9367 ‎(2)‎

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 9367
• Author: Colorado Water Workshop.
• Title: Proceedings
• USFW Year: 1992.
• USFW - Doc Type: Colorado Water Workshop July 22-24, 1992.
• Copyright Material: NO

community has thrown up their hands and said, "Whoa, hold the phone,
I don't think so." I know the agricultural community has said
"absolutely not." They cannot afford to pay the costs that would be
involved. They do not want to buy the water.
Secondly, the agricultural community does not feel they can live
up to Reclamation Reform Act requirements. We do not, as producers,
that Reclamation Reform Act requirements fit the kind of agriculture
we have in this community. The short growing seasons, and low value
crop production, does not lend itself to that. The acreage
requirements, and the acreage limitation requirements are prohibitive.
There has been an outcry from the municipal and industrial users that
they find the cost prohibitive, and they do not feel they have any
need to participate in water service contracts either. For the
present time, that is the consensus of our community. We are not
comfortable with water service contracts.
The second alternative involved building new projects.
Certainly, if the district, or the people of the Upper Basin are going
to build their own projects for augmentation that is a viable
alternative. However, it involves all the environmental development
conflicts and we are in the midst of the whole big ball game again.
This would be a very long term process if the people of this community
decide that is the direction they want to take.
Thirdly, we can look towards actively seeking a solution in the
political legislative arena. Who knows what that will bring. That
is where the people of this community decided they wanted to concert
their efforts at the present time. If these efforts fail, we must
either purchase a water service contract, or let the call come and
deal with it as it is. To be very frank with you, that is what the
agricultural community has decided to do. That is frightening to me,
and to the community as a whole. Let's say that we decide we are not
going to do anything. We are going to let the call come. When the
call comes and we have to shut the ditches off, we will go to haying.
Particularly those of us on the Gunnison and the East River can only
produce a sixty percent hay crop year after year after year. That
means that we must support forty percent less cows, but we support
those same bills. In my opinion, the agricultural industry is already
pretty well stressed. We are competing with all the other uses of
public and private lands to try and maintain an existence in a highly
recreation and tourism oriented economy. With this pressure on us,
you can drive up the East River Valley right now and count real estate
signs on ranches today. I will bet you that within one year the
number of those signs will more than double.
What does that mean? I think then you are beginning to see the
real environmental impacts of endangered species recovery. We are
losing one environment to benefit another environment. We are going
to lose our agricultural producers. What is going to replace those.
agricultural producers? In the Gunnison and East River valleys, I
would venture to guess it will be development. It will be
condominiums, golf courses, ski areas, anything connected with
tourism, and anything connected with recreation. At some point so
much recreation will have been drawn to this community that this
community won't be sold for recreation anymore. There will be so many
people and so much activity that no one will want to come here to
recreate and relax.

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