The Colorado Springs Utilities board supported the purchase of new water rights Wednesday from Lower Arkansas Valley farmers as part of a mutually beneficial deal that could serve as a model for future acquisitions. 

Front Range cities have a history of buying water rights from farmers to support growth that leaves agricultural land without water for production, a process known as buy-and-dry. While the deal the board supported does take some water out from agriculture production, it funds irrigation upgrades that will allow the land to be more productive, Utilities staff said. 

“This is truly a win-win. … This is exactly what we need to do be doing,” Utilities Chairman Wayne Williams said. The Utilities board members in their roles as Colorado Springs City Council will vote on the acquisition next month. 

As part of the $2 million deal, Utilities is planning to purchase an average of 300-acre feet of water from Arkansas Valley farmers Mark and Caleb Wertz, shareholders in the Fort Lyon Canal Company. The canal draws water from the Arkansas River between Swink and La Junta and serves farmland for about 110 miles. An acre foot is the amount of water it would take to cover an acre of ground under a foot of water and can serve about an acre of development.

The deal is relatively small for Colorado Springs Utilities, which could need 40,000 more acre feet of water to serve growth in the coming decades. However, Utilities staff think it can be replicated to purchase greater quantities of water because it will appeal to agricultural producers, said Scott Lorenz, senior project manager for Utilities.

The Wertz brothers, who raise alfalfa and teff grass, expect to use the $2 million from the deal for new center pivot sprinklers that will be more efficient and to pay off land in Bent County east of Las Animas. Some of the water the city is purchasing would have been used to irrigate land that now will not be reached by the new sprinkler systems. The water that is remaining with the farm is deed restricted and must stay in agriculture, Lorenz said. 

Colorado Springs will take the water from Pueblo Reservoir but the volume of water flowing down the canal will not change, he said. 

Utilities sees a potential for similar deals in the Arkansas Valley because while many areas of state transitioned to the more efficient center-pivot irrigation in the 1980s, many farmers in the Lower Arkansas Valley still rely on flood irrigation and may be interested in transitioning, Lorenz said.

In the coming months, Utilities will also explore setting up a new water acquisition fund to purchase water rights as the community continues to grow.

“In the coming decades we know we are expected to become one of the largest cities. … We know that we need to be prepared to address that,” said Abby Ortega, Utilities water resources manager. 

Brent Wertz works on a gate on a section of the Fort Lyon canal, one of the large irrigation ditches in Bent County.

Jennifer Goodland, special to Colorado Politics