As San Luis Valley’s water shortage intensifies, Gov. Jared Polis mulls climate warming adaptation

CENTER — The sun beat down, bak­ing Colorado’s bone-dry, crack­ing San Luis Val­ley, where farm­ers for eight years have been try­ing to save their deplet­ed under­ground water but are falling behind.

They’re fight­ing to sur­vive at an epi­cen­ter of the West’s wors­en­ing water squeeze amid a 20-year shift to arid­i­ty. Fed­er­al data this past week placed 93% of Col­orado in “severe,” “extreme” or “excep­tion­al” drought .

And Gov. Jared Polis was lis­ten­ing now, as a group of farm­ers sat around a patio shak­ing their heads, frown­ing, frus­tra­tion etched on their faces — down by 150,000 acre-feet of water below their aquifer-pump­ing tar­get as the dri­est months begin.

“We’re about as lean as we pos­si­bly can be. We’ve re-noz­zled our sprin­klers. Our pump­ing is as effi­cient as it pos­si­bly can be. We’re try­ing dif­fer­ent crops,” said Tyler Mitchell, who had cut his water use by 30% after installing soil mois­ture sen­sors and shift­ing from bar­ley to quinoa. “But, at the end of the day, we have too many busi­ness­es that are try­ing to stay in busi­ness. I don’t know how we can reduce pump­ing more than we already have.”

Hyoung Chang, The Den­ver Post

Clay Mitchell, right, and crews main­tain the com­bine at Mike Mitchell Farms in Monte Vista, Col­orado, on Thurs­day, Aug. 27, 2020. Clay’s broth­er Tyler Mitchell said the farm could use only 90 of 120 acres of the pota­to field this season.

How to adapt to a hot­ter, dri­er world is emerg­ing as a do-or-die mis­sion for peo­ple liv­ing around the arid West. Polis was in the San Luis Val­ley on Tues­day, embark­ing on a poten­tial­ly ground­break­ing statewide effort to explore solu­tions amid increas­ing­ly harsh impacts of cli­mate warm­ing, includ­ing wild­fires burn­ing more than 300 square miles of west­ern Colorado.

“It is about build­ing resilience. It is about mak­ing prepa­ra­tions,” the gov­er­nor said as he bounced along a dirt road between stops in the val­ley, the start of what admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials cast as a con­tin­u­ing drought tour.

Aver­age tem­per­a­tures will keep ris­ing for decades, fed­er­al cli­mate sci­en­tists say, based on the thick­en­ing glob­al atmos­pher­ic con­cen­tra­tion of heat-trap­ping car­bon diox­ide, now around 412 parts per mil­lion, the high­est in human his­to­ry. Heat is deplet­ing water across the Col­orado and Rio Grande riv­er basins, where more than 50 mil­lion peo­ple live.

Nowhere have cli­mate warm­ing impacts exac­er­bat­ed local dif­fi­cul­ties more than here in the Mass­a­chu­setts-sized, pre­dom­i­nant­ly His­pan­ic, low-income San Luis Val­ley between the San­gre de Cristo and San Juan moun­tains of south­ern Colorado.

Ute and Apache natives migrat­ed through, sens­ing nature’s lim­its. Span­ish set­tlers set up small-scale farm­ing in the 18th cen­tu­ry using an intri­cate Moor­ish irri­ga­tion sys­tem. Mod­ern com­mer­cial farm­ing explod­ed after the 1950s, when eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment pro­mot­ers invit­ed pro­duc­tion of pota­toes and hay that led farm­ers to drill 6,000 wells and install 2,700 cen­ter-piv­ots to irri­gate 120-acre crop cir­cles — tem­porar­i­ly turn­ing nat­u­ral­ly soft-hued scrub ter­rain bright green.

But the pump­ing drained under­ground water after 1976 by rough­ly 1 mil­lion acre-feet, state records show.

This year, the win­ter moun­tain snow­pack that deter­mines sur­face water flow in the Rio Grande Riv­er mea­sured 33% of nor­mal in spring. Rain­fall so far, 2.7 inch­es, lags at around 38% of average.

And the Rio Grande bare­ly trick­les, at 7 cubic feet per sec­ond, leav­ing Col­orado toward New Mex­i­co and Texas. Those sim­i­lar­ly drought-strick­en states count on shares of sur­face water in the riv­er under a 1938 inter­state legal agreement.

Col­orado farm­ers’ fall­back habit of pump­ing more from the aquifers con­nect­ed to the riv­er — water use that is restrict­ed under a local­ly-run, state-ordered con­ser­va­tion plan — has oblit­er­at­ed water sav­ings painstak­ing­ly gained since 2012.

The 150,000 acre-feet draw-down this year hurled farm­ers prac­ti­cal­ly back to their start­ing point. And a state-enforced dead­line of 2030 for restor­ing the aquifer to a healthy lev­el looms. If not met, state author­i­ties could take con­trol over wells.

Rio Grande Water Con­ser­va­tion Dis­trict man­ag­er Cleave Simp­son said recov­ery now requires a snow-depen­dent gain of 680,000 acre-feet — 4.5 times this year’s draw-down.

Gnaw­ing at farm­ers’ nerves, devel­op­ers from Colorado’s boom­ing-yet-water-lim­it­ed Front Range sub­urbs 180 miles away pro­pose to buy up water rights from val­ley farm­ers and siphon away 22,000 acre-feet of water a year from 14 wells drilled 2,000 feet deep at the base of the San­gre de Cristos. This push by Renew­able Water Resources, with for­mer Gov. Bill Owens as a prin­ci­pal, would entail build­ing a pipeline cost­ing $250 mil­lion or more and pump­ing water north­ward over Pon­cha Pass toward expand­ing suburbs.

Hyoung Chang, The Den­ver Post

Bren­don Rock­ey walks across a pota­to field at Rock­ey Farms in Cen­ter, Col­orado, on Thurs­day, Aug. 27, 2020. This area has logged just 2.7 inch­es of rain so far this year, when its usu­al­ly aver­age 10 inches.

“A drier and hotter world”

Polis looked out the win­dows of a black util­i­ty vehi­cle and saw dev­as­ta­tion spread­ing as cli­mate warm­ing impacts hit home. Hot wind churned dust around farms now aban­doned and rent­ed to new­com­ers strug­gling to get by. San Luis Val­ley lead­ers have esti­mat­ed that low flows and falling water tables may lead to the dry-up of 100,000 irri­gat­ed acres, a fifth of the farm­land in a val­ley where res­i­dents depend eco­nom­i­cal­ly and cul­tur­al­ly on grow­ing food.

He saw farm crews toil­ing, coax­ing the most from their heavy machin­ery, after flows from some wells had dimin­ished and even report­ed­ly pulled up just air.

He said he sees dif­fer­ent dimen­sions of prob­lems around cli­mate warming.

On one hand, human emis­sions of plan­et-warm­ing green­house gas­es “are going up,” Polis said. “But, then, here in this world, it is about adapt­ing to what is hap­pen­ing. I mean, the glob­al effort needs to suc­ceed. Cli­mate change needs to slow down. Col­orado is just a tee­ny piece of that — a fun­da­men­tal issue affect­ing the entire world. Amer­i­ca nev­er should have pulled out of the Paris accords. I hope we return, and have a con­cert­ed inter­na­tion­al effort.

Hyoung Chang, The Den­ver Post

Tyler Mitchell looks out across his pota­to field at Mike Mitchell Farms in Monte Vista, Col­orado, on Thurs­day, Aug. 27, 2020. Part of the sprin­kler sys­tem for the field was shut down because of drought. Mitchell said the farm could use only 90 of 120 acres of the pota­to field this season.

“But it is also a real­i­ty for how these farm­ers put food on their plate, for how their com­mu­ni­ties thrive in a dri­er and hot­ter world. … The same crops we have been grow­ing, with one water and warm tem­per­a­ture pro­file, don’t work with the way things are now.”

Col­orado agri­cul­ture com­mis­sion­er Kate Green­berg said state lead­ers also will hear from pro­duc­ers endur­ing dry times on the East­ern Plains, where wheat har­vests are expect­ed to suf­fer. Agri­cul­ture statewide “is hurt­ing” and the San Luis Val­ley stands out as “ground zero” in a water squeeze due to low snow, shrink­ing aquifers, drought and com­pet­ing demands from inside and out­side the val­ley. Legal oblig­a­tions to leave water for New Mex­i­co and Texas com­pel cuts that com­pli­cate solu­tions, Green­berg said.

“Every­one who is work­ing on this issue here in the val­ley still hopes there’s a way to thread the nee­dle. Of course, the state of Col­orado has to pro­tect itself legal­ly and uphold their agree­ments in the inter­state com­pacts,” she said. “How do we keep farm­ers and ranch­ers in busi­ness, keep agri­cul­ture as the dri­ver of our econ­o­my, and use less water?”

Few of the farm­ers on the patio meet­ing with the gov­er­nor saw much that state gov­ern­ments can do in the face of a pos­si­ble envi­ron­men­tal collapse.

Many have con­clud­ed that, as Jim Erlich said, “we’re going to be farm­ing less here.” Some antic­i­pat­ed an agri­cul­tur­al land­scape look­ing more like west­ern Kansas.

But the farm­ers also saw pos­si­bil­i­ties. And they were stick­ing togeth­er for the most part in oppos­ing the devel­op­ers’ plans to siphon water to cities.

Polis called cli­mate warm­ing “the new nor­mal.” He asked the farm­ers: “Where does it lead? Do you see a way for­ward?” State pro­jec­tions show con­di­tions for at lest 15 years will be “like­ly hot­ter and dri­er… What does that mean in terms of crop mix? What does it mean in terms of sus­tain­abil­i­ty? What does it mean in communities?”

The farm­ers, about a dozen, said they’ll push ahead in the “sub-dis­tricts” they’ve formed to encour­age sav­ing ground­wa­ter — as an alter­na­tive to state engi­neer author­i­ties con­trol­ling wells. They now pay fees for pump­ing and pooled funds can be used to pay farm­ers for leav­ing fields fallow.

“We do all that,” Simp­son said. “And we still lose ground.”

An entre­pre­neur­ial busi­ness­man, Polis pushed toward what might be done to cre­ate bet­ter mar­kets for crops, such as “Col­orado quinoa” that use less water, giv­ing a glob­al per­spec­tive. “I mean, agri­cul­ture does occur in dry parts of the world. It has to work from a water perspective.”

Hyoung Chang, The Den­ver Post

Cat­tle walk across a field at Rock­ey Farms in Cen­ter, Col­orado, where they were graz­ing on Thurs­day, Aug. 27, 2020.

“Community is key”

Farm­ers get­ting by here have adapt­ed, in some cas­es rad­i­cal­ly adjust­ing entrenched practices.

Hemp grow­er Dion Oakes stood by as late after­noon tem­per­a­tures topped 80 degrees. Sev­en years ago, his family’s water sit­u­a­tion looked so dire that he ditched pota­toes in favor of hemp, which uses half as much water. Oakes har­vest­ed 3,500 acres of hemp last year and 1,000 so far this year — sup­ply­ing fac­to­ries in China.

U.S. gar­ment design­ers led by Patag­o­nia have com­mit­ted to buy from those Chi­nese factories.

On Tues­day, a gag­gle of Patag­o­nia pro­mot­ers gath­ered with Polis in a hemp field, film­ing as the gov­er­nor tout­ed opportunities.

Oakes looked on. “Our main rea­son to get hemp was the water use. We didn’t know any­thing about hemp. All we knew was it uses less water,” he said in an interview.

Patagonia’s role cre­at­ing a new mar­ket was play­ing out nice­ly. Oakes employed three work­ers on his farm, and anoth­er six at a pro­cess­ing facil­i­ty — a capac­i­ty he said must expand.

Yet amid ear­ly signs of suc­cess, Oakes wor­ried about dry times hit­ting too hard and dri­ving oth­er farm­ers out of the val­ley. Shut­ting down wells to meet the 2030 dead­line, if that hap­pens, “is going to total­ly dis­rupt this val­ley,” he said. “It would take us out of here, too. Com­mu­ni­ty is key.”

At anoth­er farm, Bren­don and Shel­don Rock­ey showed Polis around. They’ve reduced their use of water from wells by 50% and pros­pered, grow­ing 25 types of pota­toes, shift­ing off water-inten­sive crops such as bar­ley and plant­i­ng more “Col­orado Quinoa” along with a half dozen oth­er growers.

Fal­low fields fer­til­ized with cows and plant­ed with restora­tive “cov­er crops” help boost pro­duc­tiv­i­ty by improv­ing soil, Bren­don Rock­ey told the gov­er­nor. “I don’t have a mono-cul­ture any­where on this farm.”

Hyoung Chang, The Den­ver Post

Bren­don Rock­ey fills a cat­tle water trough at Rock­ey Farms in Cen­ter, Col­orado, on Thurs­day, Aug. 27, 2020. Rock­ey and his broth­er Shel­don grow 25 kinds of pota­toes at the farm, but are also graz­ing cattle.

As pres­i­dent of the pota­to pro­duc­ers’ coun­cil and leader of a water-sav­ing sub-dis­trict, Shel­don Rock­ey is encour­ag­ing oth­er farm­ers — opti­misti­cal­ly despite increased stress around the deple­tion of aquifers. “We can still make it back,” he said, “if we have snow.”

Polis planned on lis­ten­ing more in the com­ing months.

“I’m impressed by the resilience of our farm­ers, find­ing a way to get through,” he said.

Some fam­i­lies had farmed for near­ly a cen­tu­ry, cre­at­ing a vibrant, self-reliant culture.

“Hemp is part of the answer,” the gov­er­nor said. And he told farm­ers repeat­ed­ly that he oppos­es water projects that require mov­ing water out of one riv­er basin to anoth­er, point­ing to past cas­es where “buy-and-dry” prac­tices dec­i­mat­ed Col­orado communities.

Polis also sug­gest­ed a relaxed state approach to the 2030 dead­line for replen­ish­ing the shrink­ing aquifer. “It is about the long-term trends. … whether goals are being met. There’s noth­ing that would ever be done based on one bad year.”

The farm­ers were hang­ing on that.

“He is gen­uine­ly inter­est­ed in pro­vid­ing what sup­port the state can to help with our water bal­ance chal­lenges,” Simp­son con­clud­ed fol­low­ing this first meeting.

But “farm­ers are frus­trat­ed,” he said, empha­siz­ing that aquifer recov­ery can hap­pen only “if moth­er nature brings snow.”

And Polis left with a more detailed sense of the stakes.

“What we want here is sus­tain­abil­i­ty. That’s why I oppose trans-basin water diver­sions,” he said. “But we have to make sure that farm­ers here today don’t live at the expense of farm­ers here tomor­row and the next decade. This val­ley is about agri­cul­ture. If the water is sold off, or the water is used up, it will become a dust bowl.”

(Vis­it­ed 1 times, 1 vis­its today)



Tags: design TT Mod­ell­bahn TT H0 N schal­ten mod­elleisen­bahn bahn spiele­max preise 

Ein Reichsmarschall von Adolf Hitler hatte auch Märklin Modelleisenbahn Modelle > read more

Schreibe einen Kommentar