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exactly how much profit local farmers made in 2004 raising corn in northeast- ern Colorado. Figuring everything from the price of seed to diesel fuel, fertilizer and real - estate taxes, Kaan determined it costs, on average, $445 to produce an acre of corn. At $2.15 per bushel and an aver- age yield of 215.75 bushels per acre, the farmer can sell it for $463.86 per acre. In the end, that acre of corn nets the grower a mere $18.86. For people like Gary Earl who are close to retirement, or for those strug- gling financially, the opportunity to receive a steady $120 to $150 per acre seems like a good opportunity. "It's their chance," says Knox. "We've had people tell us that if we offered 100,000 (possible acres to lease) it would all go. We're having to put protections in place so one person doesn't come in and take it all." The potential one -year leases to shut down 16 wells for the 2006 irrigation season would take 1,845 acres out of irrigation, but those lands could still be dryland farmed. Participants had until mid -June to sign up for the program. When the dust has cleared and the land is fallowed, Pritchett predicts there will be fewer farms in the region over- all, but the farms will be larger because they will need more acreage to produce the same amount of crops with dryland farming than they did when they were irrigated. He believes agriculture will be economically viable in the area for at least the next 30 to 50 years, but, "This tural condi- tions would not be used to recharge or supplement continuously flowing surface streams, It is specific to deep roundwater urWerlying the eight "des - nated basin fleas created by the compact is probably the tip of the iceberg as far as the problems that will come as we deplete the Ogallala aquifer," Pritchett said, referring to the large underground water supply the irrigation wells tap into. The Ogallala aquifer stretches under eight states, from South Dakota to Texas. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, 30 percent of the groundwater used for irrigation in the United States is pumped from the Ogallala. Vs communities such as Wray, Laird and Beecher Island brace for the fall- out from the compact settlement with Kansas and scramble to come into com- pliance, the rift between surface -water users and well owners has deepened. The Pioneer Irrigation District strad- dles the Nebraska state line and serves irrigators in both Colorado and Nebraska. In 2005 the district, as well as all but one of the Laird Ditch owners, filed a lawsuit claiming the unchecked well pumping was depleting the stream and injuring their water rights. Those irrigators own coveted sur- face -water rights dating to the late 1800s, in an area where the majority of water users rely on groundwater. They asked the Colorado Ground Water Commission to end the Northern High Plains Designated Ground Water Basin's designation, which would make all wells in the area subject to prior appropriation laws. Under state law, groundwater dis- putes in the designated basins are heard by the Ground Water Commission, not the water courts. The plaintiffs were also asking the state engineer to curtail well usage and require augmentation plans for the 4,100 wells in the basin, claiming that new information provided by the groundwater model in the Kansas vs. Nebraska and Colorado case proved that wells in the basin were tributary to streams. But in a landscape where rivers are often ankle -deep to non - existent, buy- ing surface water rights for augmenta- tion plans could be like finding snow in the Caribbean. Anne Castle, an attorney representing Five Rivers Cattle Feeding LLC, which has 125,000 cattle, says that her client would have to shut down if the wells were declared tributary. "There's no augmentation water to acquire," she says. The suit could have wide- reach- ing implications, overturning 40 years of water administration in the basin, if the basin is undesignated. The small- er groundwater management districts would not exist and the Republican River Water Conservation District would dis- solve as well. The plaintiffs also asked that two members of the Ground Water Commission be disqualified from vot- ing, because they have personal inter- ests at stake in the lawsuit. At a hearing of the matter in front of the Ground Water Commission May 19, attorney Steve Bushong representing the irrigation district and the ditch company, told the commission that fellow members Grant Bledsoe and Dennis Coryell, who