Ditch of Destiny: The Bessemer Helped Pueblo Develop, Grow

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The Pueblo Chieftain Online Page 2 of 4 Irrigating with river water is far more costly than other forms of agriculture, he noted, and he believes government from the local to the national level hampers local farmers while it encourages food imports from countries that don't have the same level of government regulation. "I think eventually farming will be gone (from this area.) I don't like to see all our money go to those other places, but we're in a world market, and it's too hard to compete," he said. Doug Wiley, who represents the fourth generation of his family to work the land at the end of the Bessemer Ditch near Boone, says his life has been defined by the ditch. "We wouldn't have the farmers we have without that ditch," he said. "We have the best soil and the best farmers and the best water. And Pueblo wouldn't be what it is without the Bessemer - those steelworkers had to eat before they could turn a wheel." Wiley grows organic vegetables and raises cattle and pigs together on irrigated pasture. His dad, Bob Wiley Jr., is a retired dairyman and remains a pillar of the community and the Colorado Farm Bureau, "and he still gives me a lot of good advice," Doug said. At 44, he is among the younger farmers on the land, but he takes a long view both of the meaning of irrigated agriculture and the perils of farming in the modern era. "Small farmers are under a lot of pressure from overseas markets," he said. "Commodity crops probably are not a wise use of this water. But I think high value crops - vegetables like the Mira Sol chiles and the kind of specialty farming that I do - are the only things that will let a farmer make a living. The success of that depends on public support. People have to pay attention to what they're buying and where it comes from." He said the irrigation ditches in the Arkansas Valley have created an "oasis effect," putting alluvial water in the ground to keep the river from drying up completely as it did in dry years before the ditches came to be. "And under the Bessemer, we have real good quality of water, not running into the marine shale like some of the ditches down the valley. You can condemn some irrigation as wasteful and not good for the river, but you need to be selective," he said. Will agriculture persist along the Bessemer, in the face of urban demands for water and a bad farm economy? http : / /www.chieftain.com/print.php ?article= /metro /1123480800/5 8/9/2005