THE BUFFALO COMMONS SPECIAL REPORT
Part 5 of 8: The Aurora Water Grab: Drying Up Eastern Colorado
An investigation by High Country Advocate
How systematic water purchases are destroying agricultural communities and clearing the way for rewilding
Aurora’s recent spree of water acquisitions across Eastern Colorado—$130 million spent in just a few years—reveals a coordinated strategy that threatens to replicate the devastation that transformed Crowley County in the 1970s. But this time, the stakes are higher. As the city systematically purchases water rights from agricultural regions, it’s creating economic conditions that force remaining farmers to sell, often to conservation organizations like Southern Plains Land Trust. The result? Agricultural land transformed into prairie, farm families displaced, and rural communities hollowed out.
The Buy-and-Dry Template
Crowley County stands as a cautionary tale. In the 1970s, Aurora and Colorado Springs purchased Arkansas River farmland primarily for water rights. The water went to the Front Range. The land was left behind. Over 100,000 acres of irrigated farmland were lost. Crowley County, once thriving with more than 50,000 irrigated acres, now has fewer than 5,000. One local called it ‘a checkerboard of vital green and desperate brown.’
That pattern is being repeated today across multiple basins simultaneously. Aurora is buying in the Arkansas Valley, the South Platte Basin, and attempted the San Luis Valley. The city insists new purchases aren’t traditional buy-and-dry—land will continue being farmed ‘when water is available.’ But farmers know the reality: Aurora takes water during dry years, precisely when farmers need it most. You cannot maintain a viable farm with unpredictable multi-year gaps in water. It’s buy-and-dry with better marketing.
Rocky Ford: 150 Years of Heritage at Risk
In 2024, Aurora purchased 4,806 acres in Otero County for $80 million, including Arkansas River water rights. The city contracted a private company to farm the land ‘when not using water,’ supposedly growing alfalfa during wet years.
The alfalfa plan reveals either stunning agricultural ignorance or deliberate misdirection. Alfalfa requires 4-6 acre-feet per season—you grow it when you have reliable water, not during uncertain ‘wet years.’ Aurora will take water during droughts when the city needs it. Dry years mean no farming. No farmer can maintain viable operations with unpredictable gaps.
What’s being destroyed isn’t generic farmland. This is Rocky Ford cantaloupe country—150 years of specialty crop heritage. Rocky Ford cantaloupes, grown since the 1870s, are world-famous for their 15% sugar content versus 10% elsewhere. By 1926, Rocky Ford produced 95% of U.S. cantaloupe seed. Hirakata Farms, now fifth-generation and operating 100 years, produces nearly 2 million cantaloupes annually after investing $1 million in facilities.
Specialty crops require precise irrigation timing. Cantaloupes need daily water for 2-3 weeks during critical growth stages. You cannot do this with intermittent water. Infrastructure investments—cold storage, packing houses, processing equipment—require viable operations. The economic multiplier extends beyond farm gates: packing houses, transportation networks, seasonal and year-round jobs, tourism through the Rocky Ford Cantaloupe Festival, local pride and identity. Aurora is trading all this for alfalfa (maybe) or dry land.
Jack Goble of the Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy put it bluntly: ‘I haven’t found a farmer yet that believes that [intermittent farming] is a viable farming situation. It’s tough to bring that land back.’ A Crowley County resident was more direct: ‘Aurora snatching water rights in these very real and destructive buy-and-dry schemes has left a VERY bitter taste in the mouths of farmers of the Arkansas River Valley. The cities destroyed the rural lives of thousands of people here.’
Multi-Basin Assault
Aurora’s South Platte Basin purchases span Weld, Washington, Logan, and Morgan counties. In 2020, the city spent $16.7 million near Merino, $27 million near Evans. In 2023, another $7.75 million near Greeley. Total northeastern Colorado investment: over $50 million.
The city’s long-term goals reveal the scope: acquire or convert approximately 7,000 acre-feet by 2040, with an additional 12,000 acre-feet by 2055—a total of 19,000 acre-feet from agricultural conversion. This requires buying considerably more farmland. The Colorado Water Plan estimates more than 100,000 acres of irrigated land will be lost in the South Platte Basin, with urban providers needing an additional 183,000 acre-feet. Where’s it coming from? Agricultural conversions.
The San Luis Valley proposal shows Front Range desperation. Renewable Water Resources proposed pumping 7 billion gallons per year from San Luis Valley aquifers to supply Douglas County suburbs, drying up at least 22,667 irrigated acres. Douglas County planned to use $20 million in COVID relief funds—public money for private water grab. Community opposition and Governor Polis blocked the plan, but the threat remains. No agricultural region is safe.
The Water-to-Rewilding Pipeline
Here’s the full pipeline: Aurora buys water rights, leaving land dry or available for only intermittent farming. Farmers can’t operate without reliable water. Land values crater. Remaining farmers struggle and go broke. Distressed properties come on market at low prices. Southern Plains Land Trust positions itself to purchase exactly these properties—dried-out, economically marginal farmland acquired cheaply and ‘restored’ to prairie.
It’s not just private land. As our recent investigation revealed, the State Land Board under Nicole Rosmarino has begun using carbon leases to remove even state trust lands from agricultural use. In October 2025, the Board approved Colorado’s first biological carbon lease—480 acres near Alamosa in the San Luis Valley, the same region where Aurora attempted its water grab. The carbon lease, based on dubious sequestration science and generating minimal school funding, locks up land for 40 years. Whether through water removal, private acquisition, or carbon leases, the result is the same: agricultural land converted to ‘conservation’ uses, piece by piece.
The convergence isn’t accidental. Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s State Wildlife Action Plan identifies grasslands—including former agricultural lands—as conservation priorities. Governor Polis has appointed rewilding advocates to key positions. State policy provides no protection for agricultural water rights or communities.
A Policy Choice
Aurora needs water—cities grow, people need water, that’s reality. But how Colorado allows cities to secure water—buying out entire agricultural regions, destroying rural communities, offering no protections for heritage areas—is a policy choice.
When Aurora buys 4,806 acres in Rocky Ford, the city gets water. But Colorado loses 150 years of agricultural heritage, multi-generational family farms, a world-famous specialty crop region, and a rural community’s economic foundation. The state could require alternative water sources—better conservation, stormwater capture, greywater reuse, desalination. The state could protect agricultural heritage regions from permanent water transfers. The state could provide compensation to affected communities beyond individual sale prices. None of this happens because state policy prioritizes Front Range growth above all else.
When Aurora’s purchased land lies dry, when remaining farmers go broke, when land comes up for sale at distressed prices—Southern Plains Land Trust is there to buy it, remove it from agriculture permanently, and ‘restore’ it to prairie. State agencies assist with planning. Governor Polis’s appointees celebrate each conversion.
Aurora isn’t building the Buffalo Commons. The city’s water managers are simply trying to secure water for a growing population. But Aurora’s water grab is clearing the way for those who are. Every dried-out farm, every bankrupted rancher, every hollowed-out rural community creates conditions for transforming Eastern Colorado from agricultural landscape to ‘restored’ prairie. The mechanism is water. The result is rewilding. And it’s happening right now.
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