MONTROSE, Colo. – Water gushed into an open stock tank on a high-country mesa, with a thin stream escaping onto the dry ground below. Scott Snyder stepped out from the shade, tightened a hose and stopped the loss.
“It’s just so much work. I hate dropping any of it,” said Snyder, who runs Mex and Sons Ranch near Montrose, Colorado, with his family.
By the time the ranch’s 800 cow-calf pairs had enough water to last until the next day — perhaps two — the job had taken eight trips, three vehicles and nine hours under punishing heat.
For many ranchers across the U.S. Rockies, moving water through rough country has become part of the daily routine. In the past, melting snow helped keep stock ponds, springs and creeks flowing through the summer. But this year brought the lowest snowpack ever recorded in the Upper Colorado River Basin, which spans Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico. A new study found that human-caused climate change made the snow drought about 14 times more likely.
The combination of scant snow and a so-far underwhelming monsoon season is adding time, expense and strain for producers already working to preserve family ranches while helping supply the nation’s demand for beef.
Water has become a constant challenge
Snyder and his brother Monte have been forced to adjust. Like other ranchers, they have cut back their herd, purchased hay to make up for what their land could not produce, moved cattle longer distances to find usable grazing and kept close watch for wildfires that could shift in their direction. Now, hauling drinking water is also on the list.
“If Mother Nature doesn’t want to help out here, we’re probably in a lot of trouble,” Snyder said.
Still, the Snyders count themselves lucky. A nearby landowner charges them to refill their 6,500-gallon (24,600-liter) water tanker from a reservoir. Late last week, he pulled up alongside another truck carrying a 3,000-gallon (11,360 liter) tank to water sheep.
Mark Ragsdale’s phone rings off the hook with neighbors asking the same question: Where can I find water?
During the day, he works as the state’s water commissioner for Norwood, where his cousin Snyder ranches. But morning, afternoon and evening, he is also hauling water to his small herd of 45 cow-calf pairs. He counts his luck that his solar-powered well is still producing and his herd is nearby.
His Dodge Ram’s tires churned through a muddy depression on a dirt road on a recent morning water run — a welcome sign of the first monsoonal rain that arrived the night before.
“It’s gonna take 10 years of above-normal (precipitation) to get back to what I consider normal,” Ragsdale said.
The good news about this drought
The good news is that this year’s snow drought in the Upper Colorado River Basin was so severe, the odds of a repeat this bad in the near future is low, said Adrienne Marshall, assistant professor of geology at the Colorado School of Mines and lead author on the study. Still, multiple years of lesser droughts can compound, and the odds of an extreme snow drought grow each year as greenhouse gas emissions, the main driver of climate change, continue to rise, she explained.
The record-setting low snow, after years of drought, prompted the Brays to expand their water truck fleet this year. Lance Bray, who owns 500 head with his brother Zandon, bought a flatbed truck with more than 300,000 miles (482,800 kilometers) on it to haul a 2,600-gallon (9,842-liter) water tank. It’s now their third flatbed dedicated for the chore.
Ranchers can apply for reimbursement from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to cover above-normal costs to transport water and feed due to drought, but there’s no getting back their time.
Drought takes a toll on ranchers
“I’m gonna fight like hell this year so I can turn around and fight like hell next year,” Zandon Bray said. He and his brother restarted the cattle operation two years after the 2018 drought season prompted their dad to sell the herd.
They love ranching and are trying to operate more sustainably, running fewer head than their father did when grass was more plentiful and nutritious. But the emotional toll grows heavier as each year passes without meaningful moisture.
“Sometimes it’s by 10 o’clock in the morning or by the end of the day, you’re just like, man, I can’t do this anymore,” Zandon Bray said.
The weight of water tanks on Stanford Salazar’s trailer caused a tire blowout that obliterated the rim. He was already running late to his day job at the Jicarilla Apache planning office in northern New Mexico.
It has been five years since hauling stock water became a daily chore for Salazar. Few of his 14 ponds hold any water these days.
“With the changing of weather, we’re not getting big winters. We used to get 4 to 5 feet (1.2 to 1.5 meters) of snow in winter. Now we’re lucky to get a foot,” Salazar said.
In central Utah, Jeff Christensen is drilling two 500-foot (152-meter) deep wells he hopes will reduce his hauling chores. But first they need to reach the water table, which is lower now without as much snowmelt to refill it.
“I think they’re dang close to 20 grand a well now. So if we don’t hit water, we’re in trouble,” he said.
Half the cost is being covered with a grant from Utah’s Grazing Improvement Program, which invests millions annually to create more sustainable, productive ranches.
“I spend the majority of my time on water,” Christensen said. “I’m either hauling it, cussing the lack of it, or trying to find more of it.”
_____
The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit
