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.........: }~;:;~c,;:,~j~7',;A. , .,,~'~f:'t:,~:~i~i~~~';. ....... .'.ii:'~~1I,;~"..",'i.'">'e;J<'"''''t~lii',~..I.~,"*M'...;''' \:F-;"-":'~'~::,~~::_>\('-'_;_~' .'/~;' <. ::. ':'.._ __-.:<.,' '~:~!.'_,_:_'_-__<:'k< :'':'~':~:?rJ/::~':;'/' ~~ ,-~. N C,..i,. o The Denver Post/Thursday, June:m, 1987 :':.:\....,..-: . ,';- '\:-'-" . /-:5%::n~,<:,-... . 90 percent of river water Consumed by agriculture It was rnIl1inl; hard as the Jeep crept across the wet. rickety bridge and into the orcbard. Peaeb trees, plaJlted to the edge of the brimming canaI. glis- tened and dripped. their new fruits just visible as hard green nuts. Be- neath the trees, water ran in fur- rows. 1 pulled up at a little house among the trees and dashed to the door. The man who answered had the look of someone fresh from a shower. ,. "I just came in wet." laughed CUrtis TaDey. "I was out cbecking water." He had heen out in the rain - ir. rigatng. He assured me that didn't happen often in the Grand Valley. "This was a desert when people first came here," he said. "They used to haul water in barrels with a wagon and team, and pool the wa. ter _around each peach tree. Today. fruit growers like Talley dip water from canals, and run 1\ through pipes. and then into fur- rows among the trees. "Trees need deep moisture," be said. "It can rain, hut It doesn.t . wet it like irrigation does." _see CAIlRIER on 12-A JOURNEY DOWN THE Colorado _CABIIR Rocky.MtJunlain.Ranger Farmers season ColOrado with salt I . CARRIER from Page I-A One bundred years after men were encouraged to settle this des- ert with plentifuI. ebeap water from the Colorado River, the Grand Valley is still an oasis, a green sweepolterraced, trained trees that startles the traveler. The river still keeps back the desert. Water is diverted upstream at C~eo by an ancient dam, its gatebouse rools covered with pink tiles. A.maze 01 tunnels and si- phons lifts and drops and carries the water to a braid of canals that parallel the river as It beads to- wardUIah. Some 6O,IMNI acres are lnigated in the valley, mostly by small oper. ators. Twenty.five acres of peacb trees, wbicb .TaDey owns, Is enough to support and busy one man. By state l\griculture standards, the Grand Valley is not a major producer. Nonetheless, lnigation here illustrates bow signlficantly agriculture affects the Colorado RIver. OVerall, 90 percent of the river is consumed by agriculture. By mid. summer, when the spring runoff has passed, most of the water in the river will be diverted at Cameo for agriculture. The must visible crop in the val- ley, the most picturesque, is fruit. But the most thirsty cropa are leed forcatUe: corn and alfalfa. Here, as at every ranch I've vis- ited on the river, more water than necessary Is put on crops, On ev- ery acre of cropland, water several leet deep will be spread over the course of the summer. . AHalfa, lor example, needs about a foot of water per acre for eaeb cutting. That.same acre-foot will support a Denver IlQIltIy (with a healthy lawn) lor a year. Corn needs Z feel Orcbards need Z8 10 20 Mii.. inches, according to the Soil Con. servation Service. Yet I bave'seen_otberwise con- sclenf:ious farmers pouring 4: to 10 feet of water onto fields. In the bigh mountain bay mead-. ows. there probably is little dam- age /rom sueb flood lnigation. There is plenty 01 water, and what the hay doesn1 use eventually Is returned to the liver. I've even . heard II argued that over-InigaUon is beneficial because the soil stores water like a reservoir and reIea.sea It s1qwJY year....und. Thedillerence in uie Grand Val. ley is salU Left in the BbaJe by an . ancient sea, the salt is dissolved by excess irrigation water and leaches into the river. : Where 1 first drank from the Col. orado, in a bole in a snowbank be- low La Poudre Pass, the water contain"" 50 miDigrama.,Of salt per uter - .trace. By the time it ~ reached the Cameo dam,\the river had plcked up 400 miDigrama per li. ter,largely from natural *""'iff and huge salt springs near Glen- wood Springs. That's jll$ Under the federal standard for driJIIdng wa. ter. In the Grand Valley, every irri- gated acre contributes about 5 tons 01 salt to the river. That could be reduced oracllcally to;.,.ro If fann. ers used iI/e minlmum amount of water for their crop, plus a tittle to keep the salls moving sway from the rool&. \. _ But l1Tlg8Iled.larming practices are a century old. And at 15 to $15 encb acre,fool, water Is a chellp, closely guarc\ed properly. . To reduce 1\>0 Sun in the river and meet federal water quality standards, the,u.S. government is spending about $Z5O mJllion in,the Grand Valley tq tine canals to re. duce leacblng a'nd to persua~ farmers to red"l'" their water use. 1 won't get into the stink the pro- gram has caused. But 1 will cite one staustic. " , ' After all the mclney is spent. and assuming the bestresull, the gov- ernment will bave reduced the amount Qf salt in the river by just 15 miDigrama per utero Jim Camar wllI'spend the coming _ trailing the Colo- rado River !rom alart to finish. telling why II Is the lifeblood of the Southwest. ~., . .....:..C" .~~. ~~--: ,.