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Kristin Murphy, Deseret News
When a severe drought held the West Coast in its clutches in 2015, some government leaders could think of no better way to get people to conserve water than to encourage them to turn on each other through drought shaming the practice of publicly outing and humiliating perceived water wasters on social media.
The results should have been predictable.
As the Orange County Register reported, one person sarcastically posted, “Congratulations for watering the pavement,” along with a picture of a water puddle near a curb in Costa Mesa, California.
Another tweeted the photo of a bald man wearing sunglasses and watering roses in East Los Angeles. “This guy has been doing this daily since the drought began,” the post said.
Melting snow and flowing irrigation ditches mean spring has finally arrived at the base of Grand Mesa in western Colorado.
Harts Basin Ranch, a 3,400-acre expanse of hayfields and pasture just south of Cedaredge, in Delta County, is coming back to life with the return of water.
Twelve hundred of the ranch’s acres are irrigated with water from Alfalfa Ditch, diverted from Surface Creek, which flows down the south slopes of the Grand Mesa. The ranch has the No. 1 priority water right meaning the oldest, which comes with the ability to use the creek’s water first dating to 1881.
Originally published on May 5, 2021 1:44 pm
Melting snow and flowing irrigation ditches mean spring has finally arrived at the base of Grand Mesa in western Colorado.
Harts Basin Ranch, a 3,400-acre expanse of hayfields and pasture just south of Cedaredge, in Delta County, is coming back to life with the return of water.
Twelve hundred of the ranch’s acres are irrigated with water from Alfalfa Ditch, diverted from Surface Creek, which flows down the south slopes of the Grand Mesa. The ranch has the No. 1 priority water right meaning the oldest, which comes with the ability to use the creek’s water first dating to 1881.
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Aspen Journalism/KUNC
Conscience Bay Company President Eli Feldman stands at a headgate on the Alfalfa Ditch near Cedaredge. Feldman, whose company owns Harts Basin Ranch and irrigates with water from the ditch, has been accused of water speculation: buying the ranch just for the future value of the water.
Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism
ECKERT Melting snow and flowing irrigation ditches mean spring has finally arrived at the base of Grand Mesa in western Colorado.
Harts Basin Ranch, a 3,400-acre expanse of hayfields and pasture just south of Cedaredge, in Delta County, is coming back to life with the return of water.