Paul Kehmeier is a fourth-generation farmer from western Colorado. One hundred and twenty years ago, his great grandfather Wilhelm Kehmeier bought land in Delta County, dug an irrigation ditch to bring water from a nearby stream, and got to work planting. The Kehmeier family has been farming on the same land ever since, growing alfalfa, hay and oats. But a few years ago, Paul Kehmeier did something unusual: he decided not to water about 60% of his fields. He was one of a few dozen farmers and landowners in Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico—the four states comprising the upper basin of the Colorado River— who volunteered for a pilot program meant to test out a new water-conservation strategy: paying farmers to temporarily leave their fields dry, to save the Colorado River. “I participated in the pilot program because we ought to live in the reality over here in Western Colorado,” says Kehmeier. “Demand for water is increasing, and supply surely isn’t increasing.” Every single drop of Colorado River water is currently spoken for, used by cities, farms and industry across the western U.S. and Mexico. In most years, the river goes dry before it reaches the Gulf of California, and demand for its water is only expected to increase as populations grow in cities across the Southwest. Compounding the problem, climate change is leading to hotter and drier weather, projected to diminish the Colorado’s annual flow by as much as 30% by 2050. To view the full article visit Time.
