A new water conservancy district is taking shape on the western end of the San Luis Valley that will compete for groundwater purchases to keep farms in operation and add to the complicated efforts to restore the underground aquifers of the Upper Rio Grande Basin.
Winding its ways through Colorado Division 3 Water Court is an application from a group of Valley irrigators to form the Southern Colorado Water Conservancy District and Groundwater Management Subdistrict.
The farming operations that would belong to the new conservancy district would include 77 parcels of irrigated lands with an assessed valuation of $13.3 million, according to documents filed with the application. The parcels show up in Saguache, Rio Grande and Alamosa counties.
The application to form a new conservancy district comes from the same farm operators who formed the Sustainable Water Augmentation Group. Last year, SWAG filed for an alternative augmentation plan in state district water court in effort to avert a groundwater management plan approved by the Rio Grande Water Conservation District and its Subdistrict 1.
In essence, SCWCD has replaced SWAG in the fight for sustainability of farming and ranching in the western end of the Valley. The formation of a new conservancy district also signals a push away for these farm operations from the Rio Grande Water Conservation District and its strategies.
Once operational, Southern Colorado Water Conservancy District will find itself working with the Colorado Division of Water Resources to get its water management plans approved just as the Rio Grande Water Conservation District does for its members.
“Again, the primary objective of the SCWCD will be to obtain and operate a decreed plan or plans for augmentation, and/or a groundwater management plan, to allow landowners in the District to continue to operate their groundwater wells in accordance with Colorado law,” the group said in its application filed with Division 3 water court.
The next district water court hearing on the application is scheduled in November.
Asier Artaechevarria, Willie Myers and Les Alderete – all three of whom formed the SWAG board of directors – would be the initial board of directors steering the Southern Colorado Water Conservancy District, according to court filings.
SCWCD would impose a mill levy tax upon the farms operating within its boundaries to pay for operations and strategy to adhere to the state’s groundwater pumping rules. The conservancy district would include approximately 250 wells, and the group said it plans to invest another $40 million to obtain approximately another 6,000 acre-feet of water to “achieve and maintain a sustainable water supply.”