Aurora – Congressman John Salazar waded into an ongoing water feud between city dwellers and farmers with a letter urging Aurora to stay away from grabbing more Arkansas Valley water.
Aurora officials say no such water grab is in the works, and any water lease would require that farmers be compensated.
“I’m not sure where this came from,” said Aurora Mayor Ed Tauer, the recipient of Salazar’s letter. “I would love to know what this is about.”
The matter concerns the Bessemer Ditch, which irrigates farms on the St. Charles Mesa and other areas of the lower Arkansas River Valley.
A recently failed multimillion-dollar deal between the Bessemer Ditch Company and Xcel Energy could leave water shares up for grabs. And Salazar doesn’t want Aurora to get them.
“I would strongly oppose any attempt by Aurora or any entity outside the Arkansas Valley to purchase or lease the water,” Salazar, D-Manassa, said in the letter.
On Tuesday, he likened the loss of agricultural water to losing a major employer.
“Water leaving the basin has a ripple effect,” he said. “It means losing jobs, farms, a cycle of economic loss that hurts for generations. This isn’t just about compensating those who have the water rights. It’s about making sure that rural communities aren’t devastated in the process.”
Bob Jackson of Pueblo, a shareholder in the Bessemer Ditch, echoed Salazar.
“It’s perfectly valid to say don’t come raiding our water,” he said. “We think the water should stay here. We want the people in Aurora to leave us alone. They need to look elsewhere to get their water, not the Arkansas.”
Aurora is under an intergovernmental agreement that forbids buying water from the Arkansas Valley for 40 years and allows only periodic leases if drought conditions exist.
In one such lease, the city last year paid 152 property owners $5.6 million for 4.1 billion gallons of water from the High Line Canal.
“The High Line lease was hailed by everyone as a wonderful solution for everyone,” said Melissa Elliott, Aurora utilities spokeswoman.
Aurora recently contacted various ditch companies to gauge their level of interest in leases but not the Bessemer Ditch Company, said Peter Binney, Aurora utilities director.
“It’s quite a leap of faith to suggest that we are buying (the Bessemer water) in violation of our (agreement),” Binney said. “But this is consistent with a pattern of opposition that Aurora has seen. … It’s ratcheted up when you get things playing out on the federal level.”
Staff writer Jeremy Meyer can be reached at 303-820-1175 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com.
