C150069 Benefits & Potential Roles Report

• Contract/PO #: C150069
• Contractor Name: Colorado State University
• Contract Type: MOU
• Water District: 0
• Loan Projects - Doc Type: Report

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land. The secondary water service as emphasized in this report provides a new opportunity for
agricultural water suppliers to appropriately address these new water needs, while at the same time
strengthening their financial position, protecting their water rights, improving management of their
overall water supply and providing new opportunities for agricultural irrigators to change from traditional
surface irrigation methods to more modern practices. Once more, pressurized secondary water supply can
fit the traditional role of irrigation companies and districts in supplying water to arid lands. These entities
often have well-trained and adaptable staff, equipment, and other resources to ensure that any new water
service taken on by the agricultural water suppliers can be sustained into the future.

Modernizing Agricultural Systems

One of the principal ways of modernizing agricultural production is through the pressurization of
agricultural water deliveries. The entry of agricultural water suppliers into secondary water service would
not only enable them to modernize their canal system, but contribute to the overall water supply picture
for the larger community. Revenues generated from providing pressurized secondary water service to
newly built residential subdivisions in unincorporated areas can help to finance the pressurization of the
entire canal system, thereby bringing agricultural water use and production to a higher level of
performance.

Even though water conservation may not be fully realized from the residential subdivision lots or
parcels served by the secondary supply system, the potential for pressurizing water deliveries to farms for
crop irrigation as a part of a planned development of secondary systems for residential lots could realize
major water conservation and improved irrigation practices on these farms. Growers currently served by
canal companies and irrigation districts in the Rocky Mountain region that provide secondary water
service are now beginning to see these pressurized systems extended to crop irrigation, thus providing
opportunities for both farms and households to experience the benefits of pressurized agricultural water
deliveries. Opportunities are subsequently opened up for new methods of irrigation, improved means of
irrigating more effectively later in the growing season, and changing production to meet new market
demands. Labor costs associated with irrigating are often reduced through pressurization of agricultural
water deliveries, and crop yields can be improved.

The strategy of utilizing federal monies of the Natural Resources Conservation Service's
Environmental Quality Incentives program to help finance the pressurization of agricultural water use, as
the pressurized secondary system is installed for local residential use, is exemplified by the small ditch
companies around Coalville, Utah. Six small ditch companies receiving water out of Chalk Creek above
the City ofCoalville, consolidated their water shares into one parent ditch company, the Chalk Creek
Narrows Canal Company. In the process of apportioning a percentage of the ditch company water supply
for the secondary system in Coalville, NRCS came in and designed the pressurization of agricultural
water deliveries in the valley, and then cost-shared on the on-farm improvements. The Utah Division of
Water Resources financed the Coalville secondary system at 0% interest, due mainly to the nature ofthe
project, which involved the local community and agricultural water users coming together in a partnership
to improve the water resources in the valley. In August, 2003, in the middle of a drought, the farmers in
the valley above Coalville were irrigating and making their third cutting of hay, something they would
never have been able to do in the past. Using 40% less water due to the pressurization of irrigated
agriculture, the community of Coalville and surrounding agricultural production have extended their
water supply well into the future, without having to develop new water supplies, a strategy that a small
community of 1400 could ill-afford. Although small in scale, the Coalville example shows the
effectiveness of this strategy of having canal companies participate in secondary water development. The
Davis and Weber Counties Canal Company (see previous chapter) is an example ofa large irrigation
company doing the same thing that six small ditch companies did in the Coalville area. The Coalville
example is discussed again in the concluding chapter of this report.

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