The Ute Mountain Ute Tribe was awarded a $9.6 million grant from the Natural Resource Conservation Service to fund projects that aid in efforts to deal with “prolonged drought conditions and severely limited water supply” at the end of October.
The grant will help modernize the tribe’s irrigation systems, improve water usage and efficiency while aiding in the process of creating strategies to promote drought resiliency.
“When completed, the system improvements funded by the grant will enhance irrigation efficiency by a projected 32%, increase access to water and support UMUT farming and ranching operations,” a press release stated. “This project will advance UMUT’s agricultural operations by adapting to a future with less water.”
The strategies and practices implemented with the help of this grant will also improve the lives of tribal members, the grant continued, and ensure a water supply that is reliable and able to “sustain the economic viability of the Farm and Ranch Enterprise’s Tribal ranches.”
“The 109 center pivot sprinklers that irrigate the farm were installed 20 to 30 years ago,” said Manuel Heart, chairman of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe. “The RCPP award will replace the last 48 worn-out pivots, install moisture probes and upgrade telemetry to support an irrigation scheduling program that will provide the right amount of water to each pivot for each crop. Irrigation improvements will be coupled with the ongoing introduction of water saving crops.”
Mike Preston, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe’s water resources consultant, explained to The Journal how the moisture probes and upgraded telemetry will work.
“They’ll be able to monitor all 109 pivots from a location in the office or a cellphone. You can actually monitor what’s going on with each of the center pivot sprinklers,” Preston said. “Why we’re doing all of this is to have a very refined irrigation scheduling program. If you’re looking at one of the 109 fields, and you have your moisture probe, then you know what kind of moisture is in the soil, and you know that your crop needs. Then you operate your pivots to put on the exact amount of water that your crop needs. It’s going to create very fine-tuned water management. What we’re trying to do is adapt the farm to fluctuating water supplies.”
Preston said they are also starting to look at what kinds of crops to grow on the farm, though that specific question is not part of this particular project.
“That ties right back into what we were talking about: irrigation efficiency,” Preston continued. “Having an irrigation system that, once those crops are planted, can precisely give the amount of water on the crop that the crop needs to be productive and healthy.”
Sen. John Hickenlooper also commented on the grant and the way it will impact the Ute Mountain Ute tribe.
“The Ute Mountain Ute have shown exactly what this program can be: a lifeline during drought and a path to make every drop of water stretch as far as it can,” Hickenlooper said.
The project will be managed in conjunction with the Farmers Conservation Alliance and other Natural Resource Conservation Service “certified technical service providers.”
NRCS’s state conservationist Clint Evans said this project will only work to strengthen the partnership already established with the tribe and the Farmers Conservation Alliance.
“This agreement will be a continuation of those efforts, and we’re excited for it. This RCPP agreement will fund NRCS practices that target the conservation benefit that can substantially improve irrigation efficiency and water resources needed as a result of insufficient water and drought,” Evans said.
