| Title |
Investigators | Department | Objectives | Approach Keywords | Progress Reports | Impact Statements | Publications | |
Project * COL00669 | |
| Title | Water Banking in the Arkansas Valley |
| Investigator(s) | Brouillette, J Freeman, DM; Lepper, TP; |
| Department | Sociology |
| Objectives | Our research objectives are to continue to focus on our primary research question: What are the pertinent variables and relationships that account for individually rational self interested actors (water users) to mobilize an effort to create an organization that is intended to provide and sustain the valleys water resources in a manner different from that proposed by the State of Colorado pilot water bank project? The State of Colorado pilot water bank is coming to an end. On the surface, it looks as if the water bank has been a failure, but further research on why the water bank was not successful is necessary . We will also branch into some other areas of research as well. One issue for further research is how the arrival of the Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District will prevent or enable cooperative efforts for water exchange and transfer at the ditch level. Another topic for further study is the potential for water exchanges and transfers between valley users and municipalities in the Arkansas Valley. |
| Approach | The primary methodology for this research uses systematic interviewing and document collection to construct a detailed case study. This effort is examining the social and political dynamics by which the water community in the Arkansas Valley River Basin assessed the State of Colorado pilot water bank and then proceeded to establish an alternative collective goods organization in the form of the newly established LAVWCD. Simultaneously we have been examining the impacts of implementing a water bank in the Arkansas Valley by attempting to understand the State of Colorados intentions for creating a water bank. This research is designed as a hypothesis generating study not a hypothesis testing study. |
| Keywords | water banking, conservancy districts, water marketing, collective goods, common property resources, ditch companies, natural resource use |
| Progress Reports | |
| 1998 | Long-standing and temporary water exchanges between irrigation entities, municipalities and other water users are an important organizational means of moving water to its most beneficial use, and without the need of permanent transfer of water from agricultural to municipal ownership. Water exchanges usually involve crediting water to one entity and debiting it from another, and these exchanges may be physical transfers of water or complex water account transfers; often termed 'paper exchanges.' Water exchanges have been practiced along the Colorado Front Range since before the turn-of-the-century. The development of the Colorado-Big Thompson Project (C-BT) further contributed to their expansion. The current research is assessing the overall affect of urbanization on these exchanges, using the Cache La Poudre River basin as a case study. Attention is given to whether these exchanges further secure water supplies for irrigated agriculture, or erode the economic position of irrigated agriculture vis-a-vis urban development. The Cache La Poudre River basin has eleven key exchanges between the City of Fort Collins and canal companies, and between various canal companies themselves. The flexibility and adaptability of many of these basin exchanges rely in part on water supplied by the C-BT Project. Important changes occurring in the administration of the C-BT projectct, as well as urbanization in the area, are known to be affecting the eleven historical water exchanges. The State Engineer's Office, with the assistance of local municipalities and administrators of the Colorado-Big Thompson Project, has assisted the principal investigators in documenting the basin's eleven principal exchanges . The method of assessing trends in such exchanges include the amount of water being exchanged annually and under what hydrologic conditions, the percentage of canal company water stock being purchased by municipalities, the percentage of Colorado-Big Thompson Project storage units being transferred out of agriculture and into municipal use, changes in local municipal water policy and planning, changes in Colorado-Big Thompson Project administration, changes in the market value of water over time and changes in the approach taken by canal company boards of directors in their dealings with municipalities. The results of the research project are expected to: 1) aid municipalities and canal companies in better assessing and quantifying the affect of changes in these water exchanges on the economic position of irrigated agriculture in the area; 2) aid water entities and water planners in the region through a better understanding of these exchanges and their full range of benefits, and; 3) aid the process of evaluating the potential of this organizational means of water reallocation in other areas of Colorado where it is not traditionally practiced. A journal article is now under preparation, to be co-authored by David M. Freeman, John Wilkins-Wells and David Jones, Department of Sociology. It is titled 'Local Water Organizations: Social Capital for Productivity and Environmental Sustainability,' and is to be submitted for publication to Rural Sociologist. |
| 1999 | The growing competition between agriculture and municipalities over water is the central theme of the study. The Colorado Front Range has been chosen as a case study geographic area because of its rapid urbanization. Within this geographical area, the Cache La Poudre River Basin is of particular interest due to the importance of traditional water exchanges that have historically accommodated seasonal water shortages and the positional constraints of junior appropriators. Agricultural water use along the Colorado Front Range is rapidly diminishing in favor of urban use. Despite this, irrigated agricultural production remains strong. Some of this is attributed to more efficient water use in irrigation. Some of this is the result of the ownership of water being transferred out of agriculture, but with the continued stipulation that agricultural water users retain favorable terms in renting or otherwise exchanging water with municipalities during critical periods of the growing season. Finally, irrigated agriculture remains strong due to modest but important changes in cropping patterns and resulting crop consumptive use. However, the eleven key water exchanges being studied along the Cache La Poudre River are being impacted considerably by urbanization. The current study presents a unique opportunity to evaluate the degree to which these exchanges can indeed survive this urbanization, what their loss would mean to irrigated agriculture in the basin without new compensatory storage facilities, and what the likely impact to the local economy will be as a result of the termination of these exchanges and the impact of such termination on agricultural production and sales. Data have been gathered on fifty years of crop history for two principal counties to complement the data on the exchanges. Data have been gathered on demographics and net farm income from irrigated crops for the same period as well. Data have been gathered on farm sales and the multiplier for agricultural sales that represents the full affect of agricultural production in the local economy. Data have been gathered on farm real estate values to help track the indirect impact of urbanization on farm capitalization and the loss of prime irrigated land. Finally, data have been gathered on the eleven principal exchanges, and on water transfers out of agriculture and into municipal use, as well as trends in the market value of water. Finally data have been gathered on the overall historical flows in the Cache La Poudre River Basin. The final research step is conducting interviews of irrigation district and canal company managers and board members, and municipal and county planners, on the anticipated affects of these water transfers on irrigated agriculture in the basin, the improvement or decline of partnerships with local municipalities over these water exchanges, the current status of water rentals, and a summarization of projected trends utilizing the data gathered for the project. A completion report is planned for 05/31/00. |
| 2000 | Along with water banking and water markets, direct one-to-one water exchanges between agricultural and municipal water entities, but involving no monetary exchange to speak of, represent one of many non-structural or institutional solutions to river basin management. These exchanges have benefitted both agriculture and municipalities. The present study documents these traditional exchanges in the Cache La Poudre River Basin, describes their benefits, and assesses the potential effects of future disruptions to these exchanges from urbanization, changing allocation priorities and water rights litigation. Documentation of the water exchanges will be carried forward to the analysis of potential impacts on farm income. Full description of the exchanges may provide opportunities to transfer the concept to other river basins where it is feasible and potentially beneficial. A key component of the research project is obtaining assistance from local water users in quantifying the actual amount of water being transferred and its contribution to rational water management. River diversion data need to be carefully cross-checked with local water users because of locality-specific exchange practices, timing and measurement. The quantification of exchange activity is needed to assess the economic value of the water exchanged, even though monetary transfers do not occur between the exchange entities. Finally, considerable cooperation is needed from the governing boards or managers of exchanging entities to access, interpret and verify acre foot transfer data. The study has been successful in documenting approximately fifty years of water exchange activity in the basin. This exchange activity has occurred in both water surplus and water deficit years. The time period covers: 1) several philosophical/management changes in river administration by the State Engineer's Office to more efficiently serve river decrees, 2) local trends in the permanent transfer of water out of agriculture and into municipal ownership, and 3) changing agricultural production needs due to changes in cropping patterns and irrigation technologies (e.g., from surface irrigation to sprinkler irrigation). The water supply, storage capacity and water use in the basin have been well documented over the years. The one piece of information absent in fully understanding the basin's management has been the activity of these exchanges. The present study completes the picture of river basin management , and as it relates to agriculture, other water needs and the minimization of conflicts over water allocation. Preliminary findings are that the value of these exchanges are in the thousands of acre feet per year and that they appear essential to meeting shortfalls in water supplies for agriculture at selected times of the year. |
| 2001 | This project is nearing completion and a final report will be submitted in April 2002. The report will include historical discussion of eleven important traditional non-monetary water exchanges in the Cache La Poudre River Basin (Colorado), and an analysis of their current role in agricultural water management in the basin today. This includes an inventory of the parties to the exchanges, the amount of water exchanged historically, the type of exchange (river to river, reservoir to river, reservoir to reservoir) and the types of decrees governing the exchanges. The report will also provide a statistical analysis of the exchanges, including a predictive model based on twenty-two years of data. It will be argued that the exchanges remain important to agricultural water suppliers in the basin, and that the disruption of these exchanges from urbanization and/or the increased attempts to allow open marketing of water in the basin may be expected to affect irrigated agriculture in the basin negatively due to agriculture's limited purchasing power in any proposed water market. The eleven water exchanges have played an important role in reducing conflict over water supplies in the basin, often due to the historical development of the water decrees in the basin, which tended to be filed first in the upper portions of the basin earlier. The report will conclude with a summary of how these eleven non-monetary water exchanges may be expected to change in coming years, and how this change may be expected to affect irrigated agricultural production in the basin. An attempt will be made to relate experiences with water exchanges in the basin to changes in water management in other areas of the Rocky Mountain Region. |
| 2002 | The overriding goal of this project is to improve the understanding of key factors leading to the acceptability and implementation of water banks in the West, and Colorado in particular. We were in the Arkansas Valley conducting interviews from May 16th, 2002 to June 8th, 2002, and over this time we conducted 9 formal interviews with a variety of interests in the Valley, including representatives from the State Engineers office, representatives from the ditch companies who also represent the farmers interest, representatives from the county government, representatives from the Colorado/Kansas Compact, and representatives from the university structure. This interview process took us all over the Valley, and our territory over this period covered from Pueblo Colorado to Las Animas Colorado. We also attended public meetings, which included a meeting on the Arkansas River Preservation Project, the Water Works Committee , and a meeting concerning the possibilities of conservation easements as one alternative to development. As we conducted our preliminary research on water banking in the Arkansas valley we realized that not everyone was for the proposed water bank. Since we had no clear list of people to interview when we arrived in the valley, we relied on a snowball sampling technique to create our interview schedule. This technique turned up some interesting interviewee's, and it also gave us a feel for what the water users in the valley thought of the proposed water bank. We feel it is important to note that Mr. Lepper did the majority of the field work for this project, and will continue to conduct the majority of the research in the valley for the duration of the project. |
| 2003 | This past research year has been spent conducting interviews and attending public meetings in the Arkansas Valley. We have been collecting data on the water bank initiative, as well as the creation of the Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District. These two competing organizations have been created to reallocate water in the Arkansas Valley. The focus of our research in the valley is on these two organizations, and the types of social and economic impacts they are bringing to the people in the valley. The problems plaguing the valley are a result of a variety of issues including urban sprawl, water scarcity, environmental concerns, and the failure of agriculture for small and family farms in the U.S. in general, and the Arkansas Valley in particular. The proposed solutions to these problems revolve around three competing options: 1.Colorado State Legislature and Governor Owens pass legislation creating a pilot water bank in the Arkansas Valley to help farmers in the valley to realize the economic value of their water. 2.Outright sale of water out of the valley and drying up agricultural land, as well as the societies and economies that rely on them. 3.People in the valley created the Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District to serve as a buyer of valley water to keep it in the Arkansas Valley, while allowing farmers to realize the value of their water without permanently damaging the economies that depend on those resources. This summer we will be back down in the valley conducting interviews and attending public meetings in order to further our understanding of the case study we are conducting in the Arkansas Valley. The data that we collect this summer will then be compiled with the rest of the data we have collected, and we will submit a completion report to the Agricultural Experiment Stations in July of 2005 . |
| 2004 | This year was focused on teasing out the problems with the water bank. The research that was done over this period focused on the organizational development of the water bank, especially in relation to the interface between the State Engineers office and the Southeastern Water Conservancy District. I believe that it is premature to say that the water bank has failed, but it certainly has not been a success. With very few deposits in the bank, and no withdrawls , it would be erroneous to celebrate the impacts that the water bank has brought to the Arkansas Valley, or for that matter, the state of Colorado. With that in mind, one thing we know about institution building is that it is a slow process. We now have an organizational front and legal justifications for a water bank, even though Southeastern Water Conservancy District has announced that they will no longer operate the water bank. Further research is necessary to determine whether the water bank will flourish or flounder, and we hope to have the opportunity to continue to study the development of the water bank, as well as other water organizations developing in the Arkansas Valley. |
| 2005 | We will be conducting a workshop on water banking this spring in cooperation with the Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District, which is now the lead agency in the valley for water banking. This is being conducted through their conservation easement program that ties local water rights to land, as well as the purchasing of water in a very active market involving out-of-basin speculators and municipalities as well as valley landowners. Interest in water banking includes efforts to modernize canals, consolidate canal systems, developing localized rental markets between canal companies, and interruptible supply programs (i.e., land fallowing policies) involving municipalities and landowners, to name a few. We have been repeatedly cautioned by attorneys and agency representatives to be extremely careful about what we write and how we conduct ourselves in the valley. That is why, over the past two years, we have made efforts through workshops and study tours to win the support of landowners for the research we are doing. Our plans are to publish two or three articles this spring, in addition to completing the Ph.D. dissertation this summer. The graduate student participating in the research will also be presenting a refereed paper this April at the Pacific Sociological Association. He also made a presentation on water banking at the annual Ditch and Reservoir Company Alliance of Colorado, held in La Junta, Colorado last February. Finally, we will be doing some quantitative analysis on the Colorado State Engineers HI Model data set of the water diversions in the Arkansas Valley. This analysis will involve risk analysis and forecasting methods not generally used in the analysis of water data in the West . |
| 2006 | The study has provided numerous educational opportunities to landowners and ditch company representatives over the past two years. These efforts have been designed to improve the working trust between the researchers and local landowners. The subject of water is a sensitive one, and researchers coming in from outside the community are often at a disadvantage, and can be viewed somewhat suspiciously when doing sensitive research such as this. In order to facilitate this research process, the Sociology Water lab conducted the following activities in support of the study: 1. Organized a three day study tour for the board members of the Fort Lyon Canal Company, which is the largest mutual irrigation company enterprise in Colorado. This tour included a visit to a large mutual irrigation company in the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District service area that is undergoing canal modernization, and for the purpose of developing a well augmentation program for its shareholders. The New Cache la Poudre Irrigating Company, located in Weld County, has an active water exchange program on the Cache La Poudre River, and participates in traditional water banking with other ditch companies in the basin. This banking includes numerous exchanges and transfers through water storage facilities that allow a great deal of flexibility in the allocation of water to landowners. 2. Organized a two day study tour for the superintendent of the Fort Lyon Canal Company to the Irrigation Training and Research Center at the California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, California. The purpose of this study tour was to familiarize the Fort Lyon Canal Company with some of the important technology innovations being adopted by irrigation district in California, including SCADA, GIS, and automation of headgates and canal check structures. These new technologies play an important role in assisting agricultural water supply organizations in participating in water banking and other forms of water marketing. 3. Organized a one day workshop for sixty landowners and mutual water company representatives in the lower Arkansas Valley. Guest speakers for this workshop included two representatives from the Idaho water banking tradition, a representative from the Palo Verde Irrigation District, California who spoke on successful fallow leasing programs, a representative from the City of Fort Collins, Colorado who explained the innovative and long-standing water rental market in northeastern Colorado, and additional speakers from California and Utah who addressed canal consolidation and joint operation of canal companies on the Kern River (California) and Sevier River (Utah) . 4. Organized a two day forum on groundwater management, water banking and canal and pipeline corridor easement protection in Tulare, California, scheduled for January 30-31, 2007, and hosted by the Tulare Irrigation District. This activity will provide the research project with important information on current approaches to water banking and water marketing in California. |
| Impact | |
| 1999 | Information from the study is expected to alert local municipalities to the potential consequences to area agriculture from further erosion or disruption of these exchanges in the absence of other alternatives, such as compensatory storage, long term agreements on water rentals for irrigated agriculture, or better overall administration of river basin water supplies. |
| 2000 | Major disruptions are anticipated in the future to traditional non-monetized water exchanges serving irrigated agriculture in the Cache La Poudre River Basin in Colorado due to urbanization, changing water allocation priorities and water rights litigation. Full description and quantification of current benefits of these exchanges will allow assessment of the potential impacts to local agricultural production stemming from their disruption. |
| 2001 | A better understanding of such traditions as non-monetary water exchanges contributes in turn to a better understanding of the use of non-market, common property principles to maintain collective endeavors. These water exchanges are important not only to the not-for-profit agricultural water suppliers that practice them, but to the irrigators served by these same agricultural suppliers. Canal companies and irrigation districts represent some of our most successful organizations in agriculture based on non-profit action rather than purely through market principles. The study of these water exchanges suggest ways in which irrigated agriculture in the Rocky Mountain Region might be cushioned from very intense efforts to privatize water supplies and to allocate water predominately through market principles. The development of water markets is expected to have many unforeseen consequences for irrigated agriculture, including the potential disruption of these traditional water exchanges in the basin. |
| 2002 | Our primary research objectives for the first year in the valley were two-fold. Our first objective was to establish a list of the main players in the water banking conversation, and our second objective was to get a list of the major issues concerning the proposed water bank. We have been successful with accomplishing both of these goals in our first year. These networks are by no means complete, but our progress in establishing a map of those connected with the creation and implementation of a water bank in the Arkansas Valley, those who are knowledgeable on the subject, and an understanding of the problems facing the water bank was successful. |
| 2003 | To provide an important understanding of the dynamics related to creating a new institutional mechanism for allocating water in the State of Colorado. Water banks are new for many states and the information gathered from the case study in the Arkansas Valley could help other states, as well as the State of Colorado, to understand how water banks are implemented and operate. |
| 2004 | To provide an important understanding of the dynamics related to creating a new institutional mechanism for allocating water in the State of Colorado. Water banks are new for many states and the information gathered from the case study in the Arkansas Valley could help other states, as well as the State of Colorado, to understand how water banks are implemented and operate. |
| 2005 | This research project is approaching the issue of water banking and water marketing through an action research model where the researcher is also a change agent. In this project the the lines between the researcher and the researched move from a subject/object approach to a subject/subject approach. The researcher/change agent then investigates the research problem through a case study approach presenting the analysis with one or more solutions to the subjects/group leaders. In light of this research methodology, we are working closely with landowners on a number of initiatives, including cooperation with the Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District, study tours for landowners (we have completed three study tours to California, Utah and Washington), and a special program for the superintendent of the Fort Lyon Canal Company to the Irrigation Training and Research Center at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo. The Fort Lyon Canal Company is the largest water supplier to irrigators in the Arkansas Valley and is strategic to any water banking initiative in the valley. |
| 2006 | The Sociology Water Lab's perspective on water banking is that it is simply one of a family of water marketing and transfer institutional mechanisms used to move water around the landscape. As water marketing experiments occur throughout the West, water users and organizations must sort through locally unique traditions, circumstances, and constraints to find suitable mechanisms to conduct this marketing. The limited success of the recent HB-1354 initiative suggests that future state efforts to form these institutions should be approached with care. This may mean allowing for even more participation and inclusiveness in the outreach program associated with building innovative institutional arrangements, and ensuring that such initiatives are welfare-enhancing and in keeping with local values and norms. Given the way the West's water supplies are generally organized, if water banking and water marketing are to have any success, then it would appear that some effort should be made to understand how mutual irrigation companies (and irrigation districts for that matter) respond to these incentives. This is a key idea running through this study. In the context of increased competition over water and its effect on traditional social values and behavior in agriculture , it may be of use to view mutual irrigation companies as having both a productivity-oriented (growth-oriented) dimension as well as a maintenance sustainability dimension to their day-to-day management. These organizations may be crucial to efforts in promoting water banking and water marketing in the West. |
| Publications | |
| 2003 |
Lepper, Troy. "Banking on a Better Day". Social Science Journal. Under Review. 2004. |
| 2004 |
Lepper, T. Vol. 1, 2006. "Banking on a Better Day: Water Banking in the Arkansas Valley". Social Science Journal, Western Sociological Society. |
| 2005 |
Lepper, T. 2006. Banking on a Better Day: Water Banking in the Arkansas Valley. Social Science Journal, Vol. 43, Issue 3. |
| 2006 |
Wilkins-Wells, J., Lepper, T. 2006. Water Banking and Traditional Irrigation Enterprises: How Lessons from the Past Lead to Successful Water Banking and Marketing. TR06-11, December, 2006. Colorado State University Agricultural Experiment Station. |