Ag water webinar planned

ARVADA-- Colorado Cattlemen’s Association’s Ag Water NetWORK has created an online tool that helps agricultural water right holders assess the potential of leasing their water rights for other uses. The supporting webinar describes the features of the lease screening tool, which generates a description of a water right’s lease potential based on user-inputted information about the water right, including location, seniority, acres irrigated and other criteria.  Both the webinar and the lease Decision Support Tool are available at https://www.agwaternetwork.org/.  

The state water plan, released in 2015, calls for more water storage, conservation and alternative transfer mechanisms (ie. ag water leasing) to help minimize ‘buying and drying’ of irrigated farm land in Colorado.  Under a lease program, farmers are compensated for sharing a portion of their irrigation water with municipal, industrial, or other water interests to help them meet their respective water needs.  Ag water right holders retain full ownership of their water rights and land.  Irrigated fields may be fallowed or deficit-irrigated to ‘free up’ consumptive use water for temporary leasing.

An ag water right holder can use the Decision Support Tool to find out the key considerations of an ag water lease. The Ag Water NetWORK website includes a map which shows locations around Colorado where leases are occurring.