SALT LAKE CITY — A pilot project to help the Colorado River is seeing some farmers signing up.
The Colorado River Authority of Utah, which manages the mighty river for the state, has launched the "Utah Demand Management Pilot Program," which pays farmers as much as $390 an acre foot to fallow crops or enact other conservation measures. The water then goes downstream to Lake Powell.
"To me, it's just no different than taking a crop out and replacing it with a different crop. We're just not putting that crop in the ground," said Kevin Cotner, a Price area farmer who told FOX 13 News on Tuesday that he is inclined to sign up with the program.
Cotner, who has participated in federal fallowing programs before, said he sees the benefits.
"It's a conservation practice, the way we look at it, and it helps sustain us," he said. "I mean, the compensation is comparable to a good cash crop. So in our world, it's just another rotational crop. That's the bottom line. And we know there's concerns about it."
Fallowing can be a touchy subject with agriculture producers, who fear losing their water rights or losing their livelihood.
"With respect to fallowing, this is voluntary and this is temporary, right?" Amy Haas, the executive director of the Colorado River Authority of Utah, told FOX 13 News. "We often joke fallowing is the f-word in agriculture. It is something a farmer or producer can work into his or her operations, and they will be compensated as a result."
At Tuesday's meeting of the Colorado River Authority of Utah's board, it was disclosed the state has seen a number of agriculture producers sign up and they've already spent several million dollars.
"Fallowing is just one way. If they have another type of conservation they can do, maybe a split season or crop switching, they can do that, too," said Marc Stilson, an engineer with the authority.
But the program also can help Utah politically in delicate negotiations governing the Colorado River. Agreements between the seven states along the river and Mexico expire in 2026 and all sides have traded jabs over who should make cuts and where. Utah has been pushing a "credit for conservation" as part of the negotiations between the upper and lower-basin states.
"We are voluntarily agreeing to reduce our demand, which is really essential if we are trying to get this water, this river system back into balance," said Haas.
The Colorado River supplies water to more than 40 million people. It is seeing impacts from drought, a changing climate and heavy use of the system. But Haas argued that the demand management program they've enacted can make a big difference.
Cotner said he supported the Colorado River Authority of Utah's efforts.
"There is a financial benefit for it, but in the long future, the long view... is to try and protect, help alleviate some calls on this water in the future on the Colorado River Compact," he said.
On Tuesday, it was disclosed by Utah's lead negotiator over the Colorado River that he and other states' representatives were summoned to Washington D.C. earlier this month to meet with new Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. They were informed the Trump administration has scrapped a lot of the Colorado River management ideas proposed by the Biden administration — but not all of them.
"This administration is very committed to making sure the states come up with a solution rather than a federal solution," Colorado River Commissioner for Utah Gene Shawcroft told FOX 13 News. "So they’ve offered any help they can give us to come together, come up with a solution the seven agree to."
Shawcroft said discussions between the states have picked up since that meeting in hopes of coming up with a deal.
Meanwhile, Utah's governor has endorsed an idea that once seemed ludicrous but now appears within the realm of possibility. At his monthly news conference on PBS, Governor Spencer Cox said he supported the notion of paying California to build more desalination plants in exchange for Colorado River water shares.
"California shouldn’t have to bear the cost of that alone and so I think we can continue to work together to figure out new water sources and then how to divide up a declining river between the seven states," he told reporters.
The idea, first floated by Utah State Senate President J. Stuart Adams, R-Layton, in an interview with FOX 13 News last year, actually intrigued a board member for the San Diego Water Authority who urged Utah counterparts to reach out to start talking.
