Front Range interests trump farmers 

(Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of three stories on the theories of why farmers are facing hardships as presented at the Good Neighbor forum Saturday in Greeley.)

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By DAN BARKER

Times Staff Member

About a quarter of the guests at the Good Neighbor forum at the Island Grove Park 4-H building Saturday were from Morgan County, seeking to hear what would be said about land and water rights.

About 230 preregistered and 30 registered at the door, although many from places farther away, such as Nebraska, were delayed or stopped by a blizzard that day.

Among the speakers was water engineer Chuck Leaf of Merino during a presentation called “Upholding First in Time, First in Right Water Rights” with a subtitle “The Anatomy of a Takings.”

In short, Front Range water needs have trumped those of farmers along the South Platte River, he said.

Leaf spoke about the time he called “Camelot,” when growers were allowed access to groundwater through wells from about the 1950s to 2000. In the past few years, 3,000 of those wells along the South Platte have been either “curtailed or shut off,” as state water officials have given precedence to senior water rights holders.

Eventually all of the wells along the Platte will be shut, he predicted.

A pivotal moment in the fight over South Platte water came with the Water Rights Determination Act in 1969, which began with some assertion of senior water rights, which many cities such as Denver have, Leaf said.

To give some idea of what that means, a person with an 1895 claim is a junior right, Leaf said.

However, claims of injury to surface water from wells are exaggerated, he said.

The South Platte basin has a 10-million-acre-foot capacity and even if there is a change in groundwater storage of 20,000 acre-feet between Henderson and Julesburg, as shown in one hydrological study, that is only 0.2 percent of the overall amount, Leaf said.

There cannot be a real change in the aquifer from that tiny amount, he concluded.

In fact, a study he did in the 1990s indicated there were 200,000 more acre-feet in the South Platte from Denver to Julesburg each year than in 1905, which is a result of the diversion of water from other watersheds to the Front Range, such as Colorado-Big Thompson water, as the “megalopolis” grew, he said.

Wells have been “used as scapegoats” to cover depletions downstream, Leaf said.

A study by another hydrologist recommended restoring enough water to the river to make up for what effect wells might have had and then returning to historical well operations. He suggested not putting wells into the “priority system” since it would be “ineffective and dangerous,” Leaf quoted.

Nonetheless, state officials have asked for “unrealistically high” replacement requirements from producers, as they did in the Empire Lodge Decision in 2000, he said.

Legislation in 2001 requires the Central Colorado Water Conservancy District to augment with 50,000 acre-feet a year, but it only has rights to less than half of that, Leaf said.

“We don’t have that much (unclaimed) water in the river,” he said.

Essentially, it comes down to Front Range interests claiming water for the many who have moved into Colorado, Leaf said.

Many feel they must protect “senior rights at all costs,” he said.

(Tuesday’s story will tell of speakers at the forum who blame environmentalists for water and grazing problems.)

— Contact Dan Barker at business@fmtimes.com or 970-324-1254.