The browning of green Colorado

Lush farmlands fall to 'disturbing' levels, as cities and drought put rural towns on edge

Jerd Smith, Rocky Mountain News

Published July 29, 2006 at midnight

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Irrigated farmland is disappearing at an astonishing rate in Colorado, reaching its lowest point in 32 years, state and federal data show.

About 1 million acres of irrigated farmland have dried up since hitting a high point in the 1970s, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service, with the majority of the loss occurring since 1997.

The prolonged drought is partly to blame. But so are new laws reducing the use of irrigation wells and the sale of farm water to thirsty, fast-growing cities.

The drying of these lands raises major lifestyle questions for the state, from preserving the lush farms that ensure fresh produce at farmers' markets to keeping green open space along urban corridors.

The alarming dry-up also puts critical water-sharing agreements now on the table between cities and rural regions at risk.

Colorado acreage made arable by irrigation has dropped to fewer than 2.4 million acres, according to data from NASS and estimates from the Colorado Division of Water Resources, well below the 3.1 million acres that state planners estimated existed six years ago.

"We've got to get a handle on this," said Don Schwindt, a rancher from Dolores who sits on the Colorado Water Conservation Board and the board of Family Farm Alliance, a group representing farmers in 17 Western states.

"It's extremely depressing, but there is still significant opportunity out there. We just need to hurry up," Schwindt said.

Because farmers helped settle the West, they control much of its water. Their large, irrigated farms made the region greener than it had ever been, thanks, in part, to large, government-built water facilities such as the Big Thompson Project in northern Colorado.

That the West would revert back to a browner landscape has long been considered unavoidable, as cities replace the farms that once dominated the countryside. But any wholesale dry-up will have a profound effect across the West, said Dan Luecke, a water expert and environmental consultant.

"It is inevitable," Luecke said. "However, anyone who says we'll get all of our water from agriculture is either being very insensitive or not very savvy."

Agriculture's vital role

Planners had hoped that a gradual transition back to more dryland farming and innovative new partnerships with cities could allow both entities to continue in the increasingly water-short region.

But the rate at which irrigated land is disappearing threatens this key premise of water planning.

"We're going to have to look at this much more closely," said Rick Brown, acting deputy director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board. "I wouldn't be surprised if things are moving faster than we thought, but it is disturbing."

In 2003, Colorado for the first time began estimating current and future water needs through its Statewide Water Supply Initiative.

The $2.7 million study estimated that Coloradans will need 53 percent more water by 2030, primarily because of new growth.

The report projected that cities would dry up 185,000 to 428,000 acres of irrigated land during that time to meet those demands if they couldn't find other sources, leaving Colorado with roughly 2.67 million irrigated acres.

The new data, however, suggest that the state has already lost that much land and more, leaving it with about 2.4 million irrigated acres. And the process occurred in considerably less time than the 25 years planners had originally projected.

Brown said it isn't clear whether Coloradans should - or would even want to - help protect farm water supplies, either by paying farmers to stay in business or helping finance new storage projects in critical regions such as the South Platte River Basin, the largest irrigated agricultural area in the state.

"People are on all sides of the issue," Brown said. "But everyone recognizes the role that agriculture plays. The sustainable food issue is very appealing to Coloradans, and the open space is something everyone values."

Across the West, irrigated lands are losing water to cities, even as those same communities look to water-rich farms to act as emergency supplies in times of drought, when farmers can be paid not to farm to ensure city dwellers have drinking supplies.

Such water-sharing deals are considered key to manage increasingly scarce water supplies in the Colorado River. Seven states rely on the river: Colorado, Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.

All seven lost irrigated lands between 1997 and 2002, the latest period for which regional statistics are available. But Colorado was the hardest hit during that five-year stretch, losing more than 784,000 acres, according to NASS.

But it's not just the water issues that are causing people to rethink the relationship between irrigated agriculture and city dwellers.

Temperature is also a concern. Officials in Arizona worry that concrete-laden desert cities such as Phoenix will become even hotter without lush, green farm fields to provide a cool buffer zone. Arizona lost 13.3 percent of its irrigated lands, or 144,000 acres, between 1997 and 2002, according to the NASS.

'Huge hit in our economy'

In Colorado farm country, small towns are on edge because of the damage being sustained by their economies.

Along Morgan County's Road Q, an old farm thoroughfare that links Wiggins to Fort Morgan, the trouble in the fields is clear.

On a sweltering summer afternoon, a crop duster flies over green and brown fields, playing a lazy game of aerial hopscotch. It swoops low over those fields, whose plants are still growing, circling high and away from those that have dried up because of the lingering drought and a state-ordered shutdown of irrigation wells. In this county, where 34 percent of jobs are farm-related, hundreds of wells have been shut down because they failed to meet the requirements of a new state law designed to better protect underground water supplies that feed the South Platte River.

"It's ruining people," said Henry Thiel, an energetic 83-year-old who ran an auto-supply store in Fort Morgan for 40 years.

Morgan County Assessor Bob Wooldridge estimates that some $30 million in land value has been lost because once fertile irrigated land will now have to be classified as dry land, which is worth roughly two-thirds less than the more productive irrigated fields.

"Economically, it's a huge hit in our economy," Wooldridge said. "The cash on that 30,000 acres has just disappeared."

State Engineer Hal Simpson estimated that as many as 2,000 irrigation wells are being shut down on the South Platte because of the new law, drying up about 160,000 acres of land.

In the Republican River Basin, wells are being shut off on another 30,000 acres to ensure that Colorado can meet its legal obligations to deliver that river's water to Nebraska and Kansas.

In the Rio Grande, 7,000 acres are being taken out of production to help restore a deep, underground aquifer that has been overused by local farmers.

Diana Nyhoff is the assessor in Yuma County, in the heart of the Republican River Basin. The drop in land values there is also being seen.

"We're losing value, but it's going to be a slow loss," she said. "People here understand what's occurring, and they're starting to experiment with dryland crops."

Some municipalities would like to see as much irrigated land stay in production as possible. Surveys in Parker, for example, show residents there are willing to pay more on water bills to help pay for new rural-urban water partnerships.

Frank Jaeger, manager of Parker's Water and Sanitation District, said that the state can't craft agreements to keep farms green if all their water has already been sold away.

"There is enough water in this state to keep both communities whole and vibrant," Jaeger said. "But the opportunity may be slipping away. If we get to the table now - not next week and not next year - we might be able to do something."

smithj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5474

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