Water to water, dust to dust in the Arkansas Valley
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ROCKY FORD, Colo. — Water doesn’t wait for you in Rocky Ford.
The life source of humans and the agricultural industry alike pumps through arteries across Otero County, yet when steady streams turn to a trickle – or are purchased and diverted to outside municipalities — local farming communities are left in the dust.
“When that water leaves this valley, then we lose productive farm ground,” said Jeff Davidson, a Rocky Ford resident and an assistant manager of operations at Colorado State University’s Arkansas Valley Research Center (AVRC).
“And when we lose productive farm ground, it has a ripple effect through this community.”
The AVRC is an “agricultural experiment station,” Davidson said.
Overseen by Colorado State University, researchers at the AVRC test and develop a variety of agricultural solutions to issues of soil, water and climate in the Arkansas Valley region.
Opened in 1888, it is one of the oldest research facilities in the state and has collaborated with some farming families for generations.
“It’s a relationship we’ve had for a long time,” said Michael Hirakata, co-owner of Hirakata Farms in Rocky Ford. “They’ve always been there for us.”
Hirakata is a fourth generation farmer, now helping lead the nearly 75 year old melon farm built by his ancestors who immigrated to Colorado from Japan in 1915.
Michael Hirakata co-owns the farm with his cousin, Glenn Hirakata. Today it stretches about 900 acres and delivers tens of thousands of pounds of produce (primarily cantaloupes and watermelons) across Colorado and the surrounding region, including to major retailers like King Soopers, Walmart and Albertsons.
As a co-owner of the farm (he works with his cousin, Glenn Hirakata), Hirakata learned the complex relationship he and other agricultural workers share with water.
“The difficulties with water are, sometimes there’s too much, and sometimes there’s not enough,” he said.
Produce farming, like cantaloupe and watermelon farming, is about control and balance, Hirakata said. When farmers know how much water they are going to receive from rainfall and from reservoirs serving the area, they can plant their acreage accordingly.
However, recent fluctuations in climate, including devastating hailstorms last year that Hirakata said wiped out an estimated 90–95% of his melon cantaloupe crop have made management much more difficult.
Complicated water allotments spread throughout the otherwise dry valley add to farmers’ challenges.
Colorado is divided into seven water divisions serving water to different regions of the state, each of which is organized around a group of rivers or basins.
Rocky Ford falls in Division 2 — the Arkansas River basin — along with Colorado Springs, Pueblo, Buena Vista, Salida, Trinidad and Leadville.
Networks of irrigation systems flow between cities to deliver water, and new initiatives like water sharing programs and the new $100+ million Arkansas Valley Conduit aim to better distribute water for agriculture and drinking.
Hirakata said that much of his operation’s water comes from the Pueblo reservoir, which is capable of holding 357,000 acre-feet of water and shares portions with the Arkansas Valley, “entities" east and west of Pueblo and the Fountain Valley Authority.
But when an operator mistakenly allows too much or too little water to come through, “we suffer, because you have to share water right now. It’s in high demand, but there’s not that much,” said Hirakata.
While the economics and policy history of water allocations are intricate, Davidson outlined a few key points and some common considerations for modern-day farmers.
“When you typically bought a piece of land, it came with the irrigation water in the area, so you had the right to that water,” said Davidson.
The dry, arid climate of the Arkansas Valley requires careful attention to water management, making the sometimes scarce commodity valuable to farmers.
Water became valuable to emerging cities as well.
“As metropolitan areas grow, their need for water grows,” said Davidson. “If you no longer have the ability in your own community to produce your own water, then you have to go find it.”
“And so municipalities have come to this area and purchased water, which means it’s no longer tied to the land… and so it’s basically, in one form or the other, transported away from these farms and to those communities to meet their water needs.”
There are a few different ways in which agricultural water owners can transfer water.
One method is known as “buy and dry” which generally entails municipalities or local governments purchasing some or all of the available water rights from a farm.
Another is lease fallowing, which involves a temporary transfer of water rights as opposed to a permanent transfer.
Proponents argue that lease fallowing moderates the amount of water extracted from an area, in turn preventing farmland from completely drying up and becoming unusable in the future.
However, critics emphasize the potential adverse effects extracting excessive amounts of water from certain counties have on both agricultural and local towns.
Davidson acknowledged that everyone should have the right to water, in cities as on farms. However, as a life-long local and now agriculture researcher, Davidson recognizes the trickle-down effect that water shortages have on rural communities.
He pointed to the small town of Ordway in Crowley County, which sits only about a dozen miles away from Rocky Ford.
Workers in the county participated in widespread buy and dry sales throughout the 1970s and 1980s. This large scale water transfer led to shortages that negatively impacted many agriculture operations in the county.
Crowley County had more than 50,000 acres of irrigated land in the 1970s. It has a few thousand today, according to the Colorado Sun.
“It’s just a really sad example of what happens when water leaves, and then businesses leave,” said Davidson.
While the economics and policy history of water allocations are intricate, Davidson outlined a few key points and some common considerations for modern-day farmers.
“When you typically bought a piece of land, it came with the irrigation water in the area, so you had the right to that water,” said Davidson.
Davidson became emotional talking about his fears for Rocky Ford. He worked as a middle school science teacher before transitioning to a full-time research position at the AVRC, and after many years in Rocky Ford he’s come to appreciate the welcoming and community-centered lifestyle.
Rocky Ford has a population of about 3800 people, the number of residents fluctuates seasonally as out-of-state workers come and go as needed.
Yet he fears that if Rocky Ford follows a similar path to Ordway, then essential services and shops will gradually disappear, and the population along with them.
“You lose more water, you lose more services,” said Davidson. “Communities tend to just kind of die out a bit.”
Davidson is hopeful that work done at the AVRC will continue to support agricultural workers in the area and help prevent future farm towns from facing a shriveled fate.
He and other researchers are currently teaming up with local farmers like Eric Hanagan, a fifth-generation farmer and owner of Hanagan Farms — a fixture in nearby Swink for more than a hundred years — on an experimental cowpea trial.
Cowpeas, legumes that include black-eyed peas, and are often grown as feed for livestock, are valued for their ability to self-produce beneficial nitrogen in surrounding soil while requiring little water to grow. For that reason, they’re being tested as a drought-resistant alternative for growers in the drought-common Arkansas Valley.
“When anything comes out of the CSU research center, the local farmers actually trust it,” said Hanagan. “We have the utmost respect for the research center.”
The Hanagans are one of the oldest families in Swink, according to Hanagan, and much of the family remains local to this day. Eric Hanagan runs the farm with his brother, Chuck, who lives across the road.
They primarily grow an assortment of feed crops including alfalfa, sorghum, millet and triticale, though have some smaller plots dedicated to produce like
Eric Hanagan’s son returned from college and now lives down the street, and Eric’s parents both live in the same home next to the farms as well.
“We have our own little community,” said Hanagan, “and we have a clientele that we’ve built up over time too.”
“We are actually selling to third generation consumers now… they’re like, ‘This is the only place we can buy our chiles because this is where grandpa or grandma bought it.’”
Hanagan appreciates the multi-generational community his family has helped serve and foster for more than a century, and he hopes his sons, the sixth generation of Hanagans, will continue their “commitment” to the town.
“We want to continue to thrive here, but it’s tough with all the struggles we have to go through,” said Hanagan.
“My dream is if my boys want to do it, they have the opportunity to do it. And it’s going to be tough if we ever lose it.”