quality of its fruit has been Colorado’s North Fork Valley’s proudest claim to fame: In 1893, not long after the first apple and peach trees were planted here, Paonia fruit took top honors at the Chicago World’s Fair. Like the coal mines up-valley, local agriculture has since experienced booms and busts, driven in large part by the whims of nature. But now, the valley—a collection of pastoral towns located roughly between Carbondale and Grand Junc-tion—is in the midst of a modern renaissance. A reasonable growing season and a community of back-to-the-land folks have transformed the North Fork into a hotspot of small-scale organic farms.

The robust harvests of local growers, and the space for ambi-tious gardeners to grow their own food, has drawn many urban and ski-town refugees to settle here. And, along with a number of mom-and-pop vineyards and wineries that have been established in recent years, they’ve seeded a dynamic local food scene and budding ag-ritourism economy.

The valley’s veins—its meandering system of irrigation ditches—are fed by snowmelt from the West Elk Mountains by way of the North Fork of the Gunnison River. Their banks double as walking paths and communal foraging grounds—if you spot shoots of wild asparagus or rogue apricot and peach trees, you’re welcome to help yourself.

GO: A food-centric weekend in the North Fork is best started at Fresh & Wyld, a bed and breakfast in a historic farmhouse on Pao-nia’s edge. Fresh & Wyld chef/owner Dava Parr’s Friday home-style dinners are made from scratch with seasonal ingredients sourced mostly from her own garden and local farms. Fresh & Wyld also de-livers weekly produce boxes with tomatoes, greens, brightly-yolked eggs and more to pre-paid customers in the Roaring Fork Valley: www.freshandwyld.com. Mesa Winds, an organic and biodynamic farm, orchard and winery outside of Hotchkiss, offers two-night mini-mum farm stays, where interested guests are encouraged to roll up their sleeves and lend a hand harvesting fruit or herding sheep. It’s part of their mission to engage people in the farm and educate them about where their food comes from: www.mesawindsfarm.com.

SEE: North Fork Valley wines, like the organic produce local grow-ers peddle, are unadulterated: Thanks to the high-altitude and cool climate, grapes here don’t develop excessive sugars that require balancing with artificial acids—the method used to protect most American wines from cloying sweetness. The highest altitude com-mercial vineyard in North America, Terror Creek Winery, sits at 6,400 feet just outside Paonia and has a tasting room that’s open in the summer and early fall. So does Stone Cottage Cellars, a short drive down the wine trail from Terror Creek, which offers excellent Ger-wurztraminer and Syrah. Another must-hit: Alfred Eames Cellars, where winemaker Eames Peterson makes only reds—his personal preference. You must call ahead, but his wine is worth the extra ef-fort: www.westelksava.com.

DO: Depending on the season, pick your own cherries, peaches, apples and even basil at Delicious Orchards, located about a mile west of Paonia on Highway 133. Chipping in your own labor will save you a few bucks per pound, and you can grab lunch, a bottle of the orchard’s own European-style hard cider, and award-winning local goat cheese in the farm store and cafe. Camping is also available: www.deliciousorchardstore.com.

ACT: Bring the North Fork’s small-scale agricultural lifestyle home by planting a few seeds in your own backyard. Hone your skills with classes offered through the local S.O.I.L. (Sustainable Organic Inter-dependent Living) Academy in beekeeping, soil maintenance, saving seed and permaculture: www.soilacademy.com. Further explore the North Fork Valley’s agricultural scene by connecting with the Valley Organic Growers Association: www.vogaco.org. Or search for addi-tional agritourism opportunities or quality local food offerings across the state through the Colorado Department of Agriculture’s Market-Maker site: co.marketmaker.uiuc.edu. q

Cally Carswell, an editor at Paonia-based High Country News, spent her late-summer free time buried in her tomato harvest.

Following a successful harvest of Pinot Gris grapes, harvest volunteers received a tasty thank-you from Mesa Winds Farm owners Wink Davis and Max Eisele (first and second from left) in September. The harvest feast highlighted local ingredients and included pairings with Mesa Winds wines.

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By Cally Carswell

2” x 3”LogoVector format—.eps or .ai or high resolution JPEG (≥2”wide @300dpi)

Company Name + URL(240 Characters description with spaces)

Northern Water www.northernwater.orgnorthern Water, created in 1937, manages water resources, provides conservation services, and operates the Colorado-Big thompson Project and other projects for beneficiaries within its boundaries, which include about 850,000 people and 640,000 irrigated acres.

Grand County www.co.grand.co.usthe mission of Grand County is to provide quality services that are responsive, innovative and cost-effective and ensure the health, safety and general well-being of its citizens.

Publication of the Colorado Foundation for Water Education’s Headwaters magazine is made possible by the generous support of sponsors and advertisers. We would like to extend our

appreciation and thanks to the following organizations for supporting water education in Colorado:

RMFU is a progressive, grassroots organization promot-ing profitable family farmers and ranchers, stewardship of

natural resources, healthy food and strong rural communities, through education, legislation, and cooperation.

www.rmfu.org

For more information call 303.280.5208or visit www.rmagbiz.org

www.coagwater.org

We represent Colorado’s livestock industry with a unified voice in addressing legislative & regulatory issues and will work to proactively advance the interests of our members through education, communication and leadership development.

www.ColoradoLivestock.org

H e a d w a t e r s | F a l l 2 0 1 2 3 7

To Conserve, Develop, Protect and Manage Colorado’s Water for Present and Future Generations

cwcb.state.co.us

WWW.MSUDENVER.EDU/OWOW/

1580 Logan St., Suite 410 • Denver, CO 80203

NONPROFIT ORGU.S. POSTAGE

PAIDDENVER, CO

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headwaters fall 2012: agriculture-- rooted in colorado

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