Click the link to read the article on The Denver Post website (Conrad Swanson). Here’s an excerpt:
One way to save massive amounts of water from the drying Colorado River — state and federal officials had hoped — was to effectively buy water this year from farmers and ranchers with a $125 million conservation program. But very few are taking the offer. Or those willing to sell were turned away.
“It’s a comical mess,” Shaun Chapoose, chairman of northeast Utah’s Ute Indian Tribe, said. “They ain’t fixing nothing.”
Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, which make up the river’s upper basin, launched the System Conservation Pilot Program late last year, offering money to farmers and others willing to forgo their water use this year, restarting a water-saving initiative that ran just a few years ago. This time around, though, the program is slated to spend twice as much to save a fifth less water, Colorado River officials say. Between the four states, 88 applications came in offering to save some water, Chuck Cullom, executive director of the Upper Colorado River Commission, said. The commission approved more than 80% of them…
If each of the program’s approved applications works out as expected the upper-basin can expect to save about 39,000 acre-feet at a cost of about $16 million, Cullom said. That’s less than 2% of the smallest amount of water federal officials hope to save. Cullom said the program came together quickly because of dire conditions on the river. That timing made it difficult for farmers to participate. And he said potential participants weren’t clear on how best to apply or what kind of money they could expect in return for their water…
The concept is fairly simple. A farmer, rancher or even a city holds the rights to a certain amount of water that they’re allowed to draw from the Colorado River (or its tributaries) in a given year. The System Conservation Pilot Program had $125 million to dole out, offering them to use less. A farmer growing corn will use a certain amount of water in a typical year. But if they’re willing to grow barley instead, which might use two-thirds as much water, the state could pay them for the difference they’ve saved. Or they could offer not to grow anything, saving more water and theoretically earning even more money from the program. Expand that offer throughout each of the four upper-basin states and the hope is that enough people sign up to conserve a substantial amount of water. The more water left in the Colorado River, the higher the levels stay at lakes Powell and Mead, the more water that’s available to generate hydroelectricity, irrigate crops in Arizona and California and flow into major cities like Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Phoenix.
