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Topics for the coffee shop
By Randy Buhler CSU Cooperative Extension, Logan County Agent, Agronomy With harvest over, cows and calves turned out on stalks, weeds frozen and prairie dog control simplified, there is time to spend at the coffee shop. This column presents some information that can contribute to the discussions. Colorado is widely known as the headwaters state. All of our water comes from the atmosphere. Okay, the Yampa does flow across the northwest corner of the state. Plans are already proposed to pull water from the Colorado section over the Continental Divide to supply front-range developments. Otherwise, all of our state water is divided among ourselves and neighboring states. They seem to need more water than just what comes from the atmosphere. In 1923, a compact was signed that allocates South Platte River water between Colorado and Nebraska. The compact stipulated a water season of April 1 to October 15 with a minimum flow rate of 120 cu-ft/secs. That flow rate amounts to 238 acre-feet per day or 47,127 acre-feet per compact season. The compact was given an 1897 date of water right adjudication. Under our current operating conditions, 2 acre-feet per water season is considered full irrigation for one acre. Colorado's water season runs from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30 of the following year. The compact water season covers six months of one Colorado water season plus two weeks of the following year season. Are you getting confused, yet? An amount of 47,127 acre-feet would fully irrigate 23,603 acres. Changing land use from full irrigation to dryland grass would reduce tax revenue by 93 percent. For a real-life example, that would change tax revenue from $10.60 to $0.73 per acre. The annual loss of tax revenue is $9.87 per acre or $232,966.54 for the lost water. Consider that almost 50 percent of this amount goes to our school districts. Our aging population of farmer landowners is not getting replaced with younger family members for the most part. This leaves increasing inducement to our current farm operators to sell their land as they reach retirement. Farm profitability is too low to capitalize buying farmland and its water rights for the full market value of that land and water. Municipalities and developers can drive the prices beyond the reach of young farmers to compete. As they say, "Water flows to money". Even more reason to support successful vocation education and FFA programs in our high schools. Those programs are the primary source of our replacement farmers. Eastern Colorado is always in drought conditions. We have 35 inches of water transpiration potential created by dry air, hot temperatures, and bright sunlight for most days of the growing season. Raising consistent yields of crops depends on irrigation. Rainfall dependent farming is highly variable and often not profitable. History sometimes throws hard glaring light on the past. Was Delph Carpenter a man of visionary water law development or a bumbling stooge that gave away our water? He helped write seven of the nine interstate compacts for our state. Colorado State University Library houses his archive for use as historic documentation. Consider the long-term implications of a change in land use and the availability of water to eastern Colorado. The economic stress imposed by such change seems to be getting less notice than history would support. Your job is to make sure that government policy makers are aware of the real impact of water loss and land use changes. When front-range communities are paying $5000 per acre-feet or more, the lost compact water has a value of $23,563,500 as a one-time payment. Our local annual loss in today dollars is only about 1 percent of that value. What impact will we see from additional water losses from rural northeastern Colorado? Date: 12/5/07
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