Farming region must retire land to avert well shutdown
To meet river compact, northeastern part of state must stop irrigating 25,000 acres by 2029
For 17 years, Nate Midcap has spent his winters traveling hundreds of miles across the plains of northeastern Colorado to measure how far water levels have fallen in farmers’ wells.
In bad years, he finds the aquifer — which fuels farming in one of the state’s most important agricultural regions — has dropped more than two feet. In good years, it might be less than a foot.
But the water drops.
“The static level is declining every year — it’s not coming back,” said Midcap, a groundwater manager. “We’re in a locked basin, with no recharge.”
For decades, farmers in the Republican River basin have pumped water from the underground Ogallala Aquifer to grow wheat, beans, corn, potatoes, and feed for cattle and hogs. But the water is running out. Flows in the Republican River system are shrinking as the aquifer depletes, making it harder for Colorado to send enough water downstream to the east to fulfill its agreements with Kansas and Nebraska.
To meet its obligations, Colorado is legally required to stop irrigating 25,000 acres in the southern part of the basin by the end of 2029 — more than a quarter of all irrigated acreage in that area. If the mandate is not met, state water officials say they will turn off wells for all 540,000 irrigated acres in the broader swath of the state that’s in the river basin, a move that would devastate the region’s economy and way of life.
“It would implode the economies out here,” said Deb Daniel, general manager of the Republican River Conservation District.
With wells cut off, farms wouldn’t be able to grow crucial crops that feed Colorado and the wider region. The companies that sell farming supplies, such as seed, tractors and sprinklers, would lose massive amounts of business.
Less local income would mean fewer meals at local restaurants in the plains towns and trips to the movie theater or bowling alley. Tax revenue would fall, potentially impacting schools and emergency and social services.
Without irrigation, land values would drop — giving farmers less collateral for the loans they depend on to begin each season.
“What’s frightening about it is that it’s really an existential issue for those living in that region,” said Jordan Suter, a Colorado State University professor tasked with examining the economic fallout from that scenario. “With good reason. If irrigated production goes away, the area can’t really support a large population.”
Groundwater from the aquifer makes irrigated farming possible across a large part of Colorado’s Eastern Plains that spans about 7,000 square miles across eight counties — an area the size of New Jersey. In 2022, the counties produced more than $2.6 billion worth of agricultural products, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s farm census.
The state has made some progress, but even if it meets the 25,000-acre goal, the aquifer’s water level is still declining.
Water — or the lack thereof — and how to conserve it comes up at every local meeting Alan Welt attends. Welt, 66, grows corn, sugar, beets, wheat and pinto beans south of Wray with his three sons.
“It’s a finite resource,” he said. “How much longer can you make it last and always still have water available for the cattle and the people out here?”
The question isn’t unique to the Republican River region. Water supplies in the West and the High Plains are shrinking while the populations they feed, here and across the country, are growing.
“There are just hard decisions all over the American West right now about a precious natural resource — all the need for it and how to divide that fairly,” said Tracy Kosloff, Colorado’s acting state engineer overseeing the Division of Water Resources.
A litany of attempts to fix the problem
The tributaries of the groundwater-fed Republican River rise in the plains of northeastern Colorado
Cattle gather around a watering hole at a ranch north of Burlington on Sept. 12, 2017. The feeder stream from the South Fork Republican River, one of three tributaries that originate in the High Plains of Northeastern Colorado, is slowly drying up.
and flow east through eight counties — Logan, Phillips, Sedgwick, Washington, Yuma, Lincoln, Kit Carson and Cheyenne — before crossing state lines and consolidating into the main stem.
Rain, snow and water from the Ogallala Aquifer feed the streams. Some sections of the river system in Colorado are nothing more
than dry streambeds.
One of the difficulties with conserving groundwater is that, at the surface, it’s invisible, said John Tracy, director of the Colorado Water Center. People can’t see it or even visualize it: Out of sight, out of mind.
That plays out in the interstate water agreements Colorado forged with other states. The compacts focus on surface water — river water — and did not factor in how groundwater affects those flows.
Colorado officials in 1942 signed the Republican River Compact with Kansas and Nebraska and gave each state a share of the river’s water.
But in ignoring the aquifer, the compact didn’t consider how depleting groundwater would affect the amount of water flowing past Colorado’s borders.
For decades, the three states debated how to account for groundwater use — including in a legal case that made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. A series of agreements between the states aimed to fix the problem.
Colorado in 2012 drained Bonny Reservoir to send more water downstream, leaving dead fish on what was once lakebed and eradicating a popular spot for boating and fishing. The Republican River Conservation District built a pipeline to send groundwater directly to Nebraska.
But it wasn’t enough. In 2016, Colorado officials agreed to retire 25,000 of the approximately 90,000 acres of irrigated land along the South Fork of the Republican River to come into compliance with the compact. The South Fork area runs along Interstate 70 between Arriba and Burlington and extends northeast to the state line, east of Idalia.
If the 2029 deadline isn’t met, the state would be out of compliance with the compact. In a worst-case scenario, the state Division of Water Resources would shut off all the wells in the basin until a new agreement could be reached, said Kosloff, the state engineer.
Suter, the Colorado State professor, is tasked with quantifying exactly how doing so would impact the economy and the people who live there.
In short: The ramifications would be wide-reaching and difficult.