Lower Arkansas Valley growers organize protests against city water transfers

Back in the 1970s, farmers in the Lower Arkansas Valley and across the nation, channeled anger and frustration over low farm prices into a series of large-scale protests, eventually driving their tractors to Washington, D.C., plowing across the national mall.

The American Agriculture Movement, as it was called, was founded in 1977 in the tiny Lower Arkansas Valley community of Campo.

Now, a new wave of activism is emerging, with Lower Arkansas Valley farmers once again organizing protests and speeches. Their target this time is the city of Colorado Springs and their hope is to stop large annexations that often require taking water from farms to fuel the growth. 

This Fresh Water News story is a collaboration between The Colorado Sun and Water Education Colorado. It also appears at wateredco.org/fresh-water-news.

“One of our goals is to make sure the voters in Colorado Springs understand the consequences of this growth. It is not sustainable for them or us,” said Jack Goble, manager of the Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservation District. Goble’s grandfather was among those who participated in the 1970s protests, although he did not drive a family tractor to D.C., the younger Goble said.

Since the 1980s, communities in the Lower Arkansas Valley have seen their economies shrivel as irrigation water has been siphoned from the Arkansas River by cities. The action gave rise to the term “buy and dry,” a practice now widely condemned.

And it was supposed to end in 2003 with a hard-fought federal court battle and settlement. Since then, state lawmakers and top water and farm agencies have changed laws and spent millions of dollars testing new protective methods for sharing water temporarily between rural and urban areas. They have also spent heavily to improve water quality for thousands of people living near the river who still don’t have clean water to drink.

But farmers say those policies aren’t working.

More transfers underway

In the past five years, Aurora, Pueblo and Colorado Springs have secured more agricultural water, leasing it back to the farmers in some cases when the towns don’t need it, and in others permanently drying up thousands more acres of land.

Faced with housing shortages, and water systems that are under stress due to climate change and chronic drought, cities say they are nevertheless working hard to reduce any impact to farm communities from the water transfers.

“A lot of the farmers are feeling a lot of pressure because of the Aurora purchase,” said Abigail Ortega, referring to the new wave of protests and a deal last year in which Aurora purchased a major farm operation near Rocky Ford and the water associated with that land. Ortega is general manager of water supply planning at Colorado Springs Utilities.

Ortega said Colorado Springs negotiated an agreement with Bent County in which farmers have been paid to dry up sections of land, giving the water associated with those parcels to Colorado Springs. The remainder of the water is tied permanently to their most productive fields. Colorado Springs also paid Bent County millions of dollars up front to aid in economic development, and will make annual payments to the county to offset any decline in farm production, Orgeta said.

“Those payments are meant to mitigate the impacts of taking the water away,” she said.

Despite the water-sharing agreements and new state policies designed to protect growers, Colorado’s irrigated acres have declined nearly 30% in the past 25 years, according to the latest federal agricultural census. That decline has been driven in part by large-scale urban water purchases, as well as declines in Colorado River supplies and legal requirements to deliver water to other states.

In response, growers have adopted a new tactic. In the past six months, they have twice piled into their cars and driven the 100 miles to Colorado Springs’ city hall, testifying against two large-scale annexations, with written speeches and signs in hand.

The first, the Amara annexation, would have added 9,500 homes to Colorado’s second largest city. It was narrowly rejected by the Colorado Springs City Council in August.

But the Karman Line annexation was approved last month and will add 6,500 new homes to the El Paso County city.

Lower Arkansas grower Alan Frantz, whose family grows corn, alfalfa and melons and cantaloupes, said the cities need to find other ways to supply water for new homes.

City dwellers, Frantz said, “have blinders on. They want water and they don’t care where they get it. City people don’t know where water comes from. They don’t know where their food comes from. If we didn’t try to tell them, they would not have any kind of clue.”

City councilmembers contacted by Fresh Water News and the Colorado Sun did not respond to a request for comment.

Goble said dozens of growers are ready to confront the city directly as often as it takes until Colorado Springs agrees not to take more water. 

The growers are also joining forces with some Colorado Springs residents who have vowed to ask voters directly this spring to rescind the Karman Line annexation agreement.

“We are going to keep showing up,” Goble said. “These city council members are making decisions that are going to dramatically affect the future of the Arkansas Valley. At some point, you have to live within your water means and stop sacrificing our communities for yours.”