After a historically dry winter, some Colorado towns are running out of drinking water, requiring extraordinary measures to keep taps flowing.

Transcript

DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, HOST:

During times of drought, cities and farmers can be in conflict. Who takes a hit when there's not enough water to go around? This year in Colorado, though, farmers in one small town found a way to cooperate and share. Colorado Public Radio's Ishan Thakore explains.

ISHAN THAKORE, BYLINE: Kremmling is a quiet town, less than 2,000 people on the banks of the Colorado River. But this year, that river was sometimes a trickle, and some of the ditches and streams that supply the town's water were basically...

JEN MACPHERSON: Dry, nothing in it. It hasn't flowed all year. Water hasn't reached this point.

THAKORE: That's town manager Jen MacPherson. By March, she realized they had a big problem. Colorado had its worst snowpack on record this winter. The town's municipal reservoirs were low. Without some serious steps, the town would run dry by the summer.

MACPHERSON: If you looked at the situation and you ran the numbers, we came up pretty short pretty quick.

THAKORE: Kremmling was not alone. In Colorado, several small towns saw their water supplies plummet. In Utah, some towns even ran dry. Climate change is parching the Colorado River Basin, and adapting to that is painful. Kremmling went on water restrictions in the spring, so no green lawns, no at-home car washes. Still, one of their reservoirs dropped so low that water couldn't even flow out. And then the town realized that their backup water supply pump was broken. Their plan B - it was shot. Downstream, growers of the Grand Valley's famous grapes and peaches were hurting too.

LINDSAY DEFRATES: It's a harsh awakening. It really is.

THAKORE: Lindsay DeFrates is with the Colorado River Water Conservation District. She said, this year, everyone felt pain.

DEFRATES: This year has stripped away a lot of our assumptions that it'll be OK, you know? We've come right up to the edge of, it's not going to be OK.

THAKORE: Those growers are normally among the first in line to get water. That's because Western water law is first come, first serve, and those farmers have some of the oldest water rights in the state. But this year was tough.

TINA BERGONZINI: And this isn't the first drought year we've had. It's just the worst drought year we've ever had.

THAKORE: Tina Bergonzini represents farmers who irrigate thousands of acres. She said some of her farmers barely planted corn or had to switch crops just to get by.

BERGONZINI: No one is flush.

THAKORE: But instead of taking all the water they have rights to, Bergonzini's farmers and others did something unique. They took a huge voluntary cut. That brought some breathing room for Kremmling and lots of other upstream water users. It's a little complicated, but Bergonzini said their sacrifice was not just to bail out upstream towns. By leaving water in upstream reservoirs, Kremmling could keep functioning, and the farmers had a fighting chance to salvage their season.

BERGONZINI: No one is going to have a full crop. There's just not enough water for that. But our entire goal was for everybody to have some.

THAKORE: Even then, she's not sure they'll have water stored past September. Other senior water rights holders helped, too. Lindsay DeFrates' group paid for an emergency release of water from upstream reservoirs. But that move - it'll be hard to pull in future drought years.

DEFRATES: If we don't get replenished, if we have another winter like the one we had, we can't pull this trick again.

THAKORE: One ranch close to Kremmling though just plain volunteered to help. Jim DeBell manages the Colorado River Cattle Ranch. It let one of their hayfields go completely dry so the town could have a little bit more water.

JIM DEBELL: We're proud to be part of the community, trying to help each other, take care of each other and work together between the municipalities and the ranchers.

THAKORE: Kremmling did not run out of water, and they're almost in the clear. By the end of the month, they'll have a new water treatment plant, and their backup pump will be fixed. But their reservoirs are still devastatingly low, and the cooperation this year - it might not last if the state has another terrible winter. So after this season, like many in Colorado, they'll pray for snow. For NPR News, I'm Ishan Thakore in Kremmling, Colorado.

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