{"id":35870,"date":"2023-02-09T17:22:53","date_gmt":"2023-02-10T00:22:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/a-new-mentality-of-collaboration-in-a-river-district\/"},"modified":"2023-02-10T00:22:53","modified_gmt":"2023-02-10T00:22:53","slug":"a-new-mentality-of-collaboration-in-a-river-district","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/a-new-mentality-of-collaboration-in-a-river-district\/","title":{"rendered":"A new mentality of collaboration in a river district"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"JD
JD Schmidt\u2019s sheep graze in the San Luis Valley during June 2022. Drought has impacted every part of agriculture in the valley.<\/span>Diana Cervantes\/@dee_sea_photo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

MANASSA \u2013 Nathan Coombs, who manages the Conejos River District, believed more water for conservation meant less for farmers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was raised on a production ag farm,\u201d he said. \u201cWater was for crops. That was the only use in my perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n

The farmer from Manassa said his mind changed eight years ago after meeting fish biologist Kevin Terry, who works with the nonprofit Trout Unlimited.<\/p>\n

He proposed Coombs partner with the organization to release water from Platoro Dam during the growing season in order to keep trout alive in the winter and allow them to spawn in the spring.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the past, we didn\u2019t care. The fish were on their own,\u201d Coombs said.<\/p>\n

Terry offered Trout Unlimited would pay premium cash to ranchers and farmers who delayed releasing some water, and then the nonprofit would call for it in the winter.<\/p>\n

It changed Coombs\u2019 connection to the water.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say I\u2019m an environmentalist,\u201d he said. \u201cBut when I\u2019m driving to Platoro at the head of the Conejos River to control what\u2019s happening downstream, I feel this sense of responsibility to do the best we can for all water users.\u201d<\/p>\n

His perspective isn\u2019t the only one that shifted. Attitudes about water, Coombs said, are changing across the valley.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re seeing a whole new mentality here,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not North versus South, East versus West, surface versus groundwater. You start to see the power of collaborations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of these partnerships even extend to federal agencies.<\/p>\n

JD Schmidt has raised sheep in the valley since 1976. Today, he\u2019s a large producer with a head of more than 900 on a ranch outside Monte Vista.<\/p>\n

This year was another difficult year, with the drought striking the meadows the sheep feed on in the early spring and summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got droughted out,\u201d Schmidt said. \u201cWe had to buy hay for feed.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the last 10 years, Schmidt partnered with federal agencies \u2013 the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service \u2013 to graze on public lands and to use the sheep as noxious weed control instead of pesticides.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt saves them a whole lot of money,\u201d he said. \u201cThey don\u2019t have to pour chemical on it. And the livestock works out pretty good for the wildlife too. They don\u2019t tend to disrupt the birds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trust in the land<\/div>\n

As a mason, Andy Brown knows his way around building walls up \u2013 and tearing them down, too.<\/p>\n

In some ways, it\u2019s not so different from the work he does now, cementing new relationships to preserve ecosystems and chipping away at a scarcity mindset.<\/p>\n

\u201cA mindset of separateness and scarcity \u2026 it causes us as human beings to pull inward and constrict,\u201d he said. \u201cI think it\u2019s about connecting at the individual level, where we need to make small, incremental inroads with people to heal divides.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brown is a slim man with a Southern Appalachian drawl, oscillating between complex water terms and spinning poetry off the cuff about the valley\u2019s beauty. The pearlescent buttons on the sleeves of his Levi\u2019s button-down shirt click on the table as he gestures, hair tied back into a low ponytail.<\/p>\n

Brown, 56, has lived several lives. He developed an environmental consulting company in his hometown \u2013 Asheville, North Carolina \u2013 which he sold in 2012. He returned to stone masonry for a few years before doing work again in Trout Unlimited as a cold water conservation manager for the Southern Appalachians.<\/p>\n

Now, he\u2019s pushing for new partnerships on the Rio Grande, through the Rio Grande Headwaters Land Trust.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re really about the ecological resources, the water resources, and the ability for the agricultural community to make it economically,\u201d he said. \u201cWe believe there are ways to blend all of those. We\u2019re trying to create win-win-win solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n

The trust Brown leads protects almost 30,000 acres, mostly on the Rio Grande. Colorado Open Lands, another trust, protects more than 109,000 acres in the San Luis Valley.<\/p>\n

The key is preserving wetlands and fish habitat, which are vulnerable to increased drying. And that means working with property owners, said Sally Weir, a conservation manager for the Headwaters trust.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo conserve that type of habitat \u2013 all the connectivity and migratory flyways for birds and other wildlife species that rely on those environments \u2013 it\u2019s really critical that we not just focus on conserving public lands but also work with private landowners. Because they\u2019re the ones that have that habitat,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

How it works<\/div>\n

Land trusts are nonprofits that enter into voluntary legal agreements with landowners to preserve natural characteristics. Certain agreements also involve state agencies. A property owner who has riverbanks, for example, may agree with Colorado Parks and Wildlife to set up a path for the public to access for fishing.<\/p>\n

Weir said each agreement is tailored to the land, but they are typically a donation or sale of certain property rights. Usually, conservation agreements allow for continued ownership of land.<\/p>\n

They also tie water rights to a property.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe threat of water export out of the valley was one of the fundamental reasons that the organization was formed back in the \u201990s,\u201d Weir said.<\/p>\n

These deals often limit some types of future development. Any restrictions carry forward, even if the land is sold.<\/p>\n

Landowners are compensated if they are selling the property rights, and they also receive tax incentives.<\/p>\n

Brown said conservation is a trust effort \u2013 a method to preserve land alongside people who work the land. But time is of the essence.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that word hope is a double-edged sword, because it always puts us thinking, \u2018Oh, in the future, I\u2019m hoping for the future.\u2019 Well, what about the present?\u201d he asked. \u201cLet\u2019s deal with the present right now. Let\u2019s all collectively feel what it feels like to see a river dry up when it\u2019s supposed to be and it has historically been flowing all the way down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Does nature have rights?<\/div>\n

Environment and conservation rights are latecomers to the water allocation game. Colorado first designated keeping water in streams for conservation as a legal use in 1973.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat means these rights are pretty junior, because most of the water was allocated to irrigators and cities long before that,\u201d said Glenn Patterson, a professor of introductory water law at Colorado State University.<\/p>\n

Water users have donated more senior rights to keep flows in the rivers and streams, but it\u2019s not always clear what explicit rights nature and conservation have.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a gray area,\u201d Patterson said. \u201cThere\u2019s this recognition that it makes sense to leave water in-stream, but it\u2019s not a guarantee that all streams are going to have enough water for their ecological needs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking for answers in tradition<\/div>\n

Linda Schoonover is a woman of two minds, straddling both tradition and innovation. She\u2019s a longtime member of the trust\u2019s board, bringing a ranching perspective.<\/p>\n

Her hair is cut in a blunt bob, and she likes to brew the coffee extra strong. Sitting in the glass-paneled foyer, she\u2019s fast-talking, cracking jokes like a whip.<\/p>\n

Her herd of Black Irish Angus and Longhorns is down to 50. In past years, she ran between 500 and 600.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m an old lady now,\u201d she said. \u201cI do all the calving, the lambing, the irrigating, the pasture management.\u201d<\/p>\n

She\u2019s uncertain what the future will bring for farming and ranching, but asks if some of the answers are in tradition. In reclaiming the pasture from dust, she raised drought-resistant black grama, a native grass, and cultivated an older strain of Vernal alfalfa.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe old Vernal stuff has roots to China, and it\u2019ll pop up, no matter what,\u201d she said. \u201cEven in a drought you\u2019ll see these big clumps of Vernal alfalfa.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ranching keeps her grounded. When she\u2019s making cuts in the ditch to pour water into the alfalfa meadows, when she\u2019s hunting for worms or nursing a calf, it connects her to tradition. For her, that tradition also means conservation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think while we\u2019re here on this great Earth, we\u2019re stewards,\u201d she said. \u201cYou don\u2019t be a big old slob. You don\u2019t blow things off. You take care of things to the best of your ability.\u201d<\/p>\n

That means establishing limits, she added \u2013 something society has been reluctant to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you stop growth?\u201d she asked. \u201cThat\u2019s the question to end all questions in the West.\u201d<\/p>\n

To read more stories from Source New Mexico, visit www.sourcenm.com<\/em>.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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