This is the first of two parts resulting from a presentation at Adams State Monday night. This article will primarily focus on the South Platte presentation, and the second part will feature the Rio Grand Basin.

ALAMOSA — Attended by Adams State students and faculty as well as the broader community, “A Tale of Two Rivers” on Monday evening at ASU described the histories, differences and continuing challenges of two different river basins in Colorado — the South Platte and the Rio Grande.

Sponsored by the Adams State University Salazar Rio Grande del Norte Center and Department of Biology and Earth Sciences, the presentation featured CSU Colorado Water Institute Director Reagan Waskom speaking about the South Platte and Rio Grande Water Conservation District General Manager Cleave Simpson speaking about the Rio Grande Basin.

While the two basins operate differently, they both have faced drastic changes in recent years and continue to struggle for balance and stability.

“It’s not a static process. It’s a dynamic process,” Simpson said.

Both men talked about how groundwater usage has affected the water systems in both basins and how well pumping has had to be curtailed, in the South Platte to such an extreme that some folks went out of business and some even committed suicide. The water users in the Rio Grande Basin have tried to avoid such extreme measures through self regulation, specifically through sub-districts of the Rio Grande Water Conservation District. The first is in its eighth year of operation and several others will be in operation soon.

Waskom said groundwater usage began to develop globally after World War II without a full appreciation of how groundwater would affect surface water and other resources such as wildlife and wetlands.

In basins like the South Platte where wells proliferated, “the science lagged the development,” he said.

He described the South Plate system as an alluvial aquifer where water moves fast through the aquifer. At one time there were 1.2 million irrigated acres. Now there are less than 800,000. More than half are irrigated through surface water only and another third through a combination of surface and groundwater.

Surface water began being developed in the South Platte in 1859, with return flows going back to the river to create a gaining stream. That changed with the proliferation of wells intercepting those flows, Waskom explained, which created friction between surface and groundwater users, similar to conflicts in the Rio Grande Basin.

On the South Platte, the first irrigation well was drilled in 1886, and the first lawsuit followed in 1893 where surface users alleged well usage was causing them harm. Waskom said the court agreed but said there really was no proof to go on.

By 1930 there were about 300 wells in the South Platte, all alluvial, no artesian wells as the Rio Grande Basin had.

Conflicts did not arise much, however, until the drought of the 1950’s hit, and in 1957 the state issued its first groundwater law, requiring permits to drill, and in 1956 the state engineer was given authority to deny well permits.

“In 1968 things came apart in the Arkansas and South Platte,” Waskom said.

A significant court case, Fellhauer v. People regarding the impact of wells on surface water led to a 1969 act that acknowledged groundwater was tributary to streams so must be administered in priority. Since all the wells were drilled after surface water right decrees had been entered, they were all junior water rights.

However, well users were permitted to develop plans of augmentation to keep taking water out of priority as long as they did not cause harm to senior water users or the stream. “It was a work around of prior appropriation,” Waskom said. “If you have a plan that you can get into priority by replacing depletions, we will give you a pass.”

South Platte well users had from the time the act passed in 1969 until 1974 to get court approved augmentation plans. Very few well users did that, however, but were getting by with substitute water supply permits. Every year the state engineer would tell them they needed to get their augmentation plans completed but he would allow them to slide by that year.

The issue did not become a crisis until the 2002 drought year, which was also about the time a supreme court ruling told the state engineer he could not keep permitting substitute water supply plans indefinitely because they were meant to be temporary.

Further court decisions in Empire Lodge vs. Moyer resulted in well curtailment and by 2006 red tags on hundreds of wells that did not have court-approved augmentation plans.

“This was super painful,” Waskom recalled. The South Platte basin went from 8,500 high capacity irrigation wells to about 6,000, and every water user group from municipalities to well users was going after each other.

Gentlemen’s agreements over the use of the “free river” (not under call most of the time, something the Rio Grande is not) went out the window, and a river that previously was under call only 55 days a year was under call all of the time for a few years.

Water became not just a precious commodity but also an expensive and contentious one, Waskom said.

About 700 augmentation ponds went in on the South Platte Basin, which created further problems, as groundwater levels went up and began flooding people’s basements in some areas.

While the South Platte struggled to get its system back in balance, there was a period of chaos.

“There was some real pain, people went out of business, there were suicides, a lot of trauma,” Waskom said. “But the system did rebalance itself.”

In 2012, the legislature passed a bill directing Waskom to study the system and present recommendations, one of which was to let the state engineer use some discretion in deciding if an augmentation pond was in a reasonable place, so it might not flood somebody’s basement for example.

Uniform tools had to be developed so everyone was “on the same page,” but flexibility was also required.

Waskom concluded that although the South Platte system is now more in balance, “the story is not over … We’ve got to keep turning the valves … monitoring … studying … making sure we get it right.”

Caption: Reagan Waskom shares lessons learned from the South Platte basin during a talk at Adams State University Monday night./Courier photo by Ruth Heide