Farms may regain wells
Conservancy district seeks to create water basin in central Colo.
Deborah Frazier, Rocky Mountain News
Published September 27, 2006 at midnight
A Front Range water conservancy district wants to create a state-designated groundwater basin so some central Colorado farmers can resume using idled irrigation wells.
The Central Colorado Water Conservancy District has asked the state's groundwater commission to create the Box Elder Groundwater Basin in Weld, Adams, Arapahoe and Elbert counties.
If the basin wins state designation as a waterway separate from the South Platte basin, some farmers who lost the right to pump their wells this year and lost thousands of dollars of crops as a result could resume using those wells.
The groundwater under Box Elder Creek is a tributary of the South Platte River, said Keith Vander Horst, of the state's groundwater commission.
"We believe the basin is not tied to the South Platte and doesn't flow into the South Platte," said Greg Hertzke, of the Central Colorado Water Conservancy District.
The proposed Box Elder basin would run about 60 miles from four miles south of the South Platte to northern Elbert County.
Hertzke said an engineering study of the area shows that the proposed basin doesn't connect to any other groundwater or river basin.
A 2002 court ruling shut down wells for about 1,500 farmers in the South Platte Basin in Weld and Adams counties, including more than 100 wells in the proposed Box Elder basin, Hertzke said.
The ruling found that about 3,000 irrigation wells in northeastern Colorado were pumping too much water and drying up the South Platte.
The court also said the wells were injuring farmers with senior water rights in the river by lessening the flows, and well users had to acquire additional water rights to augment the river flows.
"If we win the designation, it would free our irrigators from the restrictions on wells," Hertzke said.
"All the geology I've seen upholds our point that the Box Elder is a tributary of the South Platte," said -Michael Shimmin, the attorney representing the Bijou Irrigation District, which opposes the designation.
"There's only one place for the water in the Box Elder to go and that's downhill. If it goes downhill, it goes into the South Platte. That's not rocket science," he said.
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