{"id":38414,"date":"2022-09-14T11:45:08","date_gmt":"2022-09-14T17:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/farming-water-and-wall-street-on-colorados-western-slope\/"},"modified":"2022-09-14T17:45:08","modified_gmt":"2022-09-14T17:45:08","slug":"farming-water-and-wall-street-on-colorados-western-slope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/farming-water-and-wall-street-on-colorados-western-slope\/","title":{"rendered":"Farming, water and Wall Street on Colorado\u2019s Western Slope"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Joe
Joe Bernal works on his family's farm on Sept. 1 in Fruita. (Hugh Carey\/The Colorado Sun)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

LOMA \u2013 Just as Joe Bernal starts to back a shiny-green John Deere tractor out of a massive garage on his family farm a few miles north of downtown Fruita, his son Bryan appears in his line of sight and starts waving his hands around, pointing at his head.<\/p>\n

\u201cOops,\u201d Bernal says, removing the ball cap he\u2019s wearing.<\/p>\n

Bernal had mistakenly grabbed the wrong hat a few minutes earlier. He hops out of the tractor\u2019s cab and flicks the hat toward Bryan, who tosses him one in return.<\/p>\n

\u201cSee you later, Bryan,\u201d Bernal says, climbing back into the cockpit. \u201cWe\u2019re gonna go cut ends from west to east.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under the blazing afternoon sun, Bernal navigates around a row of older farm equipment. \u201cThat particular tractor my dad bought in 1975,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s gonna stay around here.\u201d Bernal continues down an expansive gravel driveway, passing the gray, single-story home he grew up in. A barking dog darts around a fenced yard adjacent to the house.<\/p>\n

On the far side of the building, Bernal hangs a right onto Q Road. He begins pointing out the land his family has acquired over the years. His grandparents had 150 acres over there. His parents bought this land here. His great grandparents, who showed up in 1925, lived in a house right there.<\/p>\n

Surrounding Bernal\u2019s land are the vistas of the Grand Valley, a strip of high desert situated on Colorado\u2019s Western Slope marked by dusty mesas and cliffs and the winding, ever-present Colorado River, which plunges down from the mountains to the east. Grand Valley farmers and ranchers use the water to irrigate tens of thousands of acres, growing everything from peaches and corn to wheat and alfalfa.<\/p>\n

But since 2000 flows on the river have declined 20% and water levels at Lake Powell and Lake Mead have dropped to less than 30% of their combined storage. With the river overtaxed, Grand Valley farmers now face difficult questions regarding the future of water in Colorado and the West. Questions about how irrigation, which accounts for about 70% of the state\u2019s Colorado River water use, can be more efficient, whether water can be conserved and banked in Lake Powell and what, if anything, to do about someone looking to make a buck on the state\u2019s most precious resource, so-called water speculators.<\/p>\n

In the Grand Valley, much of the concern around private, profit-driven investment in the river has focused on a New York investment firm called Water Asset Management, or WAM. Run by co-founder Disque Dean Jr., son of a New York real estate developer, WAM has spent millions buying farmland with valuable senior water rights in this part of Colorado. The company is the largest landowner in the influential Grand Valley Water Users Association, which operates the 55-mile Government Highline Canal. Western Slope farmers rely on the canal to irrigate about 24,000 acres of farmland.<\/p>\n

When the New York Times<\/em> declared in a January 2021 headline that \u201cWall Street eyes billions in the Colorado\u2019s water<\/a>,\u201d Colorado water users voiced significant concern about the company\u2019s motives.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe worry was that a New York hedge fund\u2019s outside investors would not have the same economic and sociological calculus in deciding to lease or sell their water as a longtime resident would,\u201d Anne Castle, a senior fellow at the Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy, and the Environment at the University of Colorado, said. \u201cGenerational farmers and ranchers are going to be thinking about the impact on their neighbors, the local communities and what their kids do if the water leaves the ranch.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n