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- 9-6-2012
Irrigators allowed early season start date
Posted: Thursday, Mar 24th, 2011
At the request of the majority of water users attending the Rio Grande Water Users Association meeting Wednesday afternoon, Colorado Division of Water Resources Division 3 Division Engineer Craig Cotten agreed to permit an early irrigation start date for irrigators on the Rio Grande main stem (District 20.)
Irrigators in District 27 (La Garita Creek and Carnero Creek) will also be permitted to turn on their water on March 28, not quite a week before the normal start date.
In keeping with a new irrigation policy, the presumptive irrigation season for the Rio Grande Basin (the San Luis Valley) is April 1 to November 1. However, the current dry, warm conditions in the Valley have prompted irrigators to seek an earlier irrigation season start date this year.
The irrigation season for La Jara Creek drainage began on March 16. Saguache Creek irrigation season began a couple of days ago, and Schrader Creek has also been permitted to turn on.
Many of the water users attending Wednesday's meeting asked for the irrigation season on the Rio Grande to begin immediately.
Some farmers said a small amount of water immediately would make a big difference in their crop success, and they believed they would require less water later in the irrigation season if they could begin irrigating sooner, on this end of the season.
On the other hand, every week irrigators wait to turn on their sprinklers and ditches means less curtailment during the irrigation season to meet Rio Grande Compact obligations to downstream states, Division of Water Resources staffer Patrick McDermott said. He estimated that each week the irrigators held off, the curtailment would drop by 1-2 percent.
Cotten estimated curtailment to meet the compact at 11 percent but said return flows have been 4 percent, so he was looking at a 7-percent curtailment, if the irrigation season began April 1.
In a show of hands among the packed house Wednesday in Monte Vista, most either wanted the irrigation season to begin immediately or at least on Monday, Cotten's recommended date. (Cotten explained he needed time to get the word out to the public.)
A few folks preferred the April 1 start-up date. One water user said a later turn-on date would allow the reservoirs to store more water.
Cotten said as of Wednesday, the Rio Grande at Del Norte was only running 200 cubic feet per second (cfs). Taking reservoir water out of storage would only push the cfs up to 250, he added.
It's not going to go a very long way,?he said, ut we are making some good deliveries to the state line right now. We are actually delivering about 18 percent more than what we have got at the gauge at Del Norte. We are doing good, making some progress cutting the curtailment down.?br />
He said the longer the ditches are off, the more water could be delivered to the state line for compact purposes.
In the other hand, we are within a week and a half of April 1.?br />
Cotten said this is the first year the new irrigation policy has been in effect, so it is a learning process for his office as well as irrigators. This is also the first year well users have to follow the same irrigation season as surface water users.
Cotten added that State Engineer Dick Wolfe is willing to meet with people to discuss the irrigation policy and determine if it could be improved.
Latest Targets for Copper Thefts: Irrigation Systems Date: March 4, 2011
Sedgwick County officers are searching for thieves who are damaging large crop irrigation systems to get to the copper. Sheriff's Department Sergeant Gary Hargus says three of the systems have been damaged this week in northwest Sedgwick County, costing farmers tens of thousands of dollars for repairs. The thieves sell the scrap copper to recyclers. Hargus says the irrigation systems are a prime target because they contain several metals and are in remote places. KAKE-TV reports that farmers can help watch out for each other by using a web site set up by the Sedgwick County Sheriff's Department. The site, called C-A-L-I-N, allows farmers and businessmen to communicate with each other through an Internet message board.
Region needs $5b for water systems
HA NOI — The north-central region needs VND109 trillion (US$5.1 billion) to upgrade its water resources system by 2050 in response to rising sea levels and other effects of climate change.
Speaking at a regional irrigation planning conference in Ha Noi on Tuesday, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) Dao Xuan Hoc said the region, one of the nation's key economic zones, had suffered from flood, droughts and salt intrusion.
He said that new plans were needed to take these effects into account, including the upgrading of reservoirs.
Hoc added that the region has seen abnormal weather changes that were blamed on the El Nino and La Nina phenomena.
In addition, more than 32,200ha of the region, including areas north of Ma River, the lower Buoi River, and southern stretches of Chu River had been submerged.
Hoc said that VND81.1 trillion ($3.8 billion) would be used to prepare a new regional approach to the problem from 2011-20, including VND3.7 trillion ($176 billion) for providing fresh water, VND21.4 trillion ($1.02 billion) for irrigation works, VND4.1 trillion ($195 million) for drainage systems and VND19.7 trillion ($940 million) for flood prevention.
Bui Nam Sach, head of MARD's Institute for Water Resources Planning, said water resources planning in every province was now based on research on the effects of climate changes.
He said that along Ma River, four reservoirs, the Cua Dat, Hua Na, Trung Son and Pa Ma, should be built to stop salt encroachment and floods as well as supplying water to more than 90,000ha of farm land, industry and a 1,120MW hydro-power plant.
On Ca River, the upgrade would improve 981 irrigation works to service 331,000ha of paddy fields and aquatic farms.
On Gianh River, up to 83 irrigation works would also be built while another 44 on Nhat Le River would be upgraded.
Some sections of the region's 142-km dyke system would be repaired and strengthened. The $5.1 billion upgrade would also be used to build 23km of dykes from Xuan Dan to Dong Ken in central Ha Tinh Province's Nghi Xuan District.
The North Central region has 1,854 homes vulnerable to floods. They should be moved to high ground with total investment of VND37 billion ($1.7 million).
About VND572 billion ($27.2 million) is also needed to households that have been regularly submerged to build houses and public works for flood prevention.
It is forecast that climate change will lift the sea level by 30 centimetres by 2050. — VNS
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Residents of Hung Chinh Commune in the north-central province of Nghe An's Hung Nguyen District upgrade irrigation works. The region needs to upgrade its irrigation and flood control works to cope with emerging climate change impacts. — VNA/VNS Photo Lan Xuan |
Background of Irrigation
Irrigation is an artificial application of water to the soil. It is used to assist in the growing of agricultural crops, maintenance of landscapes, and revegetation of disturbed soils in dry areas and during periods of inadequate rainfall. Additionally, irrigation also has a few other uses in crop production, which include protecting plants against frost,[1] suppressing weed growing in grain fields[2] and helping in preventing soil consolidation.[3] In contrast, agriculture that relies only on direct rainfall is referred to as rain-fed or dryland farming. Irrigation systems are also used for dust suppression, disposal of sewage, and in mining. Irrigation is often studied together with drainage, which is the natural or artificial removal of surface and sub-surface water from a given area.
Irrigation is also a term used in medical/dental fields to refer to flushing and washing out anything with water or another liquid.
