Photo courtesy Allen Best. This story was published in Big Pivot on May 16, 2023.

Colorado Lieutenant Governor Diane Primavera never lived on a farm, but her mother lived on a farm in eastern Colorado. Her grandparents grew dryland wheat on 640 acres in the Joes area. It is located on the South Fork of the Republican River.

In 1919, just after World War I, Primavera’s grandfather traveled 130 miles to attend the National Western Stock Show in Denver. That was his last trip. He contracted the Spanish flu and died.

According to Primavera, her grandmother remained, working on the farm for many years, raising five children and instilling in her offspring the values ​​of hard work and resilience.

Primavera told the story during a May 8 announcement at the Colorado State Capitol. A federal program called the Conservation Reinforcement Program (CREP) has been revised. Colorado water leaders believe these changes are important for the state to remain compliant with the treaty governing the Republican River. From Colorado the river flows downstream into Nebraska and Kansas.

The rally brought together a large number of elected and appointed officials from Colorado, almost all Democrats like the Primavera, ironically for a cause called “Republican”.

Of all the major agricultural producing regions in Colorado, the Republican River is the only one not fed by mountain snow. Instead, irrigated farms there rely almost entirely on wells that draw from the underlying Ogallala Aquifer, water that was deposited millions of years ago.

Since large-scale pumping began in the 1950s and 1960s, most regions have experienced significant aquifer depletion. These declines, in turn, caused a decline in the flow of Republicans, causing discontent among downstream states who objected that Colorado was violating an interstate agreement signed in 1943. See the Republican River Compact website.

The Republican River Water Conservation District was established in 2004 to address the problem of unsustainably pumping water from the Ogallala River for irrigation of 450,000 acres of watershed. Progress was slow at first. Farmers in the district, starting in 2008, have agreed to a valuation of $14.50 per acre. The money was used to create a cash pool to pay landlords willing to take their land out of production. The assessment also helped build a pipeline to feed the main tributary of the Republican River on the border near Laird to ensure compact compliance.

Efforts in the district accelerated in 2016 when Colorado, after negotiations with downstream states, decided to work with producers who voluntarily withdraw their land from irrigated production. The Water Use Rating was increased to $30 per acre in 2022 to boost the national treasury used to clear irrigation land in Southfork, the first focus area.

The initial target of 10,000 acres was exceeded by 1,000 acres in early May, about 18 months ahead of the deadline.

A second, more challenging goal is to expand to an additional 15,000 acres in 2029.

Reductions are still voluntary, but will become mandatory if targets are not met. State water engineer Kevin Lane told the legislative committee in March that he had the power and duty to close wells to ensure compact compliance. He did not say what criteria would be used to determine which wells should be stopped.

About one-third of the wells in the South Fork region of the basin must be de-pumped.

Using CREP, state and local authorities have reduced the draft of the Ogallala Aquifer by 6.5% from 2005 levels, prevented 490,000 tons of soil erosion annually, and reduced the amount of fertilizers and pesticides applied. We want to reduce 3,865 tons. As such, the program also includes an element of water quality.

The amendment would reduce the payment for farmers, but would allow them to continue farming without drawing water from the Ogallala Aquifer as the pump would allow.

This is an incentive-based program. Farms are rewarded for taking land out of production. Funding from the Republican River District is augmented by funding through the Federal Agricultural Service. The 2022 Colorado legislature put him in a better position, allocating $30 million to him through HB 22-028.

Payments to farmers depend on several criteria, including well location, soil structure, and other factors.

Still, soaring prices for corn and other commodities are deterring farmers from enrolling in federal programs. The amendment, unveiled in Denver by federal and state officials gathered in the Capitol, offers a compromise that could attract more participants, thereby reducing water consumption. , can keep Colorado away from compact drama.

The amendment will allow farmers to practice dry land farming on previously irrigated land. But more concessions must be made to allocate land along plots dedicated to corn and other crops for wildlife habitat. Tools include no-till farming, cover crop sowing, and wildlife-friendly harvesting.

In the past, farmers and ranchers voluntarily vacated land for registration with the Republican River CREP through practices such as voluntary grass, wildlife habitat, and wetland restoration, all of which establish permanent cover. could be provided to These acres could not be farmed for the duration of the federal contract.

The amendment would allow farmers and ranchers to continue farming only in drylands. No irrigation is allowed. They are paid proportionally.

The Republican Party is a pilot project that could fine-tune the rules of the CREP program nationwide. CREP has 35 projects in 27 states.

In a statement in Denver, Republican River Water Conservation District board chairman Rod Lentz was cautiously but clearly supportive in predicting the consequences of this new flexibility, calling it “probably more “Another tool available for dealing with retirees,” he called it. in the basin.

“I can never say I’m comfortable,” he said with a laugh. “I never thought it would be part of my vocabulary. I don’t know, I don’t know what the climate will be, whether it’s climate change or the climate of the political climate or the agricultural sector.”

Lenz himself is a farmer. He grows Yukon potatoes and other crops on some of the land between Holyoke and Wray in the basin where the water table is not dropping too rapidly. He and his family migrated from the Greeley area in 1970 to pursue new agricultural opportunities based on Ogallala water extraction using well and center pivot technology developed in the mid-20th century. Arrived in the early 80’s.

So far, much of the land removed from irrigation has been in areas with poor soil or poor well performance, Lentz said. Fiscal incentives from both the federal government and current state governments create viable economic alternatives, he said. Now he’s starting to see something beyond purely economic calculations in the Southfork, the focus area for abolition, where a third of all irrigated land is to be abolished. He calls it civic duty. For example, a farmer with ten wells may choose to decommission one well.

“We are seeing some good wells being closed because they think it is our civic duty,” he says.

US Senators from Colorado flew to Denver for the announcement. They and other speakers in the Polis and Biden administrations emphasized the need to ensure a strong agricultural economy in eastern Colorado, even if water use would inevitably be reduced.

Senator Michael Bennett pointed to the efforts of Yuma County farmer Don Brown, who served on the agriculture commissioner in Governor John Hickenlooper’s administration, and said the amendment would take a long time to come to fruition. Mr. Brown said initial payment rates for dryland areas are too low to justify program requirements and too harsh to attract farmers. On his way to Mike that day, Brown reminded him that he still had work to do, he said.

“As we face 1,200 years of severe drought across the western United States, we must give farmers and ranchers more flexibility to conserve water and provide fair compensation,” Bennett said. rice field.

“These agreements are crucial to helping family farmers and ranchers adapt to a hotter, drier future and giving them a chance to pass their farms and ranches in Colorado to future generations.”

Senator John Hickenlooper, pictured in the opening photo, spoke briefly, calling Bennett and Brown “rock stars” and saying that America’s rural economy is “not partisan.” Several other state and federal officials spoke, and almost all reiterated the importance of agriculture with a slight twist on their favorite subject. For example, Colorado Agricultural Commissioner Kate Greenberg mentioned soil health.

Mr. Brown, a farmer in Republican Yuma County, was in the Capitol for an announcement. He said the revision came about during discussions with his Kansas counterpart.

“Many soils are highly erodible and their highest and best use is [them] to native grasses,” he later explained. However, other soils can be cultivated without irrigation. And it made sense to allow that farming to continue.

He passed this on to the Colorado Senate as well as the Secretary of Agriculture. The 2018 Farm Bill allows the Secretary of Agriculture to make this amendment, and the current Secretary of Agriculture in the Biden administration, Tom Vilsack, made it happen. He also corresponded with his former bosses Hickenlooper and Bennett, and said he was not surprised to see them at the Capitol.

“They are interested in rural areas and agriculture,” he said. “I care about those people.”

Brown also acknowledges that Clint Evans, director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources Conservation, and Mike Sullivan, former deputy director of the Colorado Department of Water Resources, played a pivotal role in the revision. The latter, he noted, has completed several missions since his retirement.

Allen Best

Allen Best publishes e-journal big pivot, It chronicles the energy transition in Colorado and beyond.