FYI ... Aurora buys Kersey farm + water rights - BizWest
Thomas Clayton
Aurora buys Weld County farm, water rights
NoCo stakeholders decry loss of water out of region
A map shows the farmland northwest of Kersey and north of U.S. Highway 34 that was acquired by the City of Aurora for its water rights.BERTHOUD — A $14 million purchase of nearly 316 acres of farmland northwest of Kersey — along with its associated water rights — by the growing and thirsty city of Aurora has Northern Colorado water providers fuming publicly through social media and with the drafting of a joint resolution.
Aurora’s Feb. 6 purchase of the property from Kersey I-K Farm LLC at 28465 Weld County Road 49½, coupled with Thornton’s plan to send water from the Cache la Poudre River to that Denver suburb, has triggered online pushback, including the hashtag link #dontletitgosouth.
In posts on such online sites as LinkedIn and Facebook, the Berthoud-based Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District, known as Northern Water, wrote that “Aurora Water is seeking to acquire over 20,000 acre-feet of additional water rights yield by 2050. A recent purchase of farmland near Kersey shows that water exports from Northeastern Colorado are a primary way that Aurora hopes to close its future water supply gap.” That farmland sale, it wrote, “should raise questions about transparency and the role that third-party interests play in facilitating water transfers outside of our region.”
Aurora is facing a potentially dry summer with reservoir storage at roughly 59%, raising the potential for tighter water restrictions. A resolution passed by its City Council in November asked restaurants to serve water only at customers’ request as a way to conserve.
Jeff Stahla, Northern Water’s public information officer, said the online protests are “really about that change of use that removes water from its current use in Northern Colorado.”
Stahla said the water Aurora wants is already spoken for.
“We recognize that as decreed water gets moved to the metro area, it removes not only current economic output but also the opportunity for what that water could bring in the future,” he said. “This water was already being used as irrigation, and it’s different from the undecreed water we’re using from the Colorado River basin.
“As we’re looking to develop in Northern Colorado,” he said, “we’re spending money on junior water rights while senior water rights are being acquired by other entities.”
Targeting such “buy and dry” of irrigated agriculture, Northern Water’s board of directors in September approved a resolution calling for water to remain in Northern Colorado as a linchpin of agricultural productivity and economic prosperity.
That resolution noted that “Northern Water respects Colorado’s current system of water rights that is based on the doctrine of prior appropriation and other federal, state and local laws and regulations that honor rights and obligations under existing permits, approvals and agreements. … Availability of water for agricultural, environmental and recreational uses is tied to the economic and cultural value and character of this region.”
The resolution resolved that “Northern Water will support efforts to retain water for local, beneficial use by discouraging the further transfer of water to entities within the Denver metropolitan area.”
Aurora in 2020 acquired 119 shares in the Whitney Ditch Co. that were expected to yield approximately 1,629 acre-feet per year of water at a price tag of nearly $27 million. That water had been used to irrigate agricultural lands located on the east side of Windsor near the Cache La Poudre River. According to Northern Water’s website, “that acquisition undermined long-standing plans by other entities, including the Town of Windsor, to use the water locally for parks, recreation and other amenities.”
Northern Water cited that and other acquisitions by such entities as the City of Castle Rock, the Parker Water and Sanitation District and other entities in Arapahoe and Douglas counties. “Left unchecked,” it wrote, “there is concern that additional water will continue to leave the region one transaction at a time, leaving some of our most productive land and most valuable water rights in the hands of those outside of our local communities.”Such transactions are legal, Stahla said, “but we want to raise the alarm about what the impacts could be to this region.”
 | Tom Clayton Communication and Media Specialist, Public Affairs |
| Commissioners' Office 200 W Oak St, Fort Collins, 80522 | 2nd Floor W: (970) 498-7005 tcla...@larimer.org | www.larimer.org |