There was no water.
Reuben Coffin farmed along the St. Vrain River in north-central Colorado, and in June 1879, the St. Vrain was dry. So Coffin rounded up a group of his neighbors who also irrigated from the St. Vrain and set off upstream to investigate.
They discovered a dam diverting all of the St. Vrain’s water into the Left Hand Ditch. So Coffin’s band tore out the dam (some sources say dynamite was used) and went home, convinced their problem was solved. But the next morning, when Left Hand farmers awoke to find their ditch dry, they were understandably furious. For two decades—long before anyone had farmed downstream—the Left Hand Ditch had been used to divert a portion of the St. Vrain’s water to supply farmers in the area. So Left Hand farmers rebuilt their dam and left “a sufficient force of men to keep the ditch full of water.”
Armed confrontations ensued, leading to a lawsuit being filed by Coffin. Ultimately, the Colorado Supreme ruled in favor of the Left Hand Ditch Company, thereby making prior appropriation (“first in time, first in right”) the law of the land.
Any history of the American West must include a long look at the role water-related conflicts—many of which included much more destruction and bloodshed than the Left Hand Ditch clash—have played in shaping the region. There is not significantly more water in the 21st-century West than there was two centuries ago. (Indeed, there may be less, as severe droughts have hammered many regions in the past 15 years.) Yet, what with exploding urban populations and expanded agricultural practices, there is much, much more demand placed on those water supplies today.
Acknowledging that history and facing a historic drought in 2002, officials in Colorado’s state government took initiative they had never before deemed necessary.
“The state government had always trusted local water providers,” says Jacob Bornstein, a program manager in the water supply planning section of the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB). “We are a local-control state, and it worked for a long time. But the legislature and executive branch realized the state could probably do something in terms of looking at water from statewide perspective.”
In 2005, the state legislature passed the Water for the 21st Century Act, which created nine regional stakeholder groups, called Basin Roundtables, and a statewide group called the Interbasin Compact Committee. These 10 groups, made up of stakeholders from Colorado’s municipal, environmental and agricultural arenas, work to define regional water needs and find solutions to meet those needs.
Over a decade, significant progress was made by the Basin Roundtables and the Interbasin Compact Committee on bringing together voices from various interest groups to develop productive initiatives. In 2015, Gov. John Hickenlooper issued an executive order to charging the CWCB, an arm of the state Department of Natural Resources, to work with stakeholders and other agencies to develop what has come to be known as Colorado’s Water Plan. The plan was officially published Nov. 19, 2015.
As part of the development of Colorado’s Water plan, each Basin Roundtable delivered its own Basin Implementation Plan to the CWCB in April 2015. These plans offer solutions for how each basin’s future water needs will be addressed at the local level. These Basin Implementation Plans were incorporated into Colorado’s Water Plan so that the stakeholders and the state can understand at both the basin and statewide level how Colorado’s water needs ought to be addressed.
While the plan does involve government entities, it is not regulatory in nature, meaning that there is nothing to be enforced if individuals or entities choose not to follow the guidelines laid out.
“The Water Plan is a vision for how Colorado can address its water challenges into the future,” says Bornstein. “We took a very deliberate approach not to be regulatory in nature. The plan is incentive-based rather than using regulatory hammer. It’s very collaborative and incentive-based.”
One major concern for agricultural water in Colorado is the practice of “buy-and-dry,” in which municipalities purchase water rights from growers, thus permanently taking that water out of agricultural production.
“Our data shows that in the South Platte Basin, which has the most productive agriculture in the state, we can lose upwards of 35 percent of our existing agriculture if that continues,” says Bornstein. “We’re looking at ways we can be innovative in sharing water between agriculture and our growing municipalities to stem this unacceptable loss of irrigated agriculture.”
Colorado’s Water Plan is still in its infancy, so the jury is still out on its effectiveness. It has, however, already proven successful in engendering cooperation across varied schools of thought.
“For the first time we have folks agreeing on how to think about our future,” says Bornstein. “We have the environmentalists and agricultural producers agreeing on how to move forward with both protecting the environment and keeping agriculture viable in Colorado. We have the municipalities agreeing with the agriculturalists and environmentalists that we need to continue to do more municipal conservation and efficiency.
“However, implementing it will be the next chapter.”