In Western Colorado, surrounded by mesas and canyons, farmers are busy growing some of the state’s most beloved agricultural products.
“I would say a majority is the specialty crops, the peaches, the cherries, the apples, pears, vineyards, but we do still have some row crops… we've got hay, there's vegetable farmers, we serve it all.”
That’s Jackie Fisher, the manager of the Orchard Mesa Irrigation District, or OMID.
“6,900 water users,” she says when asked how many irrigators use OMID’s water. “We have 12,000 acres of land in the district, but 9,200, roughly, acres of ground is allocated with water.”
She says in addition to the thousands of irrigators that rely on their water, the district’s physical location puts them in a unique situation.
“We're on the Colorado main stem, which is a very hard-working river,” she said.
Throughout the West, pretty much every last drop of Colorado River is used and accounted for. The majority of Colorado’s allotment of the river is used for agriculture. Human-caused climate change is stretching the river even thinner, and drought persists. That means that the people who rely on the river have to get creative when it comes to conservation, especially in Colorado, where the river begins.
The irrigation district is located right at the beginning of a stretch of river called the “15-Mile Reach.” It runs from OMID’s facilities in Palisade down to where the Gunnison River joins the Colorado River in Grand Junction.
“This reach is critical because it's home to four native rare fish of the Colorado River,” said Danielle Snyder. “The humpback chub, bonytail chub, Colorado pikeminnow and razorback sucker.”
Snyder is a water transactions coordinator with the Colorado Water Trust. She and her colleagues navigate Colorado’s water law system, working with water rights holders—like Orchard Mesa—that want to use some of their water for river and stream health.
For this project, the Water Trust leases water from a rights holder in Ruedi Reservoir, about 130 miles east. That water flows down the Fryingpan River, into the Roaring Fork River, and then into the Colorado River. The irrigation district diverts that water, along with their own, in De Beque Canyon, northwest of Palisade, and routes it through a power plant, then delivers it to the 15-Mile Reach.
“It kind of sounds like the stars have to align, but I think they truly do,” Snyder said, adding that there’s even more partners that coordinate on this project. That includes the Colorado Water Conservation Board and the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program.
It’s all part of Colorado’s complex water law system, which states that water released from reservoirs must be put to a “beneficial use.” That usually means using it for things like irrigation or industry. The environment, and even fish, historically haven’t counted. But there’s a workaround: hydropower. It keeps the water in the river, and under state law, it qualifies as beneficial. As Fisher says, it’s a win-win.
“For whatever the water’s decreed use is, that's what it needs to be used for,” she said. “So once the power water has gone through the plant, it's met its use and then it becomes free river again.”
The hydropower generated from the power plant goes into Holy Cross Energy’s grid. The rural electric co-op serves the Western Slope along I-70, as well as the Roaring Fork, Crystal River, and Eagle River valleys.
Synder says this project is unique because, unlike other projects or conservation programs, they’re not asking irrigators to leave water in the river.
“Whereas this project, because we're utilizing the hydropower benefit, no one has to cease irrigation,” she said.
But the Water Trust can only do this project if OMID is able to get water to its users, first and foremost. And in recent years, Fisher says they’ve been having issues with their infrastructure, some of which is over 110 years old.
“We have 40 plus miles of canal,” she said. “Hardly any of it is piped. Some of it we have lined, a lot of it is still open, earthen ditch, which is subject to leaks and seeps.”
To address that problem, Fisher says they applied for money from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, and were awarded $10 million—money that is currently frozen by the Trump administration.
“It's hard to get started when we were counting on the funds… to get the projects going,” she said. “So the delays ultimately result in fewer benefits to farmers and ranchers, and to the river.”
Fisher and other awardees have been working with state and federal representatives to make the money available. For the moment, she’s focusing on collaboration. She sees the irrigation district as one piece of the bigger puzzle that makes up the Colorado River, and wants to see more efficiency across the whole system.
Partnerships with groups like the Water Trust help that goal, and Snyder says they want to do everything they can to make it work.
“We don't want to jeopardize anybody's (livelihood) or the way they live their lives,” Snyder said. “But if folks do have a conservation ethic and recognize that more water does benefit everyone, how can we be helpful in that system?” She added that the Water Trust hopes to be a resource and a partner for those conservation-minded water rights holders.
With water forecasters predicting a dry summer ahead, water users will need all the help they can get.
Copyright 2025 Rocky Mountain Community Radio. This story was shared via Rocky Mountain Community Radio, a network of public media stations in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico, including Aspen Public Radio.
