The San Luis Valley is running out of water and there’s no way around it.
In Saguache County specifically, the amount of water in Saguache Creek has consistently been going down, while the amount needed to irrigate remains the same. This lack of water due to climate change, drought and overuse affects every aspect of life. Impacts on water access and streamflow are making irrigation more complicated and unpredictable, and for a community that has been built around, and economically relies on, agriculture, this is concerning. Millions of dollars are being spent to try to find solutions and mitigate the impacts, but as these challenges persist, a broader discussion is opening up about the future of agriculture in the Valley.
The question at the heart of the issue: how do communities around the San Luis Valley, like Saguache, not only manage and survive this crisis, but sustainably adapt to a landscape with less water?
The answer is complicated.
Since 2002, the entire American southwest has been experiencing a severe drought. The San Luis Valley is at the center of this crisis, warming faster than any other region. Increased temperatures, inconsistent precipitation, and decreasing snowpack – alongside overpumping and overuse – has created a dire situation in which the amount of water available for use in Saguache County is rapidly decreasing.
There are two ways to access water in the Valley: pulling directly from surface water sources like creeks, rivers, and lakes, or pumping from wells that pull from the aquifer below. The water system is all connected, and the water level of the aquifer contributes to the streamflow of creeks and surface water through groundwater discharge and baseflow.
Currently, the unconfined aquifer is down over a million acre-feet of water, an amount equal to the size of the Blue Mesa Reservoir in Gunnison. The San Luis Valley has both an unconfined and confined aquifer, but the part that is under Saguache in the north end of the Valley is the confined artesian aquifer. With the structure of a confined aquifer, the loss of water, though concerning, does not prevent well users from accessing water.
It does, however, impact surface water. Unlike the aquifer, where there is still water to pull from even with losses, for surface water, significant losses to the water system mean lower streamflow and sometimes a nonexistent water source.
“If the water table drops 3 to 5 feet, suddenly it becomes disconnected from the creek and doesn’t support the streamflows. The streams just start sinking into the ground,” said Tom McCracken, a farmer and former Saguache creek surface water user. “Streamflows are down across the board. It’s really really getting bad, and it’s exacerbated by the fact that the aquifer is so low. The water is just soaking into the ground instead of running out into the Valley like it used to.”
This means that when the wells are pumping from the aquifer, if the water level drops low enough, they’re inadvertently depleting the flow of the creek, which is water somebody has a right to divert. While this pumping impacts the aquifer as a whole, and is not localized specifically to Saguache County, streamflow of surface water around the Valley feels the impacts. These losses are considered injurious depletions, and they have been disproportionately impacting surface water rights holders, who rely on streamflow to irrigate.
This is especially problematic because water rights in the Valley operate on the concept of prior appropriation, where the longer a water right has existed, the more seniority it gets. In times of water shortage, older water rights have priority over newer water rights.
“On a creek system like this, there’s a longstanding history of struggles between one ranch and the other because the doctrine of prior appropriation kind of sets up a struggle for water rights right from the very beginning,” said George Whitten, a lifelong rancher in Saguache, who owns Blue Range Ranch and San Juan Ranch. “It’s not a system of sharing but a system of allocation. You have all the water until there’s enough for the next guy and on down. And that changes daily depending on the flow of the stream.”
Generally, in Saguache County, surface water rights are older, and considered senior, often holding numbers that rank priority within surface rights, and well water rights are newer and considered junior.
This has created a unique and challenging problem, spurring tensions in the community, as surface water users, used to having senior water rights, are finding themselves with decreasing water access because of low streamflow, while well water users are able to continue pumping from the aquifer.
“People with surface water rights that are from the 1870s are never happy with the idea that a well that was drilled in 1970 could be flowing when their water right is not there anymore,” said Whitten. “As the Valley starts to dry up, with climate change and a lack of snow fall, surface rights are less and less dependable. We’re set up in this epic struggle for how to deal with that.”
The solution to this problem might seem simple: people just need to pump less water. And while that is true to a degree, addressing this problem is a lot more complicated than that.
“Most people want to restore the aquifer, really, in their heart,” said McCracken. “But it’s like ‘I’m not going to do it if my neighbor’s not going to do it. Why should I be the one to suffer?’”
Under the current state Division of Water Resources model, established with the passing of Senate Bill 04-222, the state provides subdistricts with a maximum amount of predicted depletions for the area annually. Subdistricts then must find enough water to repair those depletions before the growing season starts, mapping it out in an annual replacement plan, which is approved by the state.
That means that for wells to continue operation, the injurious depletions must be remedied, by putting an amount equal to the amount of depletions back into the creek, so that surface water users also have access.
People with surface water rights that are from the 1870s are never happy with the idea that a well that was drilled in 1970 could be flowing when their water right is not there anymore.
George Whitten
If enough water isn’t located and the plan isn’t approved, users won’t be granted access until it can be figured out. This means water shut off during the growing season. In 2021, Subdistrict 5’s replacement plan was rejected, resulting in about 230 wells being shut off from April 1 through the end of June, when a challenge to the rejection was finally approved, granting water access. Nearly half of the growing season was lost, yielding serious economic consequences.
In order to meet these goals, the Rio Grande Water Conservation District (RGWCD) has been leasing and buying properties and water rights around Saguache County, retiring them from agricultural production, and redirecting the water to repair depletions.
In early 2022, Subdistrict 5 was looking to be in a similar spot as 2021: without enough water to counter the depletions and unable to agree on how to get that water. The RGWCD bought its first big property, the Hazard Ranch, in May of 2022. The purchase consisted of 110 acres of property and 143 acres of water rights from the Hazard family, who had been ranching in the Valley since the 1870s. The water from the Hazard sale was enough to replenish the remaining depletions and got the annual replacement plan approved, allowing other water users to stay in operation. This last-minute purchase ultimately saved Subdistrict 5’s water from being shut down for a second year in a row.
The way the process works is that the subdistricts can purchase water rights and sometimes also the property that those water rights sit on, retiring the land from agricultural use. But finding the right properties and water rights can be tricky. There are limited water rights that are available to be used by the subdistricts, because existing conservation easements along the creek and other factors restrict the locations of potential surface water rights purchases. Each subdistrict also has its own criteria and valuations for what water rights are valuable, and only certain properties meet those criteria.
Currently, Subdistrict 5 is funding projects using loans from the Colorado Water Conservation Board. Right now it has two loans worth about $12 million.
Once purchases have been made, the subdistrict files a change of use form that switches the water’s usage designation from irrigation to augmentation. Because this process is usually happening quickly in order to meet depletion needs, this form is often filed as a temporary change of use. A permanent change requires a lengthy court process that can take up to 20 years. As long as the subdistrict has started the court process to get the designation changed, it can continue to operate under the new, temporarily changed designation, until that is officially changed, which allows for more immediate action.
After the change of use, using augmentation wells that pump water to the creek, the water that was previously irrigation and consumptive use (the amount being consumed by the crops) can be redirected and returned, offsetting depletions.
For Subdistrict 5, when it makes this switch to augmentation, it isn’t actually retiring the water rights. The water remains available to be pumped if the subdistrict needs more water to meet requirements in years with large depletions. It is still conserving water because it usually isn’t pumping, and when it is, it isn’t getting anywhere near the historical levels that were pumped when pumping was used for agriculture.
“We all need to pump significantly less or else everybody is going to be shut down. So if we shut down these quarters here, it will allow the other quarters to continue to operate versus everyone being shut down,” said Chris Ivers, program manager for Subdistrict 5. “It’s not that we want to retire productive agricultural land, it’s just that the rules limit how much we can sustainably pump – the rules of nature, I mean.”
Subdistricts must meet both sustainability mandates and injurious depletion mandates from the state. Currently, to meet sustainability goals, Subdistrict 5 must remain within the limits of the historical pumping that took place between 1978-2000 for a 10-year period. Because the district is well within this sustainable range, it has been able to focus on buying water rights without having to prioritize full retirement for sustainability reasons, which is the main focus of some other subdistricts.
“What we’re seeing in the state’s annual measurement under the groundwater rules is that the Saguache response area, the aquifer, is actually recovering in that area at a greater rate than anywhere else in the confined aquifer in the Valley,” said Amber Pacheco, deputy general manager of the Rio Grande Water Conservation District.
The district’s next big purchase will likely be more of North Star Farm, from whom it has been leasing and buying property for years. North Star, one of the largest water users in the Valley, runs around 30 circles in Subdistrict 5, growing alfalfa for large dairy operations in California. North Star only holds junior, groundwater rights, and its operation consists of a system that pumps water from wells and irrigates using water pivots at the center of every circle.
For surface water users, this purchase is a step in the right direction, as North Star’s water usage has been a point of contention for many years.
“It’s a difficult thing to see a sprinkler running on North Star Farm when the number 10 water right is off in Saguache Creek,” said Whitten, who is vice president of the Subdistrict 5 board of managers. “Seeing them able to pump a full supply of water without any surface rights whatsoever, when the people on the creek, due to the lack of inflows, are sitting there drying up and watching that go on – it’s a hard spot in this community for sure,” said Whitten. “I totally get it. I have a lot of land that is not usable anymore because of North Star.”
This situation acts as a prime example of the cultural clash that exists in the Valley, not only between surface and well water rights holders, but also between a large corporate entity in a sea of family-owned and operated businesses.
But even though North Star is an out-of-state corporation, the situation is complicated because the locals who are employed by North Star are a part of the community as well.
“You know the people who work there, who manage that farm, they live in Sanford, but they have kids in school and they’re part of the community too. If you get too focused on Saguache Creek you lose your perspective,” Whitten said.
Drying up North Star has been a longtime goal of the RGWCD and other community members. They have embarked on several endeavors over the years with the goal of purchasing the whole property and all of its water rights, but the price has always been just out of reach. Ultimately people want the land dried up and revegetated, with all of that water being put back into the creek.
Today, the goal remains the same, but instead of all at once, it’s starting to happen in small pieces. Starting in 2021, Subdistrict 5 was leasing one to three groundwater irrigated sprinkler quarter sections from North Star, negotiating those leases annually. Each quarter contains about 120 acres of irrigated ground. In 2024, Subdistrict 5 purchased the water rights to those three leased quarters, and Subdistrict 2 purchased two quarters as well. Subdistrict 5 is planning to purchase four additional quarters in the upcoming year, using funding from a loan approved in January of this year.
Having recently made big purchases like the Hazard Ranch and parts of the North Star property, Subdistrict 5 has a large quantity of water available to be redirected.
Some wells that already exist work as augmentation wells, but sometimes new augmentation wells need to be built in more optimal locations in order to connect certain groundwater areas to the creek. This is a priority for the subdistrict right now.
“Our current problem isn’t the amount of water. [With recent purchases], we have enough water, but we don’t have enough ability to deliver that water,” said Ivers. “We’re really focused on finding locations for augmentation wells on Saguache Creek.”
While things are moving in a positive direction, the situation will likely only intensify in the upcoming years. When the state model gets updated, predicted depletions change based on the water situation from the prior decade. The new calculations that have come out, which would go into effect in 2026, show a drastic jump in the amount of depletions Subdistrict 5 will have to remedy.
“It’s a pretty significant increase for the subdistrict, which means it’s going to have a significant and kind of an immediate impact on those subdistrict members to try to recover enough groundwater that they can pay for these increased depletions,” said Pacheco. “It’s going to be a big, big challenge for Subdistrict 5 especially, to try to be able to meet those with the limited availability of what they can use in the area. They’re working on it already and I have faith that we’ll be able to do that successfully, but it will be a challenge for sure.”
While the subdistricts operate individually, 1, 4, and 5 all owe depletions to Saguache Creek, and are combining efforts and sharing resources when they can to make sure depletions and goals get met.
“Subdistricts 1, 4, and 5 have agreed to work together as best they can to solve the problem as one. It’s kind of a good opportunity for a more collaborative effort for Saguache Creek,” said Ivers.
While the purchasing and retirement of agricultural land has been regarded as one of the only sustainable solutions to the problem, the strategy has been met with some questions and concerns – both economic and environmental.
As the Valley starts to dry up, with climate change and a lack of snow fall, surface rights are less and less dependable. We’re set up in this epic struggle for how to deal with that.
George Whitten
The establishment of the state model was controversial in some circles because it created an irrigation season and seasonal restrictions on water access for all water rights holders. It was met with backlash from certain parts of the community, particularly surface water users, who were used to irrigating when they felt it was necessary, even if it was outside of the usual growing season. Many still don’t love it, and a consistent point of frustration has been centered around the impacts of climate change, which is causing fluctuations in the timing of runoff and snowpack melt. Earlier flows, coming down before the start of the state’s irrigation season, means farmers have to watch water go by in the river that can’t be diverted, while struggling with a lack of water later in the season.
How the property retirement and dry-up will impact taxes is another area of concern.
“Saguache County’s tax base could be drastically affected by all this dry-up. The property tax base is based on agriculture mainly, and if we lose that, we gotta find alternative ways to finance the county’s operations. It really should be part of the negotiations to dry up a circle to maintain that tax base, but it’s not at the moment. So I’m really concerned about it,” said McCracken, who serves on the Saguache County Board of Commissioners.
Property taxes are calculated based on how productive the land is, so when it gets dried up and stops, it loses that productivity and therefore also the tax classification. Losing large properties to dry-up, while good for water, could mean a huge loss to county coffers. The Rio Grande Water Conservation District says that this is something it takes into consideration.
“If the RGWCD buys the land and actually controls the land, we do work with the counties to try to continue the tax base for that property, even though it’s now gone to a different taxable classification,” said Pacheco. “We try to keep their budgets as whole as we can when we buy properties, so we pay Alamosa County, we get bills from Saguache County, all to try to minimize the impact on those government services.”
Retiring agricultural land also creates a few environmental concerns. First, putting surface water back into the ground, while sustainable, endangers riparian zones on the creeks going up into the canyons, which are critical wildlife habitats and for regional tourism.
It’s not that we want to retire productive agricultural land, it’s just that the rules limit how much we can sustainably pump – the rules of nature, I mean.
Chris Ivers, program manager for Subdistrict 5
Diverting a property’s water without the proper plan, especially with a persistent drought, can also create the optimal conditions for a dust bowl. Changing weather, with decreasing precipitation and strong, unpredictable winds, alongside the removal of water and crops, causes the topsoil to dry up. With no roots or vegetation to hold the soil in place, the potential for it to blow away increases.
“You potentially have these huge dust storms where you lose an inch of top soil in the storm, and there’s traffic pile ups on Highway 17 and there’s drifts of soil up to the top of the fencelines. I mean it’s just out of control,” said McCracken. “Those circles, if they’re dried up, have to be revegetated. It’s just an absolute necessity.”
The RGWCD, along with other groups in the Valley, is working to make revegetation a priority. Whitten is part of a group, along with Patrick O’Neill and Madeline Wilson from CSU Extension, that has been discussing the best ways to go about revegetation in the area. The goal would be to improve soil health and restore nutrients that have been stripped during prior agricultural use, by bringing in native plant cover and potentially grazing livestock as well. Different plans allow for a few inches of water to be left on retired land to support revegetation efforts in the first few years.
Enforcing revegetation is a problem the RGWCD and county officials are still working to address. If the RGWCD doesn’t control the land, either because it only owns water rights, or because landowners had to dry up land they couldn’t afford to farm, but aren’t connected to a program, the RGWCD can’t force them to revegetate. These situations are complicated, because while people may want those properties to be revegetated for environmental and aesthetic reasons, it’s unclear who has the authority, and whose responsibility it is, to make those decisions or enforce rules.
Many also question whether or not the millions of dollars being spent buying properties could be better allocated toward other sustainability and conservation efforts that impact water. Instead of so much money being used to buy properties, a portion could be going to farmers to help them start practicing more sustainable methods, like sequestering carbon and improving soil health, which naturally help reduce water usage while also restoring the ecosystem.
This concern is rooted in the idea that, if industrial agriculture practices are going to continue running through water and harming the soil, eventually requiring more and more land to be bought up and retired – which some call a “Band-aid solution” – it might be productive to look into reworking the agricultural system into a more sustainable model.
“We have farmers in the Valley using sustainable farming methods that have reduced their water usage by like 40 to 50 percent. Why aren’t we doing that? Why aren’t we taking the resources we have and spending at least some of them to try to change, not just take land out of agriculture permanently,” said McCracken. “Change their way of farming and maybe change some of the crops and the number of rotations that they do. Maybe we can get that water back if we do this right. Maybe we can keep more people in business. Maybe it doesn’t have to be only the corporations that survive all of this.”
The efforts being made around the Valley by Rio Grande Water Conservation District and other organizations are an important part of the search for a solution to what could be considered an impossible problem, one that communities around the southwest continue to grapple with.
“I’m really proud of the San Luis Valley and the RGWCD and the people here who have tried to figure out a way to mitigate those impacts on surface rights by well pumping,” said Whitten. “I’ve spent most of my life involved in this struggle and we’re way ahead of most people in the West, I think, in dealing with these issues.”
It will likely only continue to get more complex, as climate change, drought, and water availability become more unpredictable. But, it is a Valley-wide and basin-wide issue that affects everyone, and it seems as though, despite certain disagreement points, the community can agree that attempting to adapt and find sustainable paths forward is the only solution.
“What we endeavored to do back in the day was to control the collapse of the agricultural empire that we’ve built here. We’re running out of water and there’s just no way around that,” said Whitten. “So do you let everybody just pump until the last guy who can drill the deepest well is the last one left? Or do you somehow try to control this collapse of our economy and somehow salvage it? The natural world is going to prevail in the end. How do we control this and try to become sustainable and resilient?”
These questions remain at the center of conversations in Saguache County.
