immediately in Lake Powell, “through voluntary, compensated means, and only for as long as a drought continues.” Tose working with Denver Water on


the program believe the ground has been paved for cooperative actions. “For a number of years now we have


been working with Colorado, Front Range water providers, Southwestern, TNC, and agricultural producers on a long-term water banking solution. Te System Conservation Program is a natural outgrowth of that effort. Te challenge is to be sure all parties are represented and that we have fair and transparent processes,” said Eric Kuhn, general manager of the Colorado River District. Hasencamp said it is likely that


proposals to idle farmland in California


“Our goal is to put in place a suite of proactive, voluntary measures that will reduce our risk of reaching critical reservoir levels.”


– Terry Fulp, Bureau of Reclamation


and Arizona will be part of the program. Because of the need to ensure return flows, on-farm water conservation “is hard to do for ag if you are on the river,” which means farmers “are pretty much limited to fallowing,” he said. As an alternative to fallowing, Lochhead said crop switching, which is


Southern Nevada Water Authority officials say despite a population increase of more than 480,000 people in the last 11 years, their customers use approximately 100,000 acre-feet less water.


temporary and voluntary, is one path as is deficit irrigation, in which farmers are paid to do one less cutting of alfalfa. “As one ag producer said to me, ‘If we can get through the bad times together then the good times will take care of themselves,” Lochhead said. “We are facing a potentially bad situation where everybody loses. It’s not ag vs urban and we need to work together to make sure that doesn’t happen.” Fallowing is an effective practice at saving water but it requires accounting measures to ensure that the saved water ends up in storage instead of being used by downstream rights holders. “We have to try and a figure out if we


are paying for conservation somewhere that it actually results in a benefit in Lake Powell,” Hasencamp said.


Winter 2014-2015 • River Report • Colorado River Project • 5


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