The data for Colorado’s snowpack this spring are shocking. The latest figure reveals statewide the mountains hold only 19% of the historical median snowpack. It’s the worst on record.
The Colorado River is so low, drastic measures are planned to release water from Flaming Gorge, Navajo and other reservoirs to keep Lake Powell from hitting dead pool.
Farmers and cities downstream in Arizona and California have looked at those snowpack numbers and know they’re in trouble. They’re lobbying for renegotiation of the Colorado River Compact, the 1922 agreement that divides water supplies not by a percentage of what’s available but by acre-foot, even though most of the time the river doesn’t produce a fraction of the supply needed to fulfill its commitments.
Even if the complicated, politically fraught compact could be rewritten, that wouldn’t keep the river from dropping to a trickle this year. Litigation can’t manufacture more water no matter how powerful your congressional delegation is.
So, face it, it’s an emergency by any reasonable definition.
None of this is news to Neil Guard and his wife, Diane Brown-Guard. For the past 30 years, they’ve owned a small farm on the Colorado River where “normally it’s ripping this time of year,” Neil said.
Last week, he could pull on a pair of boots and walk across it. “It’s like an irrigation ditch.”
Their little slice of heaven is about halfway between Palisade and Clifton with a sweet view of Grand Mesa. They grow 13 varieties of grapes on nine acres and have six acres of peaches.
“It’s a tiny farm,” Neil said, “but it’s a lot for me.”
And without irrigation, it’s a desert. Rain alone can’t keep the peach trees and the grape vines producing.
“We haven’t had a monsoon season in years,” he said. Meteorologists have offered a tiny glimmer of hope for one this year as evidence of a strong El Niño pattern appears to be developing in the Pacific, and that could help.
But farmers in the region draw on the river each year at the end of the summer after the monsoon season ends to give peaches, grapes and other crops the late blast of water they need to “plump” before harvest and to replenish the fruit trees to get them through the winter.
Growers are worried that might not be possible this time.
“I’m not sure we’ll have water before winter this year,” Neil said.
And that would be a crushing blow both to the orchards and the farmers who depend on them.
Meanwhile in the state legislature, lawmakers are debating a proposal to provide tax incentives to bring data centers to the state. The data centers are needed to power the exploding field of artificial intelligence, but they consume a lot of water — up to 5 million gallons per day.
Another bill would attempt to regulate the data centers’ consumption of water and electricity to mitigate its impacts on Coloradans and the environment. It suggests that somehow developers of these centers — who promise a dazzling future for economically struggling rural areas willing to welcome them — can make power and water materialize out of the thin, dry air.
Given the timing in this extraordinarily dry year amid a decades-long drought, it’s hard to fathom how anybody can argue for tax incentives for an industry guaranteed to suck the state’s rivers dry even if strenuous environmental regulations are somehow enacted.
It’s magical thinking to a degree not seen since the creation of the Colorado River Compact promising to send nonexistent acre-feet of water to California every year until forever.
This year, in a stroke of what might be genius (but Neil insists is serendipity), he replaced three acres of peach trees that had matured beyond their useful life with young trees. They will require less water over the season as they get established. “Fewer leaves means less transpiration,” he explained.
It just might help a little.
But then, if the river is too low to irrigate the young trees before winter hits, he could lose them all and that, he said, would be “really bad.”
Some farmers in the area are selling out; most work second jobs to support their risky investment in agriculture and keep the bills paid.
“Diane’s years of working as an ER doc have supported our operation,” Neil said.
In addition to all the second jobs and side hustles, the farmers are always looking for new tricks to help them stay afloat.
One promising idea is to develop combination vineyards and solar farms.
Colorado State University’s Western Colorado Research Center at Orchard Mesa is studying the use of solar panels in vineyards to provide shade where the sun is too intense. And the farmers are listening intently.
“They’ve found that birds don’t like it under the solar panels,” Neil said, “so you may not have to net your grapes. It’s warmer under the panels in the winter and cooler in the summer, and the soil doesn’t dry out so fast.
“So, you not only harvest grapes, but you can harvest power. And on a farm, every little bit helps. In a year like this, it can save your ass.”
He and his neighbors are giving it serious consideration — for the future. But first, they have to survive 2026.
And they have to do their best to enjoy the life they’ve built while they still can.
“Today, we’re appreciating a lovely spring day,” Diane said. “It’s really nice right now. We’re happy now.”
But as summer looms, she said, “everybody’s worried.”
Diane Carman is a Denver communications consultant.
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