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. . Dirt Poor Colorado Farmers Find Their vVater Is VV orth More Than Their Crops So Rocky Ford's Melon Men Sell Out to the Big Cities And Anger the Neighbors 'The Only Asset We Have' . By ROBER,. TO)lSHO Staff RepnrtCT of TKE WAL.L STREE'T JOCRNA1. ROCKY FORO. Colo.-Farmer Ron As- chermann plans to sell his water rights to the fast'growing Denver suburb of Aurora and. for him. that means deliverance from a debt.ridden way of life. '"I'm telling you. 1 am relieved that 1 am not planting another crop."' he says. dri. ving his threadbare Buick past the stubble of last year's corn. Not everyone here shares his relief. "There are a lot of thingl; that may be legal but they are not ethical."' grumbles neigh- bor Sara Chambers. who says Mr. Ascher' mann's deal amounts to a betrayal of the small fanning community that has sus- tained his family for generations. . If the sale hatched bv Mr. Aschermann of another sizable gulp of the Irrigation wa. ter. that nows though the Rocky Ford Ditch is completed, more than 3.000 agri- cultural acres will revert to prairie grass. Tax valua- tions are expected to plummet. Other fanners will proba- bly pursue similar paydays. As more and more Rocky Ford water goes to the big Ron ..lschel1llfCnn cities. some fear that the local economy will collapse like a rank melon. "Once the water Is sold. there Is no agricultural economy. Zero," declares Jim Moreland. whose family has sold farm equipment here [or ~o ye:lr5. "It's like tear- ing down the factory to gwe the workers their retirement mane\'." The economies of small towns ilre fre- quentiy rocked by market shifts and tech. nology changes. But sometimes the future suddenly comes to ride on the decisions of a few nelghbQfS and friends. For ;;'vear-old Ron Aschermann. that .moment means abandoning the fields that his great-gn.ndfather plowed and selling shares in the Waterwur that winds through his hometown like a z-rerlt brown ane;-y. "] grew up here. I rais~d a family here:' he says. "It IS nor an easy decision." - WA L L. rrtf..ft-j JVif/1/t/AL L\-~r-~ Water stnlgg-Ies l1ave been a pan of the West's economic landscape Since the arid region's water).'ays were first dammed and divened. BU[ la.tely. the rancor has in- tensified as burgeoning urban areas scramble to line up reseiv'es they need. Stippel1' Slope The activity has been particularly con- tentious in Colorado. where almost every dribble of natural now was claimed years ago and special state courts pass judgment whenever a water nght changes hands. Colorado's thirstiest consumers are Denver and other larg~ cities strewn across the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains. Gnable to find adequ3.te wa- tor withm their boundaries. they have da.mmed distant mountain streams and lashed together massive systems of tun- nel and pipe, Increasingly. the munici- palities have also snapped up water rights once held by rural farmers and ranchers. man v of whom have fallen on hard times, . "We don't go around knocking on peo- ple's doors."' says Doug Kemper, water.re- sources manager for Aurora. a ciry of 260.000 that sprawls out from Denver's eastern border, "But if somebody is mter. ested in selling, It doesn't take a rocket sci. entist to know who the buyers are." . Aurora already draws its water from three different river basins, piping it In from as far as 180 miles away. With a pop- ulation that is projected to grow rapidly. it ",eeds to find 10.000 acre-feet of adelitiona! water every decade. An acre-foot equals about 326,000 gallons of water, or roughly enough to cover a football field to a depth of one foot. - Historically. Aurora's. quest hasn't made..it many friend::; in rural areas such as Rocky Ford, about 60 miles southeast of Pueblo. where local farmers have long taken pride in the irrigation.ditch that CUts into the banks of the ArKansas River a few miles west of town. Narrower than a countrv lane and onlv 13 miles long. the Rock,. Ford Ditch Is a humble one compared with others criss- . croSSing the surrounding valley. but Its heritage is among the richest. The area was a parched desert before settlers be~"n g'Ouging out the ditch with giant hune. drawn scoops after the Civil War. Soon. lo- cal promoters were handing out free mel. ons on passing trains and Rock,. Ford was gaining a reputation for sugar beets. onions and cantaloupe. IT ditch shareholders sometimes feuded among themselves over water use. they jealously protec.led their rights from Out- siders. Begmning in the late 1970s. how- - ever. their determination sufiered a series of blows. Vast swaths of fannland m neigh- boring Crowley County were reduced to blowing dust and weeds after Aurora and COlorado Springs gained control of anOther big canal. Meanwhile. American Crystal Sugar Co. closed its local processing plant and sold its majority SlaKe in the Rocky Ford Please Turn to PQ.qe Ai:? COIIII7IIl 1