The City of Aurora is preparing to purchase farmland near Greeley and its water rights in a $7.75 million deal that could close later this month.
Councilmembers on Monday approved a resolution approving a purchase and sale agreement with WETCO Farms. The sale is expected to close on March 31. The acquisition, if finalized, will be funded by the city’s Capital Improvement Program and Water Fund.
The planned acquisition is occurring at time that the West is scrambling to save the Colorado River system that has allowed the region to flourish. Two decades of drought and over-appropriation have put the system upon which 40 million people rely on in a precarious condition, threatening the region's viability.
In response to the crisis, major municipal and public water providers, four from Colorado — Denver Water, Colorado Springs Utilities, Aurora and Pueblo — have outlined their actions to conserve water use, including turf replacement programs, increasing water reuse and recycling programs, expanding efficiency tied to indoor fixtures and appliances, and increased coordination between land use and water planning efforts.
Alex Davis, the city's Deputy Director for Water Resources, said Aurora makes similar acquisitions roughly three to four times a year with the intent to eventually provide citizens with drinking water.
Aurora is fast expanding city located in a region that is growing amid pressures of climate change and aridification, Davis said. All of those factors put pressure on water supplies.
“We take seriously the needs, our job to meet the citizens water needs, which is only going to get more difficult in the future,” Davis said. “So any opportunities like this are important to use, and welcomed.”
The city's plan to buy water rights in another county is among the tools that local governments have turned to in an effort to diversify water supply sources and ensure residents' tap keeps flowing.
The strategy can be controversial. A proposal, for example, to pipe water from the San Luis Valley to Douglas County encountered stiff resistance, including from Gov. Jared Polis and other policymakers at the state Capitol. Supporters said it would benefit the valley and help start to diversify its agriculture-based economy, a win-win scenario for San Luis Valley and the Front Range. Critics called the proposal "buy and dry," referring to the permanent removal of productive agriculture and putting the water somewhere else and creating winners and losers – one community loses the water, while another gets it.
The Aurora deal includes three shares of stock in the Lower Latham Ditch Company, three-and-a-half shares of stock in the Lower Latham Extension Ditch Company, and one share of stock in the Lower Latham Reservoir Co. — in addition to 383 acres of land.
Altogether, the city anticipates the shares will bring in an average of 148.7 acre-fee of consumptive use water each year, or an average of 124.3 acre-feet of consumptive use water in a dry year.
To visualize an acre-foot of water, Davis said, picture a football field covered in water that’s a foot deep. One acre foot of water can typically provide between two and three families with a year’s supply, she said.
The WETCO Farms acquisition moved quickly after an agent alerted the city to its availability about four months ago, Davis said. Acquisitions can take anywhere from a few months to a couple of years, depending on various circumstances. Aurora does not usually initiate water rights acquisitions, she said. Sellers typically come to them.
It could still be years, maybe a decade or more, before the water court proceedings that change how the water rights can be used will wrap up, Davis said. During that waiting period, the city typically leases the land and its water rights back to the person already farming it or to a new farmer to use for agricultural purposes.
Once the city begins using the water for municipal purposes, the acreage is usually revegetated back to grasses and plants native to that area, Davis said.
“Aurora is actually quite proud of its program in Otero County,” she said, where the city revegetated thousands of acres into grassland.
“It’s hard. It’s expensive, and it takes a long time,” she said. “It’s meaningful to the people who live in the area.”
Although a ways off, it’s also possible developers could one day have interest in that land Aurora acquired through water rights purchases, Davis said.
The seller, Craig Sparrow, said he doesn’t envision the site being developed one day.
“I’m a fool” for selling it, Sparrow quipped, saying he's partial to the site and is proud of the efforts he's made to improve it. Sparrow has owned the farmland for roughly three decades. The site has been farmed since the late 1800s, he said, and the water rights have been used to irrigate the site for just as long.
In the years since he bought the property, Sparrow has leveled terrain that used to make farming tedious, added sprinklers and significantly changed the site. He ran a cattle lot for years and used to grow corn. He recently switched to hay, which required less work as he got farther into this 60s, he said. The hay attracted a herd of antelope, which has begun wintering on the property.
“It’s one of the nicest farms in Weld County,” he said.
The water rights boast not only river water but storage at the reservoir, he said.
“That’s why Aurora wants it,” he said.
Despite his affinity for the farm, Sparrow is set on selling, he said. At 65, he is downsizing his operation from about 2,000 acres to 1,200. He plans to use proceeds from the sale to help him acquire other land near a separate farm he owns, for an easier — but still smaller — operation.
“It’s not like I’m not going to keep farming,” Sparrow said. “I’m just not farming as big.”
Interested buyers have approached him here and there throughout the past few years, Sparrow said, and he has others interested in the farm if the sale with Aurora for some reason fell through.
“I want to sell it,” he said.
Farming and selling trucks, another family business, is hard work, Sparrow said. Colorado has good farmland, but it relies on irrigation, crops drink up lots of water, fertilizer is expensive, hail damage causes problems, and so on. Although he plans to cut back, Sparrow said he'll never give up farming completely.
“When I was in high school, I started feeding cattle,” he said. “I’ll feed cattle until the day I die.”
