Introduction

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The Bessemer Ditch is an important irrigation canal located in south-central Colorado, primarily serving agricultural areas in Pueblo County. In 2009 and 2010, the Pueblo Board of Water Works (Pueblo Water) acquired nearly one-third of the water rights to the Bessemer Ditch. This agricultural-to-municipal water transfer is crucial for supplying the growing City of Pueblo with water. However, it will result in permanently drying-up, or removing from production, 5,141 acres of farmland irrigated by the Bessemer Ditch. A large majority of these farmlands, which span the Pueblo County communities of St. Charles Mesa, Vineland, and Avondale, are designated as Important Farmland by the Natural Resources Conservation Service. Pueblo Water has leased this water back to farmers for 30 years, but Pueblo Water will likely need this water for other uses in the near future.

From 2015 to 2017, Palmer Land Conservancy (Palmer) commissioned a consulting team to analyze the potential consequences of this water transfer on local agriculture. The analysis indicated the proposed dry-up area contains some of Pueblo County’s most productive farmland. These studies also identified a viable dry-up solution designed to preserve these highly productive critical production areas (CPAs), benefit farmers who retained their water rights, and enhance ecosystem services while still enabling Pueblo Water to secure its full municipal water yield.

The proposed solution, known as the “substitution of dry-up” provision, was later incorporated into Pueblo Water’s decree. This provision allows for voluntary, market-based transactions where less productive farmland is substituted to be dried-up, keeping the most fertile land in production. Palmer was invited to work with the Pueblo County agricultural community to identify ideal dry-up candidate areas (DCAs) through the Bessemer Farmland Conservation Project. DCAs preserve the more productive farmland and offer opportunities for environmental gains, such as improved water quality as a result of increased vegetative buffers that limit sedimentation.

Key Issues Addressed

Pueblo County’s long standing agricultural economy is threatened by urbanization and “buy-and-dry” water rights practices. As cities grow, they require more water supplies, resulting in a reallocation of water from the agricultural to municipal sector. Drying-up one-third of agricultural land irrigated by the Bessemer Ditch is likely to impede future growth in the local agricultural sector and result in an estimated $8.4-$17 million loss annually for Pueblo County (ICS, 2021).

The Arkansas River Basin, which originates in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, is over-allocated. With increasing frequency of drought, water declines in riparian riparian
Definition of riparian habitat or riparian areas.

Learn more about riparian areas. This decline in riparian areas can lead to biodiversity loss, increased erosion, and diminished water quality, which negatively affects both the surrounding ecosystems and human communities.

Municipal development often out-competes the agricultural sector in prioritization, despite Pueblo County's deep-rooted agricultural heritage and its significant contributions to the local economy. The rural way of life, which has long been the backbone of this community, is frequently misunderstood or overlooked by those with political power. The agricultural community now faces mounting pressures as municipal development expands and threatens to displace the farming traditions that have shaped the region for generations.

Project Goals

The Bessemer Farmland Conservation Project works to conserve a critical mass of Bessemer-irrigated farmland to ensure economic viability of the agricultural sector. This involves identifying the most economically productive farms in the region and keeping Bessemer water in these areas by substituting less productive farms to be dried up (DCAs).

Palmer aims to identify DCA farms with relatively lower economic productivity, which are often located along riparian corridors. These farms will be revegetated once dried up, increasing the riparian habitat footprint and connectivity. Strategic dry-up on DCAs can not only minimize impacts on the agricultural community, but can also maximize ecological gains.

Palmer aims to invest in the agricultural community by ensuring that municipal development projects, particularly those involving water resources, directly address and mitigate impacts to agriculture. Palmer is supporting Pueblo County, which can compel “1041 powers” in Colorado. 1041 powers refer to local governments’ authority to regulate development activities that could have statewide impacts, such as development on agricultural lands (House Bill 74-1041, 1974). Much of this mitigation could then be carried out through the use of the substitution of dry-up provision and strategic investments into the agricultural economy, which could be guided by Palmer.

At its core, the Bessemer Farmland Conservation Project works to safeguard Pueblo County’s rich agricultural heritage. Palmer is motivated by protecting and preserving rural communities, who have been stewarding the land for generations, and their livelihoods. This includes supporting remaining producers through dry-up, for example by incentivising higher-value crop production, since they are the actors who will enhance economic outputs on a smaller agricultural land base. 

Project Highlights

Creating A Culture Shift: Palmer produced and regularly screens the short film Mirasol, showcasing Pueblo County’s diverse farming community and rich agricultural heritage, harnessing the power of storytelling to connect people to their local food systems.

• Scenario-Based Economic Impact Analysis: In 2020, Palmer and financial partners commissioned an Economic Impact Analysis (EIA) to assess the economic impacts of drying up irrigated farmland in Pueblo County using an exploratory scenario-planning approach. Analyses found that current production on Bessemer-irrigated lands generates $29.1 million annually in county-level economic activity and supports 530 full-time equivalent jobs. The EIA also explored mitigation strategies to preserve these economic outputs while enabling Pueblo Water to fulfill its municipal obligations.
• Win-Win Solutions for Water and Agriculture: Strategic, community-minded dry-up alternatives can maintain or improve current economic outputs, even with fewer irrigated acres in production. By substituting dry-up projects on 1,500 acres with optimized cropping, economic outputs from Bessemer-derived production could increase by $2 million annually. These substitutions are permanent, protect critical farmland, secure Pueblo Water’s full municipal water yield, and promote better land use outcomes. This approach balances the needs of growing cities while preserving the local agricultural economy and community.
• Interactive Decision-Support Tool: Palmer created a scenario-based planning tool that measures both the economic and environmental output of various dry-up scenarios, allowing users to optimize limited water supplies for better economic outcomes. Users can prioritize factors like water quality or economic productivity under a specified acreage of substitutions. Currently in application with county commissioners, Palmer hopes the tool can become a key resource by providing quantitative data to guide informed decision-making.
• Biodiverse Riparian Corridors Among Farmland: Four riparian corridors run through Pueblo County’s agricultural region, so strategically drying-up farms in these areas can create environmental gains once they are revegetated. Riparian areas support a number of wildlife species, including the Arkansas darter (Etheostoma cragini), northern leopard frog (Lithobates pipiens), and Grace’s warbler (Setophaga graciae). Drying-up and restoring DCAs in or adjacent to riparian corridors can improve habitat and provide vegetative buffers that limit sedimentation and nutrient loading, improving downstream water quality.
• Sustaining Agricultural Heritage: Palmer is ensuring the availability of fertile land for the next generation of farmers by protecting the most productive farms on the Bessemer Ditch. Palmer wants to prevent what happened in neighboring regions, such as Crowley County, where a majority of farmland has been dried up and families have been forced to leave the agricultural sector and way of life.

Lessons Learned

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Community-driven projects yield sustainable work. Palmer’s long-term commitment and strong community presence are crucial to the success of their conservation efforts in Pueblo County. As county commissioners turn over, Palmer continuously reengages and educates new officials, ensuring sustained progress. Palmer’s success is rooted in trust-based relationships, exemplified by agricultural partners inviting them to work on the Bessemer water transfer project. Once the project picked up, establishing an office in Pueblo was essential to maintaining close ties with partners like Pueblo Water. While managing relationships with utility partners can be challenging, their success hinged on building relationships with individual people, finding common ground, and making concessions to achieve shared goals benefiting the community.

Having the right toolkit is crucial to effectively addressing a problem. This may require repurposing tools used in the past or building entirely new ones, which can be challenging at a policy level. Palmer built their decision-support tool to tackle a complex water-sharing challenge in Pueblo County, and this is now being used elsewhere across Colorado and the western United States. Additionally, Palmer is building an acquisition fund to support agricultural buy-protect-sell strategies. After missing a key conservation opportunity after the 2009 water sale, Palmer recognized the need to be prepared to purchase valuable farmland quickly, to then sell to a conservation-minded farmer for a future substitution. Now, they are raising funds to buy, protect, and sell a critical mass of irrigated farmland, which will likely eventually require tens of millions of dollars.

Palmer has found that success comes in milestones. So far, major milestones included getting substitution of dry-up provision into the Pueblo Water decree, completing the EIA, and creating the decision-support tool. Combined, these milestones represent steps to help decision-makers advance a water development strategy that supports the most efficient use of water, maintains robust economic outputs on fewer irrigated areas, and achieves the best environmental outcomes for Pueblo County. These milestones reflect significant progress in Palmer’s ongoing efforts to protect agricultural resources and water rights, demonstrating that steady, incremental achievements are key to long-term success.

Next Steps

As of 2024, Palmer is in the process of completing a pilot substitution as proof of concept for their decision-support tool. The substitution process involves legal, engineering, and financial considerations, so many farmers are wary of this new mechanism. However, Palmer has one agricultural partner ready and willing to move forward with the first substitution. 

Once the proof of concept is in place, Palmer plans to scale-up substitution efforts to get on-the-ground water conservation work done across the Bessemer Ditch. Pueblo Water and the Pueblo County agricultural community now have an unprecedented opportunity to showcase a local model of balanced water sharing between agricultural and municipal communities that can serve as a model throughout the west. 

Funding Partners

• Colorado Water Conservation Board, Colorado Department of Natural Resources
• Gates Family Foundation
• Robert Hoag Rawlings Foundation
• David and Lucile Packard Foundation
• Lyda Hill Philanthropies

Resources

• Colorado Division of Local Government. (2024). 1041 Regulations in Colorado.
• Innovative Conservation Solutions, LLC (ICS). (2021). The Economic Impacts of Dry-Up on Colorado’s Bessemer Ditch: A scenario-based analysis with a review of 1041 requirements, best management practices, and mitigation policy recommendations. Executive Summary.
• Farmland Information Center: Buy-Protect-Sell.
• Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS).
• Farmlands Protection: Important Farmland.
• Yang, X. et al. (2023). Optimizing cropping systems to close the gap between economic profitability and environmental health.New Phytologist 240(6): 2490-2512.

Contacts

Dillon O’Hare, Palmer Land Conservancy: dillon@palmerland.org

CART Lead Author

Erin Connolly, Drought Learning Network (DLN) Case Study Author

The DLN is a peer-to-peer knowledge exchange between climate service providers and resource managers, created to gather and share lessons learned from drought events to prepare for future events. The DLN partners with CART to develop Case Studies, with funding from the National Drought Mitigation Center for interns and coordination support from the USDA Southwest Climate Hub.

Suggested Citation

Connolly, E. E. (2024). “ Community-Driven Water Conservation on the Bessemer Ditch, Colorado.” CART. Retrieved from https://www.fws.gov/project/water-conservation-bessemer-ditch.