In 1979 the Upper Arkansas Water Conservancy District was formed.  Since that time innumerable benefits have been provided to the citizens of the District.  The primary goal of the District is the protection of water rights within the Upper Arkansas.  Continuous monitoring and involvement in legislative measures that impact water rights, involvement in water court cases that have the potential to negatively impact Upper Basin water rights, and operating umbrella augmentation plans that prevent injury to water rights by making weekly water replacements to effected rivers and streams by out of priority uses are the major areas of work. Other areas include conducting water studies that include ground water monitoring, water balance studies with the United States Geologic Survey, Identification of and development of alluvial water storage, watershed health activities, such as spearheading the Monarch Pass Steep Slope Timber Harvesting Project, and water education programs. The benefits of these programs are not always recognized by the citizens of the District.

Water resource development is essential to an effective water right protection program.  The most obvious and direct benefit of this is the District’s umbrella augmentation plan program.  Augmentation is a little understood water resource concept that was developed in 1969 when Colorado fully recognized in legislation the connection between tributary ground water and surface water.  With this recognition all ground water production was brought under and regulated by the prior appropriation system.  Basically, this meant that the right to extract ground water for use would be governed by the date of first use.  In an arid country such as Colorado, and in particular Eastern Colorado, there is never enough water to satisfy all legal claims.  Thus, priority of use is controlled by the established date of first use or “First in Time is First in Right”.  This legislation prevented most well use except when a “fully consumable” water source was utilized to replace the amount of water used-up by the well.  In other words, the well use would have to be augmented with a court decreed “Plan of Augmentation”.  The full impact of this was not completely felt until the decision of the Kansas-Colorado Compact lawsuit and the adoption by Colorado in 1995 of the “Amended Rules and Regulation on Tributary Ground Water Use in the Arkansas Basin”.  Fortuitously the District had filed in 1992 and obtain an umbrella augmentation plan in 1994.  The benefits have been enormous for citizens within the District boundaries of its decreed augmentation areas needing augmentation to use their wells, surface diversion, or ponds.

The value of being able to enroll into the District’s augmentation plan and continue to use one’s well is best quantified by cost savings.  Typical residential well augmentation requires a source of fully consumable water, storage, an engineering plan, and a water court decree.  The typical current cost for such a plan range from a low of $80,000 to $150,000 per residence.  The cost per residence with the District’s plan is less than $4500, a savings per residence of $75,000 to over $145,000.  Presently, the District provides augmentation to over 2000 wells.  The vast majority of these are for residential use.  This savings expressed in dollars would represent a cost savings to District citizens of as much as $290 million dollars.  The additional and as important benefit is to the rivers and streams in the District.  Annually, over 700-acre feet of water is released to our streams and available to support water rights and protect them from injury.  Further benefits are the water infrastructure that is maintained and constructed that supports recreation and the environment.  Many of the area lakes and reservoirs are filled with District owned and controlled water rights, such as O’Haver Lake.  The studies and watershed health projects the District has undertaken in its 35 years of existence provides a wealth of knowledge and data for present and future understand of our water resource and a roadmap to future water development. 

​​In Colorado, transfer of water from one type of use to another is a historical necessity and will continue throughout Colorado and the semi-arid West.   As economic and social needs change water moves to new areas to satisfy changing needs.  Historically, mining utilized the majority of water in Colorado.  As population increased the mining water rights moved to agricultural use.  Due to improved transportation and the economies of scale in agricultural operations much of our agricultural commodities are produced in areas with climates more conducive to large year-round production.  Many small agricultural operations that are no longer profitable have left the market and sold their operations and, in some cases, sold their water rights separately from the land to meet the changing demands.  Some increase in the demand for water is now being driven by small specialty and organic farming operations.  Still in the larger farming areas of the State there continues to be a demand for water and here these rights are not changing.
 
In recent years, the term “buy and dry” has become popularized by individuals intent on characterizing the purchase and transfer of an irrigation water right to other uses as an economic and environmental catastrophe.  Doing so obfuscates the reason why drying up of formerly irrigated lands is necessary.  In fact, the need in water right transfers to dry up the land is to protect adjacent water rights from injury.  This ensures that only the exact amount of water historically owned (used) by the irrigator is transferred to the new use.  Without an exact proof of use the amount of water moved may be much larger than was historically used and the environmental and economic damage would be large.
 
Of course, for many, the tedium of factual analyses does not lend itself to telling a “juicy” conspiracy story.  To some others, who really know the facts, there are ulterior motives.  One of the motives deals with the promotion of an alternative method of moving water and not using the time-tested court process.  These promoters of the alternative wish to avoid the legal scrutiny and work of accurate analysis and quantification of historic use.  They claim many reasons for advocating for alternative methods.  Among these reasons are, “it takes too much time”, “it costs too much” or “it’s too hard.”  The best but totally dishonest reason given is, “It means the land will be dried up forever” all the while knowing their alternative would require dry-up too.  From this has come another popularized term, “Alternative Transfer Method” or “ATM”.
 
Alternatives to the traditional water right transfer still require dry up of former irrigated lands.  There are actual alternatives, but these are marginally different from the traditional purchase and transfer of the water rights.  These are temporary transfers such as leasing of the water right and temporary fallowing of the former irrigated lands.  These temporary transfers or leasing of the historically consumed water from the irrigated land is a complex transaction.  To reduce the transactional costs in the engineering analysis required to accurately calculate the amount of water that could be transferred under a temporary lease without causing injury to adjacent water rights, the Upper Arkansas Water Conservancy District sponsored a study and development of a common technical platform called a “Lease Fallowing Tool”.  It is now available free of charge and is widely accepted by the water community.  Except for pilot projects of limited duration, the water right still needs to undergo a legal decree change through the water court.  In these temporary transfers or “ATMs” the land is still dried up.  The legal requirement to prevent injury to remaining adjacent water rights becomes more difficult to ascertain and the ongoing monitoring and development of water infrastructure to maintain historic stream conditions is more daunting.  One thing is clear about ATMs, to be effective in meeting future long-term needs construction of more water storage facilities—reservoirs and recharge basins will be required.
 
This really gets one to the crux of the matter.  Recently, articles have been written about Wall Street investors scooping up water rights in Colorado to market to out of state interests.  This concern and others have triggered our legislators to promote legislation to prevent speculation.  The problem is the Colorado Water Doctrine already has anti-speculation inherently built into its water allocation system.  In order to own a water right one must demonstrate beneficial use.  As described above, it is this quantification of use that determines the amount of water owned that can be bought and sold.  So, unless a prospective buyer has a use in mind, in Colorado, buying a water right to simply hold without use gets him no water.  

​The Salt Lake Tribune earlier today published this letter to the editor penned by Paul Simmons, executive director of the Klamath Water Users Association, in response to Pepper Trail’s Dec. 26 commentary on Klamath Basin wildlife refuges.
 
While acknowledging that Mr. Trail ably describes the botulism outbreak on Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge that tragically killed tens of thousands of waterfowl in 2020, Mr. Simmons notes that Mr. Trail misses the cause of the problem, which is the reallocation of water to endangered fish species.

For generations, both agriculture in the Klamath Project and the national wildlife refuges have had adequate water supplies in the great majority of years. In more recent years, however, regulators have required that water historically available for irrigation and refuges instead be held in Upper Klamath Lake for endangered suckers, or released down the Klamath River for coho salmon.

​

​Late last year we launched a new project at the Water District aimed at capturing the stories of local legends in the water community. We began by interviewing Ken Baker, the District’s Legislative Consultant. It was an honor to be entrusted with Ken’s story, which we shared in our January E-Newsletter and on our website.
 
In February we had the opportunity to sit down with Joe Cogan and hear more about his life and work in the Arkansas Valley. Joe was born on August 20, 1934 and is now 85 years old. He and his family are woven tightly into the fabric of the local ranching community, having lived and worked the land around Nathrop, CO that was purchased by Joe’s grandfather, Jeremiah Cogan, in 1889.
 
Arriving at the Cogan property you can’t help but notice the old barns and ranching equipment that are clearly still in use. There’s also a wooden sign by the front door that reads “Cogan Ranch Est. 1889.” Our interview took place in Joe’s kitchen, and though you’d never guess it now, that same room served as the blacksmith’s shop back in 1889. Joe offered to build his wife Arlene a new house, but she was happy to stay put. Joe and Arlene were married around 1960 and have spent their entire married life in the same home.  Like many ranching families, their children Brian, Bruce, and Laurie live close by.
 
The Cogan family has been in Nathrop since 1883, when Joe’s father Jack immigrated with his family from Cork County, Ireland. Jack was 5 years old at the time. The Cogan’s spent their first winter on top of Fremont Pass, snowbound for 85 days, where Joe’s grandfather Jeremiah worked for the railroad. It was a rough winter and, seeking a warmer spot and easier living, Jeremiah moved his family down to Frisco. But Frisco proved to be just as harsh and, eventually, Joe’s grandfather returned to Nathrop with his family and started working for the Rio Grande railroad.
 
In 1889 Jeremiah Cogan bought 120 acres from William Huey. The blacksmith’s shop, now Joe and Arlene’s kitchen, sat on this acreage. Jeremiah added on to the original homestead building, a space that now includes Joe and Arlene’s living room, and was able to claim a full 160 acres. In 1916 the government passed the national Stock-Raising Homestead Act, granting 640 acres for ranching purposes. Joe told us that people were starving to death on 160 acres and his grandfather added on another 640 acres to beef up their operations. Then, in 1929, Henry Feeling offered to sell his place to the Cogan’s and they purchased it for more hay ground. Unfortunately, this is right when the depression hit and everyone struggled. Folks had to lean on one another and, because there was little money, it was common to trade what you had for groceries.
 
Joe comes from a large family, not uncommon for the time and place and way of life in which he was born. He is one of 7 children and the baby of the family. His mom Elizabeth was about 41 when he was born and his dad Jack was about 56. Apparently, after having Joe, his father declared, “This is the end!” Joe’s oldest sister has since passed away, along with one of his brothers. He has 4 siblings still alive, all between the ages of 98 and 85.
 
Over the years the Cogan’s have continued to increase the size of their ranching operations, acquiring property throughout the valley and on the other side of Trout Creek Pass in Chubb Park. In 2009, having recognized the potential impact of property taxes on their operations, the Cogan’s worked with local non-profits and government agencies to permanently protect 507 acres in Chubb Park. These efforts not only support the Cogan family ranch lands, but also ensure that high mountain meadows will remain unspoiled for at least 100 years.
 
During our conversation with Joe he repeatedly referenced his families 1872 water right, 2.4 cfs, as being key to the success of the ranch. The water rises in a spring and rarely freezes and Joe said his grandfather couldn’t have picked a better place in Colorado.
 
One unique aspect of the Cogan property is the hydropower system that was installed by Joe’s father. Joe said his dad started thinking about hydropower around 1920 but he couldn’t make it work. He bought a broken bronze Pelton wheel and pipe from a source on Lake Creek and in time added a generator that had been used at 13,000 feet on Mt. Princeton. Eventually, Joe’s dad was able to generate 3 kwh of electricity at 220 volts and it was used for many years to power the property. Joe told us they had a wire in the house that could be pulled to drop a head gate and shut down the power when needed. The only problem with the set up was the dangerous nature of 220 volt direct current. Joe told us that sometime between 1970 and 1980 the pipeline was extended and the system switched to AC, which was much safer. With 68 feet of fall the Cogan’s were able to generate 9.9 kwh of electricity during irrigation season, which now services two houses, part of a third house, and provides hot water.
 
When Joe talks about life on the ranch he does so with a mixture of pride, joy and pain. His body has been badly bumped and bruised after years of hard labor and he has trouble with both his back and his hip. He’s been milking cows since he was 7 years old and has done so when the temperature dipped to -52 degrees F. As a kid, Joe sold cream to help support his family. He also remembers his mom raising 300 chickens a year and said that one year the chickens brought in more money than 300 cows. He remembers his dad going to Denver to sell some cattle and the money he made was just enough to cover the cost of getting the cows to the sale barn. Times could be tight and life could be rough, but Joe said there’s no better place to live and no better way to make a living. He and his family have lived on the ranch a long time and have always done so in a conservative manner. He said that they haven’t spent a penny that they didn’t have and he was proud to report that at age 70 he paid off the last cow and the last piece of land. But wealth, says Joe, is more about loving where you live, how you live, appreciating your quality of life, and being close to people.
 
When we asked Joe about the greatest threats to agriculture he said that was easy, it’s the impossible burger. That, and the inheritance tax. He said that ranches should be appraised on what they produce and, even though Joe and Arlene have already made decisions with their family on how things will be when they’re gone, they worry about things like the inheritance tax.
 
Another thing that bothers Joe is what is happening to the mountains with the influx of so many people. He said that increased access has led to increased ruin. Back in the day Joe said people climbed mountains just to look around. Now, people try to conquer the mountains. After nearly 50 years on Search and Rescue Joe has hauled off both the living and the dead and has seen people get in way over their heads. He remembered one person saying they wanted to attack the mountain from the backside. Joe laments that the climbing of mountains has turned into a muscle contest with a lack of respect for the land.
 
When we asked Joe about his closest friends he remembered his lifelong friend, Jack Acree. Jack was a USDA veterinarian and had a special knack with animals. He passed away last year and Joe said that life is pretty empty without him. Other good friends include and Nachtrieb’s and the McMurry’s. These families have toiled tightly over the years, sharing ditches and fences and working together to keep things in order on their ranches.  
 
As our interview with Joe came to a close we had the feeling that his stories could keep on going. Such a big life has been lived and we know that these details are only a scratch on the surface when it comes to the Cogan family and their legacy. It was an honor to be offered a bit of Joe’s time, to be welcomed into his home, and to be trusted with his stories. We hope learning a little more about the Cogan’s and the significant role they’ve played in this valley will serve to increase your appreciation and understanding of our local heritage.

Written by Ralph "Terry" Scanga, General Manager UAWCD

The misreading of Section 5, Article 16 of the Colorado Constitution has led many citizens to mistakenly assume that all the water of the state belongs exclusively to the public.  This section states in part:
“The water of every natural stream, not heretofore appropriated, within the state of Colorado, is hereby declared to be the property of the public, and the same is dedicated to the use of the people of the state, subject to appropriation as hereinafter provided.”

Essentially the waters are the property of the public for appropriation to beneficial use.  The ownership of the water by the public is conditioned upon it not being appropriated.  Further the water is dedicated to the people for appropriation for beneficial use.  In the Arkansas Basin every drop of water in the natural streams is appropriated and thereby owned by individual entities, private and public.

Due to the above misreading and misunderstanding of ownership a tension between private rights and public rights to water has existed.  Importantly, Colorado is not a public trust state.  Thus, the waters of the state are not “held in trust” for the public, rather, they are dedicated to the people of the state for appropriation and use.  The statute therein creates the ability for individuals to acquire a private ownership of water—a water right confirmed by court decree through a priority of use date. 

Some incorrectly argue that a water right is a usufructuary right, which is technically correct.  A usufructuary right refers to one individual’s right to use the property of another provided that the right is not altered or impaired.  A Colorado water right is different, it is alienable.   That is, it may be changed and transferred to another type of use, place of use, or manner of use.  The priority of use has historically been viewed as a private property right that can be separated from the land upon which it is used.  The water right itself can be separated and transferred from the land upon which it was historically used and may be purchased separately from the land. (1)  Although water rights are property rights and are considered realty, they can be abandoned, thus they are a possessory right. (2)

For nearly 150 years water in Colorado has been allocated by prior appropriation.  Especially in the arid Western half of the USA this system that establishes these property rights is called the “Colorado Doctrine”.  When the interior of the Western United States was developed Colorado was the trailblazer on water appropriation.  The West needed miners, ranchers, and farmers to develop its resources and build a viable economy through hard work.  During this early development period the average citizen mistrusted government and large monopolistic enterprises and feared the creation of a system that would facilitate collusion between government and these corporations.  To best use the water resources of Colorado the prior appropriation doctrine was adopted to create the incentive for resourceful individuals to divert waters of the state and place them to uses that would develop vibrant economies.  The system that was adopted prevented wealth speculators from hoarding water and creating a windfall profit.  The language in the Colorado Constitution does just that.  Public refers to the people individually given the right to appropriate water and place it to beneficial use and thereby creating a private property right. 

By law the amount of water so appropriated must be beneficially used without waste.  Irrigation water rights are allocated by a ratio of a volume or rate of water to a specific amount of acreage.  This is termed the “duty of the water right”.  From this ratio and historic practice is derived the specific amount of water that an individual water right owner owns, stated in acre feet.  This is commonly called the transferrable or historic consumptive use.  The transferrable consumptive use is the measure of the amount owned and the amount that can be transferred for use in different locations or changed to a different type or manner of use.  In order to protect other vested water rights a transfer must be confirmed by the water court and a new or a change decree issued.  Through the water allocation and use mechanisms developed in the Colorado Doctrine, Colorado citizens have been able to optimize the use of incalculable value in an arid region of the United States.
1Strickler v. City of Colorado Springs, 16 Colo. 61, 26 P. 313 (1891)
2Knapp v. Colorado River Water Conservation District, 131 Colo. 42, 53, 279 P.2d 420, 425 (1955)