Sincerely, Tom Culler Antonito 

I read an article in a religious magazine once, which told of a young man who had to suddenly take over his father’s business upon the unexpected death of his father. The young man often prayed for guidance but felt like his prayers weren’t being answered, until one night in a dream his father appeared to him. In the dream his father told him that where he is now, they don’t care what happens to his business, but are more concerned about what the young man becomes as a result of how he runs the business.

I guess I am pretty naive. I was raised to be a good neighbor, not to intentionally hurt anyone, and to do what is right no matter what the cost. My father taught me to farm and ranch with the least amount of negative impact on the environment and our aquifers. Over the years I have seen many changes in the way farmers and ranchers raise their crops here in the SLV. When I was a young boy everyone flooded their fields and even on dry years the aquifers stayed full. In the 1960’s there were very few center pivot sprinklers in the valley; today there are thousands. I’ve seen land that was only sagebrush and now has center pivots that get full crops every year. I’ve also seen some of my neighbors who used to get full crops that only get a few blades of grass and weeds today.

Over the years I have tried to learn as much about the history of how water has been administered here in the San Luis Valley. Here is a short history of Colorado water as I’ve been taught.

  1. The first water rights in Colorado were appropriated in the early 1850’s and adjudicated in the 1890’s.
  2. The Colorado Constitution was adopted in the 1870’s, which included article 16, that includes the doctrine of prior appropriation (first in time first in right).
  3. It has been determined by the state that all the waters of the Rio Grande and its tributaries were fully or over appropriated by 1900.
  4. The Rio Grande Interstate Compact was studied, negotiated, and signed between 1927 and 1939.
  5. In 1948 drilling of irrigation wells in both the unconfined and confined aquifers was allowed by the state and continued into the 1970’s and 1980’s.
  6. In the 1960’s New Mexico and Texas sued Colorado, because Colorado had fallen more than 900,000 acre/ft. behind in their obligations to the Rio Grande Compact.
  7. In 1969 the Colorado legislature passed a law requiring the State Engineer to make ground water rules and regulations for all the river basins in the state.
  8. Several alternatives to ground water rules and regulations were proposed and tried in the Rio Grande Basin. Examples of some of these alternatives were the capping of about 6,000 artisan wells, construction of the Norton Drain, and the Closed Basin Project.
  9. After the record drought of 2002 the legislature passed SB 04-222 as another alternative to groundwater rules and regulations. This is the legislation that allows for the formation of the Sub Districts.
  10. Sub District #1was formed, and after two years in court, they began implementing their water management plan during the 2011 irrigation season.
  11. State Engineer Dick Wolfe promised to promulgate ground water rules and regulations by the end of 2009 and has continued to promise that he will have the rules before the water court every year since then.

After all these years dealing with water I have a lot of questions that I would like to share with the citizens of the valley and would like to know if anyone has had some of the same questions.

  1. If all the waters of the Rio Grande and its tributaries were fully or over appropriated by 1900 why did the state allow around 6,000 irrigation wells to be drilled in the SLV after 1948? Didn’t they know that the aquifers are connected to the rivers?
  2. For how many generations have depletions to the Rio Grande and its tributaries been causing injury to senior surface water users? Why has the state allowed it to continue for so many years?
  3. Why did Former State Engineer Hinderlider (who was the Colorado State Engineer when the Rio Grande Compact was implemented ) state that NO surface water rights with a priority prior to 1938 on the Conejos River and the Rio Grande would be affected by the Rio Grande Compact?
  4. Why did the return flows to the Rio Grande and its tributaries drop from about 30 percent in the 1930’s and to -5 percent by 1972?
  5. Why did Colorado fall over 900,000 acre-feet behind in their obligations to the Rio Grande Compact by the 1960’s? Did the pumping of so many irrigation wells contribute to Colorado’s falling so far behind in Rio Grande Compact?
  6. Why do only senior surface water users get curtailed to pay Colorado’s obligations to the Rio Grande Compact?
  7. Why are there still no ground water rules and regulation in the Rio Grande Basin being that it has been more than 45 years since the state legislature said that it had to be done?
  8. Why has the state allowed Sub District #1 to drop the aquifer about 800,000 acre feet below what their water management plan says that they can? (They have let it drop by about 200,000 acre feet since 2011 the year they started operating and should have begun recovering the aquifer.)
  9. Why are so many of my neighbors’ farms and ranches so dry even though they still have the same amount of water in their ditch as they had 50 or 100 years ago? Is it because their neighbors have dropped the water table under their land and when they irrigate their water is going to fill the hole in the aquifer instead of going to raise a crop? Just like the young man in the story, what do we want to become as a result of how we run our farm and ranch businesses? What kind of example are we giving to our children and what do we want them to become by the way we are running our farm and ranch businesses?

Rob Jones stated it very well in the March 24, 2015 Valley Courier “Is Pumping a Moral Act.” It would go a long way to solving our water deficit problems in the valley if every deficit pumper in the valley would take responsibility for their action. However just like most addicts and alcoholics that never take the responsibility for their actions, it is extremely unlikely that most deficit pumpers will take the responsibility for the injuries they are causing to their neighbors. That’s why we have law enforcement and the judicial system that steps in when the addict or alcoholic causes injury to others or themselves. We need the State Engineer and the courts to stop being enablers of deficit pumpers and start taking real actions to stop the injury to the senior surface water users and the environment of the San Luis Valley!!