Farmers sweat lack of water

Growers mop brows after state edict to shut down wells

Jerd Smith, Rocky Mountain News

Published May 10, 2006 at midnight

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The state ordered more than 400 powerful irrigation wells shut down this week to protect the South Platte River, triggering a crisis for about 200 farms from Brighton to Fort Morgan.

"It's the toughest decision I've ever had to make," said State Engineer Hal Simpson, Colorado's top water regulator.

Farmers who've already planted this year say they stand to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars as a result of Simpson's ruling. The decree may mean bankruptcy for some. But others, such as La Salle potato grower Harry Strohauer, are gearing up for battle.

"I'm going to fight like crazy," Strohauer said.

Strohauer is losing the use of 14 wells that normally irrigate 1,100 acres of potatoes and onions. He's invested $700,000 in seed and fertilizer so far this spring.

"To get hit with this ruling after we've all planted is ludicrous," Strohauer said.

A spokesman for Gov. Bill Owens said the state may declare an emergency in the counties affected by the shutdown.

But the shutdown was precipitated by a new state law that requires farmers who use deep irrigation wells - which draw down the aquifer that also nourishes the river - to replace that water.

The law is meant to stabilize the river by reducing the impact of deep wells.

The law was passed after the 2002 drought, when farmers who relied solely on the river's surface water for irrigation saw their fields burn up, while well-dependent farmers continued irrigating.

Surface-water farmers and some cities successfully sued the state for allowing the deep wells to harm the river.

Under the new law, well-dependent farmers were given several years to find additional water supplies, either by securing water leases or with permanent purchases of water.

In 2002, roughly 5,000 irrigation wells were operated in the South Platte basin. Under the new law, more than 1,500 have already been shut down, while the users of several hundred others have developed new water plans that allow them to legally operate their wells.

But Simpson's ruling signals that time is up for farmers who have been unable to line up sufficient new water supplies.

"This is a wreck," said Tom Cech, manager of the Central Water Conservancy District.

The district has been working frantically since 2003, raising property taxes to lease and buy water and to build small reservoirs to aid this last group of farms. All told, the district has raised $21 million to help comply with the new law, Cech said, but the lingering drought and competition for water between fast-growing Front Range cities and farmers has made water scarce and expensive.

Cech said the district had projected it would have enough water this year to operate the wells at 15 percent of their capacity.

But the state engineer's decision, prompted by a dry spring and the district's loss of several key water leases, doomed the farmers' efforts just as the new growing season got under way.

The law also stipulates that farmers must show they have enough incoming water to cover future water debts to the river.

Because of the lingering dry spell, the state required that they use a worst-case drought scenario to calculate future needs, which meant finding more water.

"It's a brutal standard," Cech said.

Bob Sakata is a veteran vegetable grower in Brighton and an elder statesman on the South Platte River.

Sakata already has spent $264,000 planting 300 acres in onions, broccoli, sweet corn and carrots. The three wells he planned to use on that land won't operate this year, and the crops in the ground probably won't survive.

Sakata is a large grower, with 19 other wells and the rights to river water. Still, he said he was caught off guard by the ruling.

Farmers had expected to be able to use their wells at least for a short period of time this summer. But to be shut down completely was a surprise.

"There has to be a better solution than this," Sakata said. "I've put out calls to the governor, to the commissioner (of agriculture) and director of natural resources. There's just got to be a way."

North of Brighton, two wells that supply drinking water to Page's Trailer Park will also be shut down as a result of the ruling.

Bernie Pagel, who has owned the park since 1969, said about 70 families live there and depend on the wells for 90 percent of their water.

"I'm just wondering what we're supposed to do," Pagel said.

He's talking to other nearby water providers to see if he can purchase water.

"We're also wondering if there's any emergency exemption," he added, noting that more than 300 residents will be without water if the wells are shut off.

Glen Kobobel is a corn grower outside Wiggins. He, too, had expected to have at least a small amount of well water to use on his crops this summer. Tuesday afternoon, he had yet to finish calculating how much money he will lose as those crops dry out.

"Our family will be able to survive this shutdown," Kobobel said. "I don't know about next year, though. And I just can't figure out why the state is doing this to us. I think we're so few in number, our voices mean nothing."

Simpson, the state engineer, had a different take. "There just wasn't enough water in their plan," he said of the farmers' efforts to comply with the new law.

"We're very sorry it came to this."How trouble got started

The crisis in the South Platte River basin took root more than 70 years ago, when hundreds of farm families from Brighton to Fort Morgan started digging wells in a shallow aquifer that also supplies the river.

Water engineering was in its infancy, and state agriculture and water officials encouraged the drilling, hopeful that the wells would drought-proof the lush, irrigated high plains region.

No one understood back then that the wells were pulling water from the same aquifer that helped supply the river. By 1969, the science was clear. The wells were depleting the river. The state began requiring farmers to put back into the river some of what their wells had drawn down.

Under the new law, farmers must put about 80 percent of the total water they pump from the ground back into the river. Previously, their obligation had been as low as 5 percent in some years.

smithj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5474

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