Contest between smaller agricultural entities and water rights speculators escalates in water-scarce Colorado

In the heart of Colorado's San Luis Valley, a battle is being waged to protect the centuries-old irrigation system known as acequias. These hand-dug water channels, part of land grants issued by Mexico before the United States took over the Southwest, are a lifeline for local farmers like Quintana and Valdez, who emigrated to the valley in the mid-19th century.

The acequias, numbering about 76, are fed by snowmelt from the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. However, rising temperatures, declining snowpack, and record drought attributed to climate change have threatened this ancient system, causing some acequias to dry up and forcing families to fallow fields and sell cattle.

Robert Quintana, a fourth-generation rancher, relies on the San Luis Peoples' Ditch for irrigation. But this 169-year-old irrigation system, which holds the oldest water right in Colorado, has been left empty and reduced to a trickle of water.

The threats to the acequias are not just from the changing climate. A venture seeks to export water from the San Luis Valley to the expanding Denver suburbs more than 180 miles to the northeast. The company proposing this move remains unidentified in the search results.

The communal way of managing water in the acequias is fundamentally at odds with western water law. Legal precedents were established to protect the acequia system, including bylaws that codify centuries-old oral traditions. Mayordomos, or ditch managers, like Romero and Quintana, work tirelessly to distribute water equitably in Colorado.

In an effort to safeguard the acequias, Quintana recently signed a legal agreement with Colorado Open Lands to protect 1,475 acres and water rights on a dozen acequias in the San Luis Valley. Annual spring ditch cleaning is a tradition in the acequias, a necessary step to maintain the system's integrity.

As surface streams run low, farmers who have groundwater wells can use them to operate pivot sprinklers. However, these systems suck too much water out of the region's aquifers, forcing thousands of acres of agricultural land to be fallowed. The arrangements preserve the tradition of irrigating with communally owned and operated acequias.

The town of Center, in the San Luis Valley, receives the least amount of precipitation in the state—just seven inches per year. In 2002, the valley marked its worst drought on record, followed by three other dry spells so intense they were declared federal disasters.

In the face of these threats, Quintana and other multigenerational landowners are forging legal agreements with land trusts to restrict development and ensure their water rights can never be separated from the land. The Colorado Division of Water Resources is conducting a study to understand the impact of additional pumping on streams and acequias.

Agriculture provides one in three jobs and pumps $370 million a year into the local economy of the San Luis Valley. The valley's agriculture sector is a testament to the resilience and determination of its people, who continue to fight for the preservation of their heritage and way of life.

Contest between smaller agricultural entities and water rights speculators escalates in water-scarce Colorado