Colorado Water Wars Include Spy Campaign
If some farmers in eastern Colorado felt like they were being watched this summer, they had good reason. Private investigators hired by some of Colorado's fastest-growing communities spent weeks spying on them, trying to determine if they were illegally pumping water for their crops, The Associated Press has learned. The investigators put together an elaborate database on 50 plots of land in eastern Colorado, noting things like "puddles around sprinkler perimeter" and "lush corn," and turned it over to state engineer Hal Simpson, who is investigating the claims. "There was one man taking pictures. My wife asked if she could help him and he sped off," said Steve Bruntz, who recently joined other farmers at a Wiggins gas station to talk with a reporter. Behind the fight are farmers who depend on irrigation, on one side, and cities that rely on water from the South Platte River, on the other. State water law guarantees that those with higher-priority rights get their share first. The water crisis came to a head in May when the state engineer told farmers along the South Platte to turn off 440 wells after forecasting lower-than-average river flows and well owners were unable to devise plans to replace the water they were using. Millions of dollars worth of wheat, corn, sugar beets and melons were left to die after some farmers and three cities - Sterling, Boulder and Highlands Ranch - rejected an emergency plan that would have allowed well owners to continue pumping. Water attorney Tim Buchanan, who represents farmers with senior water rights, said he ordered the spying campaign because he suspected some well owners were continuing to pump water....
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This is an inaccurate representation of the fight. Get online and check out case number 2003CW99 in the District Court in and for Weld County, Colorado. This case number is the application for the replacement plan for the Central Colorado Water Conservancy District's Well Augmentation Subdistrict, the "farmers depending on irrigation" in this story. What this story doesn't tell us is that these guys have had over three years now to line up replacement water, and in that time they have asked for repeated delays of the trial and continued to pump massive amounts of water that belongs to others. Because of these guys pumping so extensively, not only are cities being deprived of water for their municipal supplies, but many other farmers who use surface supplies (ditches) as opposed to wells are also being deprived. This is not a fight between "cities and farmers," as many have portrayed it, but a fight between those who have senior rights that they paid millions of dollars for (remember, in CO water rights are like real property that you can buy and sell, and the allocation of water is "first come, first served," which means that older water rights can cost millions of dollars, while newer water rights, such as the wells which were shut down, are much cheaper) and those who have junior well rights that they paid little if anything for. Think of it this way, if you dropped $1 million on a mint-condition, pristine running vintage sports car, and you pull up to a stoplight and some guy gets out of a '85 beat-up engine smoking Chevy Cavalier and kicks you out of your car and drives away, and then argues to the police later that he's been driving a car for twenty years so that justifies his stealing your car, because, in effect, a "car is a car" and you can have his Cavalier and then you'll both have cars, would you fall for it? No, you've invested all that money in the better, nicer, more reliable car, and he has taken it right out from under you. That's what's happening here.
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