Brief by Central Staff
Water – April 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
Aurora will be getting more water from the Arkansas River this summer, thanks to a leasing arrangement with farmers east of Pueblo. This is the first such arrangement under a new state law, passed last year in response to the drought.
The new law allows agricultural users to lease their water to municipal users, without losing their water rights. Previously, the transfer would have required a “change of use” procedure in water court and a sale of the water rights to the city.
The farmers’ water comes from the High Line Canal (there are several ditches with this name in Colorado, but this one runs in the Rocky Ford area). Aurora has no way to take the water from there, but through a series of exchanges involving Pueblo Reservoir and Twin Lakes Reservoir, Aurora will be able to divert the Arkansas River water at the Otero Pump Station near Granite in Chaffee County.
Aurora, a city of 275,000 just east of Denver, will lease about 12,600 acre-feet of High Line water, which will be used to replenish its reservoirs in the South Platte basin.
Last year, they were down to 26% of capacity, but they’re expected to recover to 46% this year before the spring run-off starts.
The city will pay the farmers $5.5 million, and they will idle 8,850 acres that they would otherwise have irrigated this year. That works out to $643 per acre — more than double the likely value of the corn or hay they would have grown.
So the farmers appear to be coming out well, but what about the flows in the upper river below the Otero Pump Station?
That depends on Aurora’s pumping rate there. If the city pumped the 12,600 acre-feet over a four-month period (say from March 15 through July 15), then the pumping rate would be about 52.2 cubic feet per second.
That’s probably enough to notice in March or April when the river flows at 300 cusecs, but not a significant difference on a June flow of 2,500 cusecs.