Here’s a guest column from Max Ciaglo that’s running in The Colorado Sun:
Sandhill cranes have been migrating through the San Luis Valley of Colorado for thousands of years. The Rio Grande River likely attracted the first cranes to the Valley, providing the ideal habitat and abundant food resources that they required to complete their migration.
Early settlers brought agriculture to the San Luis Valley with them. To irrigate fields to grow hay, farmers diverted water from rivers onto the land, mimicking natural wetlands and effectively expanding habitat for cranes to thrive. When wheat and barley farming began in the valley in the 1900s, it also provided a high-calorie food resource that buoyed crane populations that were dwindling throughout North America.
Max Ciaglo. Photo credit: Colorado Open Lands
More than 50% of land in the valley is now publicly owned, but over 90% of existing wetlands are on private farmlands. Although these lands and the water on them are managed as part of private business operations, they provide critical habitat for sandhill cranes.
However, we in Colorado relate all too well to the sentiment that “whiskey’s for drinking; water’s for fighting.”
The battles are fought on many fronts: agricultural versus municipal users; rural towns versus urban centers. Water often flows towards money.
Water in Colorado’s rivers and streams is sometimes diverted from one river basin to meet the demands of another. These exports take water from once-productive agricultural lands and dry them up in the process, and the wildlife that depend on these lands are often left out of the discussion entirely.
In the San Luis Valley declining groundwater and extended drought have already left the land thirsty for water. But even now, as Colorado knocks on the door of a third decade of consistent drought conditions, other interests are eyeing water from the valley’s underground aquifer to export to growing cities on the Front Range of Colorado.
Farmers and ranchers across the valley have been working together with partners like Colorado Open Lands and other local coalitions for decades to protect and conserve their water. As they come together once again to fight the threat of water export, they are fighting to make sure that there is a future for agriculture in the Rio Grande Basin. And as long as there is a future for agriculture there will be a future for sandhill cranes.
Max Ciaglo is the Grain for Cranes Fellow at Colorado Open Lands, a statewide land and water conservation nonprofit. The Grain for Cranes program aims to support sandhill crane habitat by supporting agriculture in the San Luis Valley. Find out more at ColoradoOpenLands.org.
Sandhill cranes. Photo: Scott Helfrich/Audubon Photography Awards
Learn about the steps taken to ensure a safe, reliable drinking water supply for the metro area. The post Denver Water’s response to COVID-19 appeared first on News on TAP.
Many Indian reservations are located in or near contentious river basins where demand for water outstrips supply. Map courtesy of the Bureau of Reclamation.
Many of Arizona’s Native tribes have long-standing claims to water rights that haven’t yet been settled, and a discussion of efforts to negotiate possible agreements took center stage at a meeting of Gov. Doug Ducey’s water council.
The meeting grew tense after Arizona’s top water official gave a presentation on the status of tribes’ unresolved water claims, and then didn’t allow leaders of four tribes to speak.
Arizona Department of Water Resources Director Tom Buschatzke said he sent letters a week ago to all 22 federally recognized tribes in Arizona inviting them to speak about the issue at upcoming meetings later this year.
That stance drew criticism from Arizona House Minority Leader Charlene Fernandez, D-Yuma, and sharply worded letters from the leaders of four tribal nations, which laid out grievances about how state officials have been treating their water cases.
Tom Buschatzke.
Buschatzke gave a presentation [March 13, 2020] for the meeting reviewing the history of federal and state law regarding water for Indian reservations, the amounts of water that some tribes have obtained through congressionally approved settlements, and the status of 11 tribes’ outstanding water rights claims.
Buschatzke said it’s important to clarify Indian water rights claims because “unresolved claims create significant uncertainty for water users in our state.” Each tribe has priority water rights based on the date its reservation was established, he said, and may be entitled to large amounts of water.
