Sharing water with farmers in our native Arkansas River Basin is one of the ways we are meeting our water needs for the future. This innovative program provides water for Colorado Springs customers while protecting rural communities and the agricultural economy in our region.
Agricultural water sharing is one way we are diversifying our water supply portfolio and addressing risks to our Colorado River Basin supply due to prolonged drought. Our Sustainable Water Plan identifies the ways we will meet our community's water needs over the next 40-50 year. This includes developing 15,000-25,000 acre-feet of supply through agricultural water sharing.
In the past, water transfers between agriculture and municipalities primarily involved purchasing farms and transferring the associated water rights to the city. Today, balancing municipal needs with farmers' needs involves a partnership to share the water. These partnerships range from storage cooperation to the development of perpetual 3-in-10-year lease programs.
Often, water becomes available when we work with farmers to transition to more efficient irrigation methods. When this is done, less water is needed to produce the same amount of crops and we are able to acquire the unused water.
In essence, our Arkansas Valley Water Sharing Program:
- Emphasizes collaboration rather than competition for water. Both partners benefit.
- Provides multiple ways to create stability for municipal supplies and the agriculture economy in the basin.
- Reduces large scale transfers and permanent removal of water from agriculture.
- Supports the use of more efficient irrigation technology resulting in more efficient use of water.
- In some cases, water sharing can help young farmers acquire their own farms, an otherwise cost-prohibitive endeavor in today's market.
We continue to build on the successes of our first water sharing agreements, started in 2016. This includes the Lower Arkansas Water Management Association (LAWMA) project, which provides water for Colorado Springs municipal use in five of every 10 years, while farmers in the Las Animas and Lamar areas take additional water during the other five years. We also supported LAWMA's development of storage to help them manage the program and their supplies.
A blog we published in 2022 provides more detail about our partnerships with farmers, as well as the Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) we have with Bent County (approved in Oct. 2022). Because we anticipate many water sharing agreements to occur in Bent County, Colo., we worked with county officials to streamline the water transfer process through an Intergovernmental Agreement, or IGA. The terms of the IGA limit permanent dry-up of historically irrigated lands and provides economic and revegetation considerations for the county, while providing water for our customers.
