From The Pueblo Chieftain (Chris Woodka):
“Right now, financially, we’ve acquired what we’re comfortable with to meet our needs for the next 30-40 years,” said Alan Hamel, executive director of the Pueblo water board. “I don’t see any more major purchases in the next seven or eight years.” Still, the water board is acquiring a few more shares. This year, the board budgeted $3 million to purchase another 300 shares. In 2009, the board bought about 5,300 of the 20,000 shares on the Bessemer Ditch…
The board’s offer to allow farmers to lease water back for 20 years was so popular — 97 percent took the deal — that it was difficult to find land to revegetate this year, so that program was delayed. The board has completed engineering for three measurement and control stations, and plans to build them when the ditch is dry, during winter water storage from Nov. 15-March 15. The estimated cost is $250,000-$300,000. “The structures will allow the Bessemer to control local flooding, protect the ditch and improve the efficiency of running water in the ditch,” Hamel said.
The board also is working with one landowner to set up a lease-fallowing program, where the landowner would keep one-third of his water and irrigate a different portion of the farm each year. That way, none of the land would be permanently removed from production, Hamel said. “It has the potential to serve as a model for future shares, or possibly for some we have already purchased,” Hamel said…
In the next year, more engineering work is planned. A change case, which would allow other uses for water now decreed agricultural, will not be filed until late 2011 at the earliest, Hamel said…
“My concern is that we’re headed down the road where they buy more water to the point where there is nothing left to support agriculture,” said Mike Bartolo, a Bessemer shareholder who manages the Colorado State University Agricultural Research Center at Rocky Ford. Bartolo was a vocal opponent of last year’s change in the bylaws of the ditch that make it possible to use the water outside the area historically irrigated by the Bessemer Ditch. The vote, 2-1 in favor of changes suggested by the Pueblo water board, cleared the way for the sale. “The municipal interests can’t see beyond the end of their spreadsheets,” Bartolo said. “They are exterminating the best farm ground in the state.” Bartolo has seen the effects of ditch sales from the Rocky Ford Ditch, now almost completely owned by Aurora, except for the research center and other holdouts. A 20-year agreement to lease back to farmers only delays the demise of agriculture, he said.
Leonard DiTomaso, who opposed the water works’ bid to change the bylaws and briefly served on the Bessemer board as an opponent of the sale, said the only regrets he hears are from others who would like to sell.
“There are more who would sell if they could,” DiTomaso said. “The larger ones are those who had the opportunity, but it’s really a matter of time before someone else comes in with an offer.”
More Arkansas River Basin coverage here.