Wood: Aurora comes calling for region’s water

The City of Thornton has been a well-known buyer of Northern Colorado agricultural land and accompanying water rights, amassing 18,781 acres of land in Larimer and Weld counties, according to the city’s website.
The suburb north of Denver, just over the Weld County line, has been constructing a pipeline to begin pulling that water into its own system, with plans to convert acquired farmland from irrigated to dryland farming over time.
In recent years and months, another player has adopted the same approach: Aurora.
The city, with a population of approximately 414,000 residents, in February paid $14 million for a 316-acre property near Kersey from Kersey I-K Farm LLC.
That came after Aurora’s 2020 purchase of 119 shares in the Whitney Ditch Co. that were expected to yield approximately 1,629 acre-feet per year of water at a price tag of $27 million. Aurora is now the largest shareholder in Whitney Ditch.
The Whitney Ditch water has been used to irrigate agricultural property near the Cache La Poudre River.
Thornton and Aurora aren’t alone in snapping up Northern Colorado water rights, with the City of Castle Rock and the Parker Water and Sanitation District, as well as other entities from the Denver area, acquiring regional water rights.
Recent purchases have caught the attention — and concern — of the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District, known as Northern Water, with the organization taking to social media to raise the alarm about threats to the region’s water resources.
Jeff Stahla, Northern Water’s public information officer, recently told BizWest reporter Dallas Heltzell that the online protests are “really about that change of use that removes water from its current use in Northern Colorado.”
Stahla noted that the water Aurora wants is already spoken for.
“We recognize that as decreed water gets moved to the metro area, it removes not only current economic output but also the opportunity for what that water could bring in the future,” he said. “This water was already being used as irrigation, and it’s different from the undecreed water we’re using from the Colorado River basin.”
Loss of Northern Colorado water rights threatens the economic future of the region. Water that is diverted to Aurora, Thornton, Castle Rock or other communities no longer will irrigate farmland in Larimer or Weld counties. It will not exist to supply future residents, and it will not serve businesses that require water for their operations, whether it’s breweries, technology companies, data centers, life-sciences firms or others.
In a website Q&A under the header, “Why are thirsty cities from the Denver Metro Area targeting Northeastern Colorado’s water supply?,” Northern Water notes that southeastern Denver metropolitan communities have “historically relied heavily on non-renewable Denver Basin groundwater to meet its water demands. As these aquifers become depleted, communities are not only charged with finding renewable surface water supplies to meet future needs but must also backfill groundwater supplies which will be lost or greatly reduced over time.”
Acquiring water from other basins, such as the Arkansas River Basin, Colorado River Basin and San Luis Valley has proved “nearly impossible in recent years due to strong and determined regional, environmental and political opposition to water exports,” Northern Water notes.
“This increases concerns by many that the ‘path of least resistance’ for developing water supplies involves exporting water from Northeastern Colorado to the Denver Metro Area through ‘buy and dry’ transfers of water from existing agricultural uses, or by filing junior water rights to take water from the Lower South Platte River.”
Northern Colorado stakeholders, including municipalities, businesses, organizations and residents, need to wake up to this latest reach into the region, or watch helplessly as farms and water shares are snapped up from the south.
Christopher Wood can be reached at 303-630-1942 or [email protected].

Share on Facebook on LinkedIn