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The Colorado River flows through Palisade where spring wind through the canyon at night keeps the peach blooms from freezing and the hot days and cool nights make the fruit sweet, said Trent Cunningham, a peach grower. 

Fish die in a canal on June 2, 2022 near Nancy Caywood's farm near Casa Grande south of Phoenix. The canal was shut off amid a 22-year megadrought that has hurt growers in seven states.  

A contractor harvests wheat grown by A Tumbling T Ranches, owned in part by Ron Rayner, on May 31, 2022 near Goodyear, Ariz. 

Birds revel in a flooded field near Parker, Ariz., on June 1, 2022. Some producers are exploring more efficient irrigation methods amid a 22-year drought. 

N-Drip's system delivers water via gravity to cotton fields in Arizona. The system does not require any electric pumps making it cheaper than a traditional drip system.  

Drip irrigation lines hang from center-pivot sprinkler system on May 31, 2022. Ron Rayner, an owner of A Tumbling T Ranches, is experimenting with the Dragon-Line system to improve efficiency and reduce labor costs. 

Trent Cunningham poses for a portrait between his pear trees and as they are irrigated in Palisade, Colo., on June 20, 2022. Over the years, he has cut back his water use and thin black hoses and sprinklers that deliver water over the roots of his trees use 20% of the water flood irrigation required and distribute the water more evenly. The water saved stays in the river for those downstream. 

The thin black hoses and sprinklers that deliver water over the roots of Trent Cunningham’s pear trees use 20% of the water flood irrigation requires and distribute the water more evenly. Across the orchard industry in Palisade, about 70% of the area has made the switch to more efficient irrigation.  

Max Schmidt, the general manager of the Orchard Mesa Irrigation District, stands on the Grand Valley Diversion Dam, which diverts water from the Colorado River for agricultural use in the Grand Valley. 

The Grand Valley Diversion Dam was built by the Bureau of Reclamation between 1913 and 1916. It diverts water from the Colorado River for irrigating western Colorado's Grand Valley. 

Nancy Caywood is pictured on June 2, 2022 at Caywood Farms in Casa Grande south of Phoenix. She educates hundreds of people about growing cotton and alfalfa each year through tours. This year the water deliveries to her farm were shut off in June because of drought conditions on the Gila River, which flows to the Colorado River. 

Water floods a field on the Colorado River Indian Tribes farmland near Parker, Ariz., on June 1, 2022. The Colorado River Indian Tribes reservation along the Colorado River is home to members of the Mohave, Chemehuevi, Hopi and Navajo. Portions of the farmland have been converted to gravity-fed drip irrigation.  

Wheat blows in the wind on May 31, 2022 southwest of Phoenix. Wheat was in high demand worldwide after drought on the northern plains, said Ron Rayner, with A Tumbling T Ranches. Rayner's wheat is used to produce pasta. 

Fish die in a canal on June 2, 2022 near Nancy Caywood's farm in Casa Grande south of Phoenix. Only puddles were left in the canal after water deliveries from the Gila River were shut off. 

Water diverted from the Colorado River irrigates lush Palisade peach and pear orchards in June. “The side of these hills is what we would have on the valley floor if we didn’t irrigate,” Trent Cunningham, a farmer in Palisade says. (Parker Seibold / The Gazette)

PINAL COUNTY, ARIZ. • Colorado River basin water has transformed Nancy Caywood’s fields in the desert southwest of Phoenix into carpets of green cotton and alfalfa for generations. But in June, the alfalfa was expected to dry up, and a vast majority of the cotton wasn't even planted.  

The irrigation canal that serves her property was shut down amid a 22-year megadrought that has hurt growers across the seven states that comprise the basin.

Vultures gathered in the muddy pools of her canal, feasting on the dying fish, a week after her hay was cut in early June, likely for the last time this year. At the same time, the bills from Caywood's irrigation district are going up to cover increased energy costs to pump water.

Colorado River strain casts shadow over recreation

“We just don’t know what the future holds for us,” she said, under skies hazy with wind-blown dust from dry fields. 

Nancy Caywood is pictured on June 2, 2022 at Caywood Farms in Casa Grande south of Phoenix. She educates hundreds of people about growing cotton and alfalfa each year through tours. This year the water deliveries to her farm were shut off in June because of drought conditions on the Gila River, which flows to the Colorado River. 

The same uncertainty facing Caywood’s family farm in Pinal County is widespread across the Colorado River basin following a Bureau of Reclamation announcement the seven states reliant on the river, including Colorado, need to conserve an additional 2-million to 4 million acre-feet of water next year to preserve the integrity of the stricken system, including power production in Lake Powell and Lake Mead.

Colorado Springs Utilities relies on the river for 70% of its water and so it's possible the community could be asked to conserve more as the whole basin tries to balance the needs of farms, cities and industry. Utilities has not received any clear direction from the state or other agencies yet and is not expecting much change next year, Kalsoum Abbasi, Utilities' planning supervisor for water conveyance, told the board in July. 

Across the Colorado River basin, 70% of the water serves an estimated 4.5 million acres of farmland, including farms in Arizona and California that provide most of America's winter vegetables. Experts agree land will have to go unplanted next year to meet the conservation goals and that will likely drive up prices for food as production falls, hurting rural economies. But it is unknown exactly how the cuts will break down across the states, and it is likely federal money will be required to compensate producers, said Bart Miller, the healthy rivers program director for Western Resource Advocates.

On Colorado's Western Slope, growers with more junior rights have faced drought-driven uncompensated cutbacks and shutoffs in recent years and officials with the Colorado Water Conservation Board say that's why major cuts to meet the Bureau's goals should come from the Lower Basin states, such as California. Upper Basin states Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming cut 1 million acre-feet of water use between 2020 and 2021 because of the drought conditions. The board did not have an estimate of how much had been cut in Colorado alone. 

"Our water users are already really, really cut back," said Amy Ostdiek, chief of the interstate, federal and water information section for the conservation board. For example, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe in Southwest Colorado fallowed more than 4,000 acres because of drought conditions. 

However, Colorado and the other Upper Basin states could achieve greater water savings by paying growers to leave land unplanted, a step known as demand management. Colorado policy makers want to avoid policies that permanently remove water rights from farmland, a practice known as buy and dry. The Upper Basin states said in a recent letter to the Bureau of Reclamation they would "consider" implementing demand management to meet the bureau's goals.

The bureau's call for millions of acre-feet in conservation followed the first-ever Tier 1 cutbacks on the river that hit the Central Arizona Project hard this summer, showing how water shortages can play out.

The Central Arizona Project is a 336-mile canal that starts at Lake Havasu and runs southeast, ending 14 miles south of Tucson. In times of plenty, it can supply about 1.5 million-acre feet of water of the state's 2.8 million-acre-feet of allocation, making it the state's largest source of renewable surface water. On its journey, it loses about 4.5% of its water or about 66,000 acre-feet in the canal and Lake Pleasant northwest of Phoenix to evaporation and seepage, according to the Central Arizona Project.  

Fish die in a canal on June 2, 2022 near Nancy Caywood's farm near Casa Grande south of Phoenix. The canal was shut off amid a 22-year megadrought that has hurt growers in seven states.  

The canal supports 5 million people, including residents in Phoenix, Mesa and Scottsdale, and it was needed to help offset declining aquifer levels, a water source considered nonrenewable. 

It was completed in 1993 and, as part of the agreement that led to its approval among the seven states, its water rights are junior to most other users along the Colorado River in the Lower Basin states, which include California and Nevada. 

As part of the Central Arizona Project deal, Arizona "would suffer losses before California would have to give up one drop of water," said University of Arizona Professor Jeff Silvertooth, who has researched the profitability and sustainability of Southwest agriculture. "They never envisioned the possibility of what we are experiencing today."

Cuts have been dramatic this year, even though the basin has coped with the overallocations of water for decades because the split of water rights among the states was based on wet years proceeding 1922.

"Overusing a river is when the river doesn’t reach the ocean," said John Berggren, a water policy analyst for Western Resource Advocates. The Colorado River hasn't made it to the Sea of Cortez in decades, with the exception of rare "pulse flows," when water is released from dams or canals to achieve that specific purpose.

Climate change has heightened the problem. While the basin has seen droughts with similar levels of low precipitation in the past, higher average temperatures further stress the environment, said Russ Schumacher, state climatologist. 

"The crops are more stressed — when its’ hotter — the snowpack melts faster, the forests get very stressed out. ... When the wet years come around, that water doesn’t go as far," he said. With the heat, more and more water is soaked up by thirsty soils and plants, and less water flows into the country's largest reservoirs Lake Powell and Lake Mead. 

To protect those lakes, the Central Arizona Project's regular supply was cut by 30%, or about 500,000 acre-feet this year. The project cut agricultural deliveries by 65%, while urban areas received their full water deliveries. 

The cuts left farmers who are reliant on the canal to fallow large portions of land in Pinal County, near Caywood's farm. 

The Colorado River is governed by seniority — water rights claimed first, some in the 1800s, are among the last to have their water shut off. 

While Central Arizona Project users are among the most junior on the river, Yuma, Ariz., a powerhouse of leafy green vegetable production, and Mesa County in Colorado, famous for Palisade peaches, are among the most senior. Still, some of those users have made water conservation changes. 

Trent Cunningham’s lush Palisade peach and pear orchards thriving in June are a stark contrast with the sparse desert rising above them.

Trent Cunningham poses for a portrait between his pear trees and as they are irrigated in Palisade, Colo., on June 20, 2022. Over the years, he has cut back his water use and thin black hoses and sprinklers that deliver water over the roots of his trees use 20% of the water flood irrigation required and distribute the water more evenly. The water saved stays in the river for those downstream. 

“The sides of these hills — that’s what this looks like without water,” he said.

In addition to owning senior rights, the water in Cunningham's district is tied to the land in his irrigation district, so it can't be sold to a city across the Rocky Mountains.  

Still, he cut way back on his water use by installing a micro-sprinkler system made of thin black hoses and sprinklers that deliver water over the roots of his trees. The system uses 20% of the water flood irrigation required. The water saved stays in the river for owners downstream.

The thin black hoses and sprinklers that deliver water over the roots of Trent Cunningham’s pear trees use 20% of the water flood irrigation requires and distribute the water more evenly. Across the orchard industry in Palisade, about 70% of the area has made the switch to more efficient irrigation.  

About 70% of the Palisade orchard industry has made the switch to more efficient irrigation, in part to reduce the salts in river water that can harm fruit trees and other crops. It’s an ongoing battle across Cunningham’s fields — trees that are less salt tolerant are visibly yellow. 

Using less water can also help meet urban needs, but it is not always in the best interests of agriculture. For example, when Grand Valley farmers cut back in the 1970s during a drought, the Bureau of Reclamation determined the growers could permanently cut back and allowed water to go east to the Front Range, said Max Schmidt, the general manager of the Orchard Mesa Irrigation District, that serves Cunningham’s farm. The Front Range as a whole is heavily reliant on Western Slope water. 

Water diverted from the Colorado River irrigates lush Palisade peach and pear orchards in June. “The side of these hills is what we would have on the valley floor if we didn’t irrigate,” Trent Cunningham, a farmer in Palisade says. (Parker Seibold / The Gazette)

"Several times during the season, there is more water going east than there is west," he said. 

The district operates Shoshone Hydropower Plant on its canal near Palisade to preserve water in the river, because its rights are highly senior, he said. At times, the water headed to the plant is the only water in the river, he said.  

The demand for Western Slope water and Colorado River water in general is only expected to get more intense as the drought deepens and urban areas continue to need water for hundreds of thousands of new homes. 

“People understand how important water is every time there is a drought. When it rains everybody forgets — they are not forgetting now,” Schmidt said.

Despite Cunningham's somewhat insulated position, he has compassion for those getting shut off. 

"How do you make it fair for somebody that’s been a 100 years raising alfalfa in Arizona? I don’t know. Why are they less important than me? They have got to make a living, too," he said. 

Investing as water runs short

In July, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey signed a bill to invest $1 billion into water infrastructure, including importing water. Although the new law doesn't name any projects, some high-profile ideas include importing water from the Mississippi River and building and operating a desalination plant in Mexico that would allow Arizona to keep more Colorado River water.

Colorado estimated in its draft water plan the state could need $20 billion for water projects before 2050, although it's unclear where all the money will come from. Since 2015, the state has issued $420 million in loans and grants for projects. 

With river water running short, Arizona and others are looking to groundwater. By the end of May, Arizona had set aside about $30 million to drill or restore wells. At that time, about 17 projects had been finished or were getting underway, said Shauna Evans, a spokeswoman for the Arizona Department of Water Resources. A new well can cost $1 million, Silvertooth said. 

While all these projects are in the works, hitting the required conservation measures will likely mean major agricultural cuts across the Colorado basin that will rip into local economies, when laborers are let go and supplies aren’t purchased, Silvertooth said. 

Climate change is punishing the Colorado River — and fueling devastating wildfires on the basin

Large irrigation districts in southern Arizona and California met in June to discuss the changes they could make to come up with water savings, but some agricultural producers are hesitant to give up water rights even if they are compensated, because they fear those reductions could be permanent, Silvertooth said.

“This needs to be a shared burden of all entities, urban and agricultural,” he said.

He was not, however, surprised by the huge water shortfall. Snow and rain have provided about 4 million acre-feet of water less than users have needed annually since about 2001 and storage in Powell and Mead has made up the difference, he said. 

“We have taken those two big reservoirs and pulled them down to critical levels, always hoping that something was going to change,” he said.

As the states weigh cuts, he said, agriculture production should be protected given the supply chain issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I don’t think we want to put ourselves in a position to put this region or nation into dependency on external sources of food,” Silvertooth said.

Fallowed land south of Phoenix reveals the trickle-down effects of major agricultural water cuts. In some cases, growers had to leave half their acreage unplanted, Silvertooth said, helping to drive up the price of alfalfa from $200 per ton in May 2021 to more than $300 a ton in May this year, U.S. Department of Agriculture data showed. Such rate hikes hit nearby dairies.

Arizona has some of the highest yields per acre of alfalfa anywhere in the world, where it can be grown year-round. In some areas, the salinity of the water prohibits growers from producing crops other than alfalfa, Silvertooth said. 

Caywood educates hundreds of people who tour her farm near Casa Grande about growing alfalfa and cotton in the desert. The tours have helped diversify the farm's income and she hopes will help protect the future of agriculture. 

“People are five and six generations removed from farms, and so they have lost their connection or their roots to agriculture,” she said.

In Caywood’s case, the land she is working to keep was farmed by her grandparents and parents, who both died last year. However, the conditions she is facing with her sister, a co-owner, and son, who farms the land, are more extreme than what earlier generations of the family saw.

“We heard (my grandfather) talk about times of drought, but never megadrought like this,” she said.

The Caywood farm is served by the Gila River that flows into the Colorado River at Yuma, and has seen years of dramatic plenty. In 1993, the San Carlos Reservoir on the Gila overflowed the spillways of its dam with more than 900,000 acre-feet, she said. Last year, the reservoir nearly went dry, dropping below 50 acre-feet, she said.

The San Carlos Irrigation and Drainage District shut down deliveries to the Caywoods' farm and others last year and this year, in part, because of the low water levels and because the canal that serves them is not lined. Canals can be lined with concrete, rock, plastic or other materials that prevent water seepage and erosion. 

“It seems we are being penalized for our location,” she said.

The family leased land served by Central Arizona Project water to try to offset production loss on the family’s farm, but the amount of water the land would receive was in question after cutbacks, she said. Her son has harvested sudangrass, a fast-growing cover crop, once from the property, she said by phone in mid-July, but it was unclear if enough water was coming to harvest again, she said. 

When water is flowing, the Caywoods have water conservation on their minds all the time, she said. Over three-quarters of the farm was laser-leveled through a grant-sharing program to ensure flood-irrigation water flows evenly.

They are also interested in drip irrigation or other efficiencies, but they can’t use drip lines currently because the water from the unlined canal is too silty. Drip can help save water by delivering directly to a plant's root system, but does not fit all situations, Silvertooth said. Flood irrigation can also have benefits such as restoring aquifers and supporting the ecosystem, said Nora Flynn, an agricultural water resources specialist with the Colorado Board of Water Resources. 

Faced with severe drought, other farmers near Caywood are selling their land for solar farms. The Caywoods have been approached multiple times, but they want to keep farming instead.

“There is just so much love for this particular farm, so much love for the land,” she said.

As winds whipped powder-dry soil into dirt devils in June, vibrant acres of green cotton and alfalfa flourished near the Colorado River in Arizona, hard against the border with California in the Sonoran Desert.

In the 90-degree temperatures, fields near Parker, Ariz., were flooded with river water, drawing birds by the hundreds to revel in it, bathing and eating.

Hundreds of those acres are transitioning from traditional flood irrigation to gravity-fed drip lines that can cut water use by 40% to 50% as part of a project funded by, in part, Colorado Springs Utilities and Denver Water. Denver gave $60,000 to the project, with Colorado Springs chipping in $7,500 to the total.

Colorado utilities support new approaches to conservation, because water saved by the Lower Basin can help preserve the levels in Lake Powell, said Todd Hartman, a spokesman for Denver Water. More study is needed to see how useful the N-Drip system would be in Colorado.

The Central Arizona Project has given N-Drip several million dollars to help refine its processes, company CEO Eran Pollak said. The company has also received $2.6 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to install systems in Arizona. 

Roughly, 5,000 acres in the state have had N-Drip installed, and Pollak expects that will scale up because the state lawmakers have approved $30 million in grant funding to help farmers install water conservation technology. 

Water floods a field on the Colorado River Indian Tribes farmland near Parker, Ariz., on June 1, 2022. The Colorado River Indian Tribes reservation along the Colorado River is home to members of the Mohave, Chemehuevi, Hopi and Navajo. Portions of the farmland have been converted to gravity-fed drip irrigation.  

"We can irrigate much more efficiently any field that is irrigated by flood," he said. The system is used on 200 projects in 17 counties on more than 25 different crops, including rice.  

The N-Drip system is cheaper than a traditional pressurized drip system to install and does not require the ongoing electricity cost of pumps to keep water flowing, said Clifton Isom, who is overseeing the N-Drip project on the Colorado River Indian Tribes' farmland. The Colorado River Indian Tribes includes members of the Mohave, Chemehuevi, Hopi and Navajo who share a 300,000-acre reservation in Arizona and California. 

“It shows a lot of potential of really becoming the way that we irrigate in the desert Southwest,” Isom said.

The main benefit is the system’s simplicity. The water flows from a farmers' existing canals or pipes to plastic holding tanks, where it runs through a screen to filter out contaminants — in one case, Isom's team found a crawdad. From the screen it flows out through plastic tubes and emitters that are far less likely to get plugged up than traditional drip systems.

The whole system operates on 1 pound per square inch of pressure compared to 10 to 15 pounds per square inch of pressure in other systems, and that helps mitigate the risk of a major break, Isom said.

The work on the CRIT farms also showed the drip system could serve a bigger area than flooding, because it requires so little pressure.

“You don’t just get to keep the acres that you are growing on currently — you also kind of expand the capacity of your farm,” Isom said.

Farmers can flood-irrigate over the N-Drip system if they want to, which can provide reassurance to producers who may be skeptical.

Seeing the system in action can also help with buy-in, Isom said.

“That’s the hardest part, it’s the learning curve, getting past the generations of flood irrigation to something that looks like it isn’t putting enough water out but actually is,” he said.

Drip irrigation can improve yields because when fields are flooded it oversaturates the soil and stunts plant growth the next day by eliminating air in the soil, Isom said. When the soil gets dry in the days leading up to flooding a field, that can also hurt growth.

“Historically, you get better yield with drip while saving water,” he said.

As a Pinal County resident, Isom has seen the farm neighboring his home fallow acreage in the wake of the Central Arizona Project cuts and described water conservation as an issue that needs to be tackled on all fronts, starting with how we irrigate lawns, golf courses and farms.

“I know a lot of farmers are going through tough times, but I got a lot of faith in farmers and their ingenuity. … Even though I think it’s very fresh, a lot of these cutbacks are very fresh, I have a lot of faith that we will see solutions like ours.”

A former Central Arizona Project board member, Ron Rayner — a partner in A Tumbling T Ranches in Goodyear, southeast of Phoenix — has been pursuing conservation for a long time.

He has seen great success with low-till methods that encourage soil health by leaving more organic matter on the ground. He also runs a six-year crop rotation on his land that includes alfalfa to naturally boost nitrogen in the soil, a wheat and cotton double crop, where the cotton is planted the same year after the wheat is harvested and a wheat-sorghum double crop. 

"Cotton is very thrifty with the water. It can scrounge out whatever little bit is down there," he said. 

He has also participated in variety trials with the University of Arizona to develop more resilient cotton. 

"I’m hoping that by us continually making selections every year, if the climate is changing and its getting hotter every year, hopefully we are selecting the ones that are going to be the most tolerant," he said. 

Rayner invested in N-Drip on 20 acres of his own land. But he found on even a slight slope the water did not flow evenly, and ended up pooling at the low end. He also found he couldn't double-crop with the irrigation tape in place. 

"It’s place is with smaller operations," he said, of the irrigation system. 

N-Drip's system delivers water via gravity to cotton fields in Arizona. The system does not require any electric pumps making it cheaper than a traditional drip system.  

Pollak, N-Drip CEO, said it's actually tougher and more complex to use N-Drip on a smaller scale than transitioning all the fields served by a canal. He noted it is possible to plant over the tape with planning. 

This season Rayner is experimenting with Dragon-Line, a center-pivot sprinkler system with drip line attached that provides water closer to the surface. 

Drip irrigation lines hang from center-pivot sprinkler system on May 31, 2022. Ron Rayner, an owner of A Tumbling T Ranches, is experimenting with the Dragon-Line system to improve efficiency and reduce labor costs. 

While he is open to new options, he has spent many years perfecting flood irrigation and found that it works best when it can run as quickly as possible across the fields with narrow borders.

He has converted numerous farms to his flood irrigation system and always sees savings. He notes that the groundwater he uses to irrigate on portions of his farm has such high salinity, you couldn't drink it. 

In addition to drought pressure, the city of Goodyear is moving in around and onto Rayner's property. Across his farmland, near the confluence of the Gila and the Agua Fria rivers, a major freeway is going to be built. New datacenters served by major power lines that crisscross his land have gone in nearby and a million-square-foot warehouses are going up without contracted tenants, he said. 

"Irrigated acreage in Arizona is shrinking," he said. "A lot of it is being urbanized."

Max Schmidt, with the Orchard Mesa Irrigation District, said he expects water will have to leave the Western Slope to meet cities' needs.

“There is only so much you can do, but they want more. To me, in the end, it’s going to be buy and dry because they can afford it,” he said.

He noted that in the Grand Valley, development typically happens on less productive farmland that already has water rights. But on the Front Range development has relied heavily on water from other basins.

Max Schmidt, the general manager of the Orchard Mesa Irrigation District, stands on the Grand Valley Diversion Dam, which diverts water from the Colorado River for agricultural use in the Grand Valley. 

"I wish it was just Colorado Springs wanting more of our water or Denver wanting more of our water or Longmont wanting more of our water," he said. 

The draft water plan estimates that cities and industry could be short between 230,000 acre-feet to 740,000 acre-feet annually depending on population growth and climate change. The South Platte basin, home of metro Denver, could see the lion's share of those shortages, the plan states. 

Officials with the Colorado Water Conservation Board say they are committed to temporary and voluntary reductions in agricultural water to meet the needs of cities. For example, Colorado Springs Utilities has purchased water rights that it can tap in certain years, but not every year, to keep water with the land. 

"It is the state’s priority certainly to not cause impacts to irrigated agriculture on the Western Slope," said Ostdiek, chief of the interstate, federal and water information section for the conservation board.

Cunningham is not sure he could achieve much more water efficiency, except in years when other factors, such as a late freeze, hurt production and cut his water needs.

If the drought across the basin worsens, Cunningham said, he expects priorities will have to be set. 

“People are going to have to decide if they want a lawn or they want to eat,” he said. 

Contact the writer at mary.shinn@gazette.com or 719-429-9264.

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