Farmers in Colorado's Arkansas River Valley say the water flowing to growing communities like Aurora and Colorado Springs is coming at their expense, and they've released a new tool they say reveals the impact on their region.Th e Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District has launched a website called "When Water Leaves," which aims to show the economic and environmental impacts of water leaving the valley. The group presented the website at a meeting last week, where Colorado Springs Utilities was present.Jack Goble, the general manager of the Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District, says big cities along the Front Range like Colorado Springs are impacting smaller rural communities as they buy water rights."We know we can't stop water, at scale leaving the valley, and so we're just trying to get better tools to figure out how do we mitigate for it," Goble said.The practice is better known as "buy and dry", cities buying up water rights to send the water to their communities."So for the last four decades, we've experienced major losses in irrigated farmland, and we've always known it's it's been painful. We've lived through it, but we've really never had a tool available to us to figure out what does that look like economically," Goble said.For Goble, the value of water in the valley extends beyond dollars and cents."If we're looking for trying to get the most dollar per drop of water, then it would all go to cities. Right? But there's more to the value of water than just trying to develop economic activity," Goble said. "Agriculture and irrigated ag provides so many things beyond just the dollars that it produces, that water produces in the farm fields. It's the wildlife habitat, the open space. Our identity as a state is a big part of it is in agriculture."Farmers in the valley have concerns about communities like Colorado Springs and Aurora. While more people live in those communities, farmers say it's leaving them with economic losses."Cities have told us, you know, they want the surety that comes with owning water, and we understand that. And, you know, there's there's a lot of water that's left our valley and other ag parts of the state that have gone to support that growth," Goble said.Colorado Springs Utilities has introduced a solution known as "water sharing." Instead of owning the farm and its rights, it pays for a farm's irrigation upgrades and also includes lease agreements where it may use water three years out of a 10-year period."The study provides the Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District's unique perspective on the economic challenges facing the agricultural community in the Lower Arkansas Valley, which we appreciate. However, it makes some assumptions and lacks fuller context on the following: Our long-term water plan. The information included in their information regarding our long-term water planning implies we intend to acquire 34,000 acre-feet of additional water supplies from agricultural acreage. In fact, our plan identifies a combination of programs and projects that will help us meet projected future demand, including additional storage, additional reuse mechanisms and continued water conservation savings. Of note, our Bent County IGA caps development in that county to 15,000 acre-feet. Our work with Bent County included an economic study of the direct impacts on agricultural production and broader indirect impacts to the county. The study informed our financial payments to the county that were collaboratively built into the agreement. These payments are on-going in perpetuity. Benefits of our participation. The study fails to consider that both the future of our city and of agriculture in our basin is interconnected. Our established history of interconnection ranges from providing fully consumable water for well augmentation and agricultural leases in the Lower Arkansas Valley to participation in flow programs that sustain river flow levels in the Upper and Lower Arkansas Valleys. While we will receive some water from the Arkansas River, we continue to leverage our system to be of benefit to agriculture, as well as recreation and the environment across the basin. Local control versus a one-size-fits-all solution. This study, as well as other statewide conversations, focuses on oversight of agricultural lands. We respect local control and will always take the conversation there first to ensure we are addressing specific individual concerns. Our programs over the past decade have been developed in partnership with farmers and counties to ensure they meet specific needs. When it comes to solutions of how to manage limited water resources, we continue to focus on maintaining strong partnerships and advancing constructive dialogue that best supports all water users and economies in the Arkansas Basin."The Water Conservancy District believes there are other solutions worth exploring, like communities leasing instead of owning water rights."Our question is, at what point does that stop or does it?" Goble said.This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy. ...read more read less