Boulder and allies consider water plan to help farmers

Jerd Smith, Rocky Mountain News

Published May 17, 2006 at midnight

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The city of Boulder and its allies received their first look Tuesday at a proposal designed to protect their share of the South Platte River while allowing water-strapped farmers to restart their irrigation wells.

City officials, however, said it would take several days to review the proposal, which would bring more than 10,000 acre-feet of new water supplies into the South Platte River Basin to help the farmers whose wells have been cut off.

At the same time, lawmakers from the affected region, frustrated that no solution has been found in the weeklong crisis, said they will hold a noon news conference today in Gilcrest to highlight the well owners' plight.

"I'm extremely concerned," said Rep. Mary Hodge, D-Brighton. Hodge's district is home to dozens of farms whose irrigation wells were ordered shut down last week under a strict new law designed to protect South Platte flows.

State Engineer Hal Simpson ordered 440 powerful irrigation wells to stop pumping, saying the well owners' operating plan didn't contain enough water to meet the requirements of the law.

The law requires that farmers using irrigation wells, which draw on the same shallow aquifer that supplies the river, furnish water to replenish the river.

The shutdown triggered a crisis, and Gov. Bill Owens declared a disaster in Adams, Weld and Morgan counties on May 10.

By last Friday, several groups, including the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District and the city of Aurora, had stepped forward with offers of water. But Boulder, Highlands Ranch and Sterling - as well as farmers who rely on the South Platte River's surface supplies - have yet to sign off on the new proposal.

Meanwhile, as hot, dry weather continues along the Front Range, the clock is ticking on more than a $1 million of crops in the ground that will dry up if wells aren't turned back on in the next several days.

"We would like to emphasize that we need a solution, and there is a solution at hand if we can get the cities to sign on," Hodge said Tuesday.

In 2002, more than a dozen Front Range cities and farmers who rely on surface water successfully sued the state and won a stricter set of rules for managing the river and the aquifer.

Although hundreds of well-dependent farmers have been able to find enough water to comply with the law, the 200 farms affected by the cease-pumping order had been operating under a temporary plan now deemed insufficient.

Simpson said several groups, including cities, farmers and a water court judge, must agree to the new proposal and agree to waive the 30-day review that normally would be required to restart the wells.

Whether that will occur before the crops dry up isn't clear.

"To get all of them to waive the review is going to be a major challenge," Simpson said. "It's not impossible, but it's going to be extremely difficult."

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