WESTERN WATER NEWS

March 2008

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Colorado ‘Super Ditch Company’—A Lower Arkansas Valley Effort to Preserve Agricultural Water Rights

A rotational land fallowing—water leasing program, nicknamed “Super Ditch Company,” is being promoted by the Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District (Lower Ark District) to provide agricultural water rights owners an alternative to the traditional “buy and dry” method of transferring water rights to municipalities and other users. Similar to an arrangement between southern California’s Palo Verde Irrigation District and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the Super Ditch would allow participating members to temporarily fallow lands on a rotational basis and lease the associated water rights to other users. Farmers would continue to own the water rights, which would generate a continuing income from leases and lands would only be temporarily dried up. As conceptualized, the program would provide a solution to the negative consequences of typical water rights transfers—the “buy and dry” effect.