Dear Mr. Know-It-All:
On a recent stroll around downtown Farmington, I was surprised to see water in one of the ditches running near Orchard Avenue. With all the news about drought and low snowfall in the mountains, I thought the ditches would be dry as a bone, and our farms would be out of luck.
What’s up?
Signed,
Irrigator Al
Dear Al,
Our area has always had a farming history. Look at the names of our towns and cities: Farmington (Farming town), Bloomfield, Flora Vista, and Waterflow, just to name a few. Successful farming in the somewhat harsh conditions of the high desert didn’t just happen. Early farmers knew that the land was fertile, but finding ways to use the precious, available water was instrumental for a successful crop. It turns out, irrigation ditches in what is known today as San Juan County have been around for hundreds and hundreds of years. In her book, “Homesteads to Boomtown,” Marilu Waybourn wrote that in the 1870s, when this area was first opened for pioneer settlement, early homesteaders found the remains of earlier irrigation systems. She writes that the settlers were encouraged by the discovery.
Irrigation ditches didn’t just provide water; they provided power as well. One of the first ditches, Waybourn writes, was the Eledge ditch in Aztec. It runs along the same path today as it did more than one hundred years ago: from the entrance to Riverside Park in Aztec. In 1878, Joe Eledge ran a flour mill nearby that was powered by the ditch. These same ditches, North Farmington, Turley, Star, Willett, Wright Leggett and more, are still operating today, along an almost perfect grade, built with teams of mules or horses that were used to scoop out the path of the ditch. Waybourn adds that men with shovels added the finishing touches.
You might not see many irrigation ditches in town. Many were moved underground as development took over, but they are still serving their purpose. In Farmington, for example, much of the laterals from the Independent Ditch are underground, and some of the Wright Legget Ditch on the south side of Farmington is also below ground.
This wouldn’t be a column about ditches if I didn’t mention the other major ditch project in our area, N.I.I.P. (Navajo Indian Irrigation Project). This project is connected to N.A.P.I. (Navajo Agricultural Products Industry) and N.D. (Navajo Dam). Okay, I made that last abbreviation up. N.I.I.P. was designed as a partial solution to appease water rights promised to the Navajo Nation. The project is nothing to sneeze at. According to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation website, planning and construction started more than 70-years ago. This project includes miles and miles of tunnels and canals to irrigate tens of thousands of acres for the huge N.A.P.I. farm south of Farmington, and the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority (N.T.U.A.) is quoted by the website as saying the project provides 40,000 acre feet of water to four major population centers on the Navajo Nation: Shiprock-Burnham, Window Rock-Ft. Defiance, Crownpoint, and the Tsaile- Navajo area in Arizona. Water started being delivered to N.I.I.P. in 1971.
As snowpack and runoff are near record lows this year, water managers are watching the levels in area waterways. Water in ditches may be rationed or cut off entirely this summer. Luckily, some well-timed Spring rainstorms in the mountains have helped recharge the runoff temporarily, but things could be very different just a few weeks from now, especially for ditches that rely on the Animas and LaPlata Rivers. Water releases from N.D. (Navajo Dam) well, there I go again, may help ditches along the San Juan River continue to serve their customers. Ditches, and the underappreciated ditch riders, those people who maintain the ditches and respond to concerns and questions, remain an important and historical component of life in San Juan County.
Mr. Know-It-All is Scott Michlin, the general manager of KSJE 90.9FM community-supported radio at San Juan College. When he’s not answering questions here or on the radio, you might find him teaching public speaking or mass media classes at San Juan College, or serving on the board of directors for San Juan United Way, Presbyterian Medical Services, or the San Juan Symphony.