RGBRT Minutes 8-14-07 Final

• Basin Roundtable: Rio Grande
• Title: August Minutes
• Date: 8/14/2007
• Basin Roundtables - Doc Type: Minutes

cost-share, incentives, etc. Current agreement offers contracts only for permanent water
retirement, dryland farming or grazing - pernutted after 15 years.
Discussion of national dry land rental rates and irrigated land rental rates. RR elected to
retire water in perpetuity - RR CREP proposed cost analysis. Distance of water rights
from river related to compensation; R.G. Subdistrict #1 boundary -only place in the
Valley where CREP will pertain. North of the R.G. (showed map)
Rio -other subdistricts could do this once they get orgaiuzed.
(discussion of total acres, crops, effects upon alfalfa farmers, resource concerns)
Tim -Remember, this is a voluntary program -each producer has to decide if it works
for them or not. Subdistrict has to retire about 40,000 acres of irrigated cropland to have
a sustainable aquifer (and a continuing AG economy in the region).
Eligible producers -- incentives over 15 year contracts
Charlie - 111 that area (N. or the RG) if you retired just alfalfa you would reduce water
use by 15%
(animated discussion)
Tim -What we're trying to do is ease producers voluntarily into a program that works.
Those 15 years give people a chance to look at the effects, come up with other possible
solutions. Nobody is happy with having to quit doing what they've done historically.
60,000 acres on RR (needs to be?) retired to accommodate Kansas and Nebraska.
Nobody else has come up with a better alternative than this one -The point is we're
using too much water. This is a mechanism that won't make it painless, but attempts to
ease the blow.
Charlie -What we're talking about is the need to change farming practices -Maybe
plant different crops -sources of ethanol etc.
MG -We're up against a timeline. Subdistricts have to be up and running by end of this
year. We don't have ten years to figure it out. We've only got 18 months to figure it out.
It's been on the table for a long time, but now we're mm~ing out of time.
Charlie -What happens if other alternatives -crops, uses - come along, with a CREP
are we locked in forever?
Tim - Nq only for 15 years. Some acres in perpetuity -others can be percentages.
Landowners make their own decisions.
Minutes, August 14, 2007 4 Rio Grande Basin Roundtable