In a year when water is proving to be an increasingly rare commodity, a few irrigators near Yellow Jacket have been trying to take more than their fair share.

According to John Porter, manager of the Dolores Water Conservancy District, the problem stems from the Fairview Pump Plant, which serves between 20 and 25 irrigators. Porter said that because of the drought-like conditions this spring, some of these farmers have been using more than they have been allocated, and this increased demand has shortened the supply for down-pipe users.

Irrigators are allocated 5.6 gallons per minute of water per acre, and 1.96 acre feet per year. Because the pump plants are only at peak 15 to 20 days a year, the district designed the system so that irrigators could take more water if needed. This year they reached an early peak during the week of May 20.

But at peak demand, the system is not designed to increase pressure to pump out more water, so the water managers (also known as "ditch riders") have to adjust the pressure valves along the pipelines to make up for the increased demand.

The irrigators in the 8,011-acre Fairview block met Thursday night with managers of the water conservancy district and crafted a plan to deal with the problem. Porter said 12 Yellow Jacket farmers attended the meeting and came to a unanimous consensus to manage the over consumption of water internally, on a block-by-block basis.

Within the Fairview block, the irrigators have agreed that the most equitable decision would be to limit all of the users in the block to 125 percent of their allocation, and impose a limit of 7 gallons per minute at each lateral box. No fines were implemented, and the 12 irrigators attending agreed to voluntarily comply.

Porter said the district called the meeting in the hopes that a solution could be worked out quickly.

"Our first obligation is that every irrigator gets their fair share of water," said Porter.

The Fairview system has the capacity to deliver 45,000 gallons per minute — enough to deliver 5.6 gallons to the entire block. The pump plant was designed to sustain this amount, but certain sections of the system have lost pressure recently because of higher draws closer to the pump plant.

The district presented several options to fix the problem at the meeting. The most extreme was to limit the production of alfalfa from the current rate of 88 percent to 55 percent, which is the percentage the system was designed to meet. Alfalfa requires more water than other crops.

All of the irrigators and water managers agreed that such an extreme measure was not necessary.

"We’ve all known for 10 years there would have to be a plan developed like this sooner or later, and the shoe finally fell," said Porter.

Joe Mahaffey, a board member of the Dolores Water Conservancy District and Fairview irrigator, said that he will renozzle some of his siderolls and use less water now.

Mahaffey said that he recently calculated how much water he was using.

"I was still using more water than what the Bureau had allocated, and that surprised me," said Mahaffey. "And I think a lot of irrigators are in that situation."

The district will be sending out letters to each irrigator, noting how much water they are using.

"Once they realize what it is that we were allocated, they’ll go ahead and figure it out and use a little bit of different management," said Mahaffey.

The last time the district had a problem with water hogs was in 1996 when there were similarly dry conditions. But it rained before the plan the district designed needed to be implemented.

The district has also announced that an additional 3,500 acre feet of unsold water will be available for full-service irrigators this season. This will increase the maximum capacity of water outtake from 29 to 30.5 inches per allocated acre. A surcharge of 105 percent of the base delivered rate will be charged to these users.