{"id":2452832,"date":"2020-01-02T23:15:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-03T06:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=318635"},"modified":"2020-01-02T23:15:00","modified_gmt":"2020-01-03T06:15:00","slug":"new-wave-of-water-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/new-wave-of-water-rules\/","title":{"rendered":"New wave of water rules"},"content":{"rendered":"
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CRAIG \u2014 Irrigators in northwest Colorado are facing a sea change in how they use their water, and many ranchers are greeting such a shift with reluctance and suspicion.<\/p>\n

The final frontier of the \u201cfree river,\u201d irrigators in the Yampa River region have long used what they need when the water is flowing with little regulatory oversight. Water commissioners have been encouraging better record-keeping in recent years, but a first-ever call on the system during the 2018 drought led state officials to begin enforcing requirements to measure and record water use.<\/p>\n

State law requires all irrigators to maintain measuring devices on their canals and ditches. Kevin Rein, state engineer and director of the Colorado Division of Water Resources, says such devices are widely used in other river basins throughout Colorado, where bigger populations and more demand for water have already led to stricter regulation of the resource. The Yampa River basin is the last region to get into compliance, Rein said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe basin went under call the first time in 2018,\u201d he said. \u201cI would not call that a driving force; I would call that affirmation of why it\u2019s been important \u2026 to do this for so many years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nearly 500 Yampa basin water users were ordered this fall to install a device by Nov. 30, although irrigators don\u2019t need to comply until spring, when irrigation water begins to run. Those without devices come spring won\u2019t be allowed to use their water and could be fined $500 daily if they do.<\/p>\n

The new enforcement is being met grudgingly by irrigators, many of whom are third- and fourth-generation ranchers and whose families have never measured and recorded water use in more than 100 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cEver since the 1880s, there has never been a call on the Yampa River,\u201d said Craig cattle rancher Dave Seely. \u201cIf there wasn\u2019t any water, (ranchers) accepted the fact, so it\u2019s unusual that suddenly we have all this coming down on us now.\u201d<\/p>\n

A call on the river occurs when someone with senior water rights isn\u2019t receiving their full allotted amount, and the state places a \u201ccall\u201d for users with junior rights to send more water downstream or stop diverting altogether. The move triggers \u201cadministration\u201d of the river by state water commissioners, who make site visits to monitor how much water is flowing through each ditch.<\/p>\n

An air of the Wild West still lingers in this sparsely populated corner of the state, where many ranchers would rather accept a shortfall than invite the government into their affairs by making a call for their water. \u201cThey just took it on the chin and dry farmed,\u201d Seely said.<\/p>\n

State officials have seen this resistance to change before and accept it as a matter of course.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a rough, rocky road at first, but after a while, I think a lot of people will be glad they have a device there,\u201d said Erin Light, Division 6 engineer with the Division of Water Resources.<\/p>\n

Light and her colleagues reminded irrigators at the Yampa\/White\/Green Basin Roundtable meeting in November that keeping accurate records helps protect their water right, since rights are considered \u201cabandoned\u201d if not used, although the state rarely enforces this.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour water right has a value, a value to water your livestock or your crops, but it also has a dollar value, for your heirs,\u201d Scott Hummer, a Division 6 water commissioner, said at the meeting. \u201cThe only way they have to sell the water or get a price for the water is if the engineers know how much water is consumed by your crop.\u201d<\/p>\n

But many irrigators feel mistrustful of state government having more oversight of their water and are worried that outside entities may have designs on the region\u2019s largely unallocated resource. Climate change has led to hotter, drier conditions over the past 20 years, and growing populations have increased the demand for water \u2014 both in the Colorado River basin and along the Front Range.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just raises the question of what\u2019s the drive behind it,\u201d said third-generation Yampa cattle rancher Philip Rossi. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to have an opinion when you don\u2019t fully understand the long game.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re trying to put a monetary value on water. Are they trying to get a better understanding of exactly how much water there is \u2026 so they can put a value on it if they want to sell it? Are we helping ourselves, are we hurting ourselves, are we helping them? There\u2019s so many of us that are not interested in selling our water.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other ranchers are concerned that the increased oversight could mean new restrictions even when water is plentiful. Many are in the habit of using as much water on their fields as they need, regardless of their decreed right.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the water\u2019s high, we want to get it across our fields quickly, so we take more water than (our allotted right),\u201d said John Raftopoulos, a third-generation cattle rancher in western Moffat County. \u201cThe fear is that, even with high water, they\u2019re going to cut you down to the maximum you can take \u2026 that they\u2019ll regulate you to the strict letter of the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rein said users could continue using more than their allotted right when the river is a \u201cfree river\u201d \u2014 in other words, not under a call \u2014 as long as they are not wasting it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a statutory term called waste; you can\u2019t divert more water than you can beneficially use,\u201d Rein said.<\/p>\n

He also assured that keeping accurate records would only protect the water user as demand increases statewide and across the West.<\/p>\n

Measuring devices cost from $800 to $1,500, so installation can get expensive for the many ranchers who have more than one ditch. Rossi has three more devices to install. Raftopoulos has about five others, for a total of 15 on ditches irrigating roughly 2,500 acres of grass hay and alfalfa.<\/p>\n

Light estimated 100 irrigation structures had requested extensions \u2014 which she is granting in many cases until either July 31 or Oct. 31 \u2014 but she won\u2019t have an accurate count on how many ditches are in compliance with the orders until May or June.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something that was going to happen sooner or later because of water shortages. That\u2019s the system, that\u2019s the law,\u201d Raftopoulos said. \u201cIt\u2019s a burden right now, it\u2019s expensive and it\u2019s going to put more government in our ditches. There\u2019s going to be more people watching what comes out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aspen Journalism collaborates with The Steamboat Pilot and Today, The Craig Press and other Swift Communications newspapers on coverage of rivers and water. For more, go to aspenjournalism.org.<\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CRAIG \u2014 Irrigators in northwest Colorado are facing a sea change in how they use their water, and many ranchers are greeting such a shift with reluctance and suspicion. The final frontier of the \u201cfree river,\u201d irrigators in the Yampa River region have long used what they need when the water is flowing with little […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2452832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-18 22:47:29","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2452832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452832\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2452832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2452832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2452832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}