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,1;1:2 THE WALL STREET JO\'!~"AL T1ESDA Y. APRIL 25. 2000 ~ , " . Sales of \\1 ater Rights Divide a Tovvn Continued Fiom Fl'tst Page Ditch to a De:1\1er investment ~oup, which resold H to Aurora in 1983. Local resentment w~s so intense that Aurora employees woo ;lulled into area servlce stations in city cars '.vere laid to gas up elsewhere. Meanwhile. individual'wa- ter.nghts holtlers who ac:epteO buyout 0[- fers from Aurora were sometimes shunned. After pan-time farmer Don Gause sold. some customers stopped doing business at his downtown clothing store. "They just qWt speakmg 10 me," the hab- erdasher recalls. Under COlorado law. water rights are treated as private proper.y anc preventing a sale. out~ght. is as unlikely:lS slopping a ciry dweller Irom selling hiS house. Even so. Rocky Ford holdouts hired lawyers to go to coun to fight the sales to ..:..urora, or at least make sure th~y didn't ha:-m the now of water to their properties. "We all Stood up and fough~ against it:' recalls Hal Holder. a longnme produce bro- ker who also owns a farm, "Our lore[a- thers had dug these canals and we had lOts of moral reasons not to sell." Ran Aschermann's roots ran as deep as anyone's. ROCKY Ford hatl been little more than a dust)' railroad stop when Ius ancestors sloshed across the Arkansas River in covered wagons. Family mem. bets built businesses. carved Out ranches. and planted eve:Ylhing from cantaloupe to aUalfa, Alone point. Mi. Aschermann served On the local school board while hIS wife headed the chamber of commerce. But wtule he remained a holdout. the 0[- fer was tempting. Mr. Aschermann had sold some land to settle estate taxes. In- creasing foreign competition was huning crop pmes. His family hatl once taken pride in financing its own operations but now he was borrowmg as muc.h as S500,OOO a year for planting. while still maldng do with eqwpmem h1$ family purchased be-- fore the Korean ';Vat. Moreover. Scar, Aschermanr., his only son. had clanned on takmg over alter col. lege. bu';. the sales of local i:-:-lgation Water added to his conce:-ns about his father's cie~pening iinanc.ial struggle, "I saw wh,l.t used to be a family ror~unt g~! tiJ.l~n up oy that farm." says me younger iVlr. .b,Scne;, mann. now the Qwne:- of ;; Denve;.are2. landscaping busmess. "Ther~ is only SO muc.h of that U1al you cu.!:. si.and before you wake up and say. 'this is Ci2.ZY.' " in ~990, Ron Asche:manr:.'s Ion:unes took a disastrous turr.. He was sming in his pickup on a summe~ afte:-noor. when il hail, sto;-rn rolled m from the northWeSt. 50me nelghconng tar:ns We~e sparec.. bll! lr. les.~ i.lm~ tn~n 1; i.~k~5 to e:lt breiJ.~' t:lSi.. more mail SlUO.\IOO wor:h of M:-. :\~. chermann's melons was reaucee. to mu.shy rJ.bble. Although the famer was abie to re. St:"uCture hiS debts, i.he fo1\owmg year a solmonella score In Texas destroyed the c.antaloupe market. lorr::~ng ROCky Ford growers to leI their crop rOlIn tM riele!.. He kept on borrowing and planting. sWllching Irom high-margin vegetables to less-nsky.allalfa and hay. Even so. as the harvests came and went. he barely seemed to make a d.ent in his mounting debts. As businesses closed in town, longtime friends began selling their tanns. Meanwhile. farmers looking for a way to abandon agnculture discovered that their water rights were wonh far more than the land alone. Inoeed. cit)' suitors would pay up to three times:.ls much for the water rigfitS to an ac.re as they would tor the irrigated land itself. Ron ?-5chermann knew a sale cowd hun his hometown. But paper, his farm was making less and less sense as an continu- ing concern. He was having increasing trouble negotiating operating loans, even though the bank had been founded by his grandfather. With Aurora trying in earnest to reveg- etate land taken out of production under the lirst sale. the once-unthinkable idea 01 selling water slowly began to seem like a less repugnant option. By the time Mr. AScne!'":T1ann ap. proached Aurora officials three years ago. several other growers along the d.itch joined him in the negotiations. "The ma. jority of the farmers are JUSt tired of fight- ing." says oo.year-old Vernon ?roctor. whose ancestors homest~aded In the area. "It's probably a sad thing to see water leave the vaUey. but time goes on and things change." Last summer, Aurora offered to pay about SS6.000 lor each 01 the approximately 330 Roch;.' Ford Ditch shares tl'1at the city doesn't already own. So lar. owners of about 290 of those shares have :lgTee':i to sell. brin~ng the transacuQn's total value to about SIU millton. Mary MaITlSOn ilgreed to sell SOme af I her Shares bu,-. remernbtnng how bitter I her late huSbancJ was after the first Aurar:; 'I sale. the S2-year-old IS keepIng the :'lgnts I t1".iit Wllte~ tnt' land sne can se~ from ht:- I home. I History helpe~ pe:-suade AlV1.n ane. \ Linaa Garo.ner to sell their:5 shares, Alter ! re!'J.Slng to pUrt With hiS staJ.:.e in another Colorado ditc!'., Mr. Gardner'S [ather hac spent ye:lrs paying lawyers to make sur!: hts W,Her was c1eliveret. Even so. the Gardne:-s are reluctant. T~e Roc~:y rare Dlten wate:-s abou: a Quarte:- 0; ther:'" prape:"ty :lnc.. oy r.a:"vestlr'lg other peo. pie's ,:;ops and le.asing lane., tne~. iJ.r~ still tu.mng ;; proii~. MoreQve. tnel~ two ::;o;:~ alm to One cay take over the 'ousiness. Oldest son Jared wonders how long it will bc before the reSt of the area's water is sold. "Eventually," the ",.year-old pre- dicts. "somebody is going te want it so badly mat you iire not gomg to De able to resist the price." lndeed, $mc~ the announcement of the Rocky Ford Ditch sale, a local reaJ-es.ate broker r.as begun trying to lash together a transa.ction involving the much larger Hign Line Canal. Meanwnile, with water sales projected to reduce the value of related land by as much as 90'7" merchants and civic lead.ers are trymg to head off future transactions. "If it ""as just this one salE it would. be one thing, but It seems like thIS 1S just the be' ginning," says Ricl\ Klein. city manager of neart\. La Junta, Colo. So -[ar, mOSi of the discussions involve es.ablisning a prOg7::J.m whereby ~a:-:ne!'s could lease their water to the cities bur keep the rights. That idea is of linle inter. est to some {armers. ''It's the only asset we have that is WOrth any money." says Rand)' Hiraki. whose lamil)' is gettmg out of the farming business. "We don't teU anybody that they don't have a right to seU thflr house." For his par.. Ron Aschermann tries to concenrrate on the future. He eX1>ects that haggling over terms of the Racl\y !='ord DitCh :iale will go on in state water court for as long as twO years. Although his pro- ceeds of more than 51 million will get hIm out of debt, they WOn '[ be large enough to ease him into retirement. instead., he's al- ready s~artec applying tor jObs, Lately, his landscaper son has been a[- ter him to move to the Denver area. which is where his Water IS liable to be headed. "I ~ess I can't complain II people there have the money ant! want to waste it growing gT::!ss," Atlr. ASChermJnn muses. "J gO! :; SDn up tl1er~ growing things thaI look pret\)' , u.nrl he's dOIng fint:." . .