About one hundred La Plata County farmers and ranchers will go without irrigation water this spring after a failure in the Thompson Eperson Ditch off County Road 502 rendered delivery of irrigation water impossible.
Donald McIntyre, ditch rider for the shareholders of the irrigation water, adjusts the water levels for the dispersal of water; he said it could be up to a month before the system is restored.
A small leak eroded the foundation of the ditch, he said.
“It looks like there was a little water leaking out through the bank, and it got on the shale, and the dirt slipped out down toward the bottom of the hill,” he said. “It’s probably going to be a month before we get everything back in place and its safe to run water.”
McIntyre said there was about 15 acre-feet when the ditch failed last week. An acre foot of water by volume is a an area of water a foot in depth, 66 feet wide and 660 feet long. The irrigation system is allocated to run at 35.4 acre-feet for summer.
Pipes will be used to rebuild the section of the ditch, McIntyre said.
The irrigation canal was built in the early part of the 20th century, he said.
“It has been there since the early 1900s,” McIntyre said, “and this is the first time this has ever happened.”
bmathis@durangoherald.com
