Earth Protect Blog

Southeastern Colorado leaders say deal violates earlier Arkansas River agreement

By Elise Schmelzer

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The legality of Aurora’s $80 million purchase of a farm and its water rights is disputed by leaders in southeastern Colorado, who say the deal violates a two-decade-old agreement to stop the booming suburban city from using water meant for crops.

Aurora city officials on April 18 finalized the deal to buy a 5,475-acre farm and its water rights in rural Otero County. The city will lease out the property for farming most of the time, though it can draw on the water rights to fill its reservoirs three out of every 10 years under the terms.

Now home to about 400,000 people, the state’s third-largest city estimates its population will grow 40% over the next two decades. That new, larger population would increase the city’s water needs by an estimated 26%.

The farm purchase was necessary to help expand water supply for the city’s future, said Alexandra Davis, Aurora Water’s assistant general manager of water supply and demand. The water rights could provide 22,500 acre-feet of water to the city every 10 years — or enough water for 45,000 families for a year.

“Our philosophy is (that) we’re trying to get all the water we need now, even if we don’t need it for 30 or 40 years,” Davis said. “It’s going to be much harder down the road than it is today — and it’s already hard today.”

The Front Range city draws about a quarter of its water from the Arkansas River, which flows from the river’s headwaters near Leadville to Pueblo and then across the southeastern corner of the state, toward Kansas. Aurora purchased swaths of Arkansas River Valley farms in the 1970s and 1980s for access to the farms’ water rights.

The farms were then fallowed — a practice now known as “buy and dry” that can decimate rural communities reliant on irrigated farming.

Those purchases, in part, spurred a 2003 agreement between Aurora and the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District, which manages infrastructure that brings water to southeastern Colorado. The agreement bans Aurora from purchasing and permanently transferring water to the city from the basin. It also states that Aurora can lease water from the basin three out of every 10 years if the city’s storage reservoirs are at 60% or less of capacity as of March 15 of the year in question.

The water conservancy district contends that the Otero County farm purchase violates that agreement. It’s a permanent purchase of water to be transferred out of the basin in some years, said Bill Long, the district’s president.

“In my mind, there’s no question that this is outside what we agreed to,” said Long, who helped negotiate the 2003 agreement. “Even though it’s three of 10 years, it’s still a dry-up. It’s a rotational dry-up.”

But Davis said the water won’t be permanently transferred out of the basin, as it will be used for farming in most years.

The land will be used to grow livestock feed, according to a statement from C&A Companies, a Denver-area real estate company that sold the land to Aurora and will lease out the land in the years it is available for agriculture.

If the current farming operation that’s contracted to use the land goes out of business, Davis said, the city will seek a new lessor to farm it.

Aurora has attempted in past arrangements to lease water from farmers in dry years but has found that difficult. Crop prices rise in a dry year, which incentivizes farmers to plant instead of leasing water, Davis said. It’s also difficult for farmers to dry up land without extensive notice.

The Otero County purchase is a “win-win” for the farm and the city, Davis said, and it’s a potential blueprint for future deals in other river basins.

But the conservancy district isn’t giving up. Long said the district and the city plan to meet to discuss the purchase in coming weeks.

If they can’t resolve their differences, he said, the district will consider legal action.

“We’ll utilize whatever remedies are available to us to resolve this issue,” Long said. “That’s our responsibility.”

Removing water from a region reliant on farming sets in motion a snowballing set of negative economic consequences, Long said. Less water means less farming. Less farming means fewer jobs and less money flowing into the local businesses that sell farming equipment. Fewer jobs and fewer farm businesses mean less spending at restaurants, less tax revenue and, eventually, population loss.

“When we take water out of the Arkansas Valley to build homes in Aurora, what are the benefits to our taxpayers?” Long said.