As drought hits farms, investors lay claim to Colorado water
Michael Jones ducked under an idle sprinkler and strode across the sandy soil where he planned to plant drought-resistant crops, hoping to save water amid the driest period in more than 1,200 years. … A company known as Renewable Water Resources (RWR) aims to drill a series of deep wells on a nearby ranch it owns and pipe the water more than 200 miles north to a Denver suburb, where sprinklers rotate on manicured lawns. The firm recently sought $10 million from Douglas County to kickstart its project. … If the state engineer’s office, its water court, and federal regulators were to approve RWR’s plan, it would mark the first time that private investors could ship water from an aquifer in one part of the state to a community in another.