How this tribe survives in Colorado’s worst drought region with as little as 10% of its hard-won water supply
Ute Mountain Ute irrigation manager Michael Vicenti looked out from his reservation — toward the Navajos’ sacred “winged rock” and across the arid Southwest — then focused in front of his feet on three-foot-high stalks of blue corn. They stood straight. But these growing stalks, established on one inch of water per week, now would require twice that much. And Vicenti winced, confiding doubts about whether Ute farming can endure in a hotter, drier world. Each evening he calls operators of McPhee Reservoir to set the flow into a 39-mile clay canal — the Utes’ only source of water — and makes a difficult choice. Either he saves scarce water or he saves corn.