Colorado Corn

Harsh words, cold stares

Knox probably didn't expect a warm welcome in Yuma on a visit last month, and he didn't get one.

There were cold stares and at times harsh words as he told those assembled at the Church of the Naza-rene about the state's plans to shut off the irrigation wells within a certain distance of the river, possibly those within three or four miles.

But he also offered a carrot: Farmers could voluntarily sign up for a government initiative called the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program, or CREP. They could earn about $2,000 per acre if they retired irrigated acres and turn those into dryland for 15 years.

Sitting in the audience, Duard Fix did some quick math.

Two of his 125-acre circles could fall within the well shut-off zone. Each yields a minimum of 200 bushels per acre. With corn at $4 a bushel, each acre would mean $12,000 over 15 years, or six times the CREP offer.

Fix decided he wouldn't sign up.

Born in 1934, he'd grown up and raised kids on the 7,000-acre farm in Wray inherited from his maternal grandfather. Under the state's plan, one-fifth of his irrigated acreage would become dryland.

"They want to use a few of us as sacrificial lambs and not even pay us the market value of the land," Fix said. "That's where the hard feelings are."

Fortunately for the Lenzes, their wells are outside the proposed shut-off zone. The Rutledges, meanwhile, are not certain.

But whether inside or outside the shut-off zone, Yuma farmers agree on the outcome: Millions of dollars will be sucked out of the local economy, stunting the area's nascent prosperity, with the new ethanol plant coming online just this week.

"This is very difficult, and I understand (the farmers') concern," Knox said. "But folks have to realize this clearly is more than about $4 corn. This is about the law."

Frozen in time

The Republican River Compact was signed in 1942 by Colorado, Kansas and Nebraska, ratified by the state General Assembly and the Congress.

At that time, the river water was divided among the three states in proportion to each state's irrigated acres in the basin. Nebraska got 49 percent, Kansas 40 percent and Colorado a mere 11 percent.

Since then, Colorado's irrigated acres in the Republican basin have increased to 580,000 acres with 4,000 wells pumping from the aquifer, compared with 4,000 to 5,000 acres irrigated by ditches in the 1940s.

But Colorado's share of the river water has remained unchanged, frozen in time.

"I wish we would have made a better deal in 1942," Knox conceded.

Colorado fought the compact in courts but lost to Kansas. In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court approved a settlement, in which the three states agreed that compact accounting would be based on a five-year average.

The first five-year period will end this year, and the numbers aren't encouraging. Colorado, on average, has shorted Kansas 11,000 acre-feet of water per year. Kansas officials have made it clear they want the owed water.

An acre-foot is roughly the amount needed to supply a family of four with enough water for one year.

Colorado officials believe they can cut the compact shortfall by nearly half by retiring about 60,000 irrigated acres, mostly close to the river.

The remaining shortfall could be made up by retiring ditches or, perhaps, draining the Bonny Reservoir near Burlington.

"If we don't meet the compact, all the 4,000 wells could be shut off, and that would affect hundreds of millions of dollars per year in Colorado," Knox said.