Colorado Public Radio featured Sherman & Howard water attorney James Eklund in its podcast series “Parched,” in which he discusses viable solutions to the crisis facing the Colorado River and millions of water users & food-eating Americans.

The “Parched” series examines the aridification and overuse of the Colorado River, which has led to a major infrastructure crisis in the Western United States. The series looks at the crisis from all angles. The latest episode, “Water For Pay,” features Eklund’s idea to pay farmers and ranchers in a voluntary, compensated, and temporary way not to consume all the water they have rights to, which is tricky in an environment where laws require them to use it or lose it. Reporter Michael Elizabeth Sakas follows Eklund to his family’s ranch in Collbran and the Colorado State Fair in Pueblo, where he rallied support last fall for voluntary, compensated, and temporary water conservation. Some of the solutions he pushed for have made their way into the federal and interstate response in the form of the System Conservation Pilot Program reauthorization.

“Senators John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet get the assignment,” Eklund said. “We’re better off authoring our own destiny and leveraging a good water year like this in the face of increased volatility and uncertainty.”

With agriculture consuming at least 80% of the water off the river, the sector must be part of the solution, Eklund says, and he believes agricultural producers can lead the way.

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“I am a big believer in the power and innovation of agricultural producers to get that job done. I’m not such a big fan of hoping for rain.”

 “In order to avoid the contents of Lake Powell declining to a crisis level, we need to put water in that bucket. This is a manner and mechanism that can actually change the levels of that reservoir because you’re talking about 80 to 90% of the use in the basin being in agriculture, it really has to be an agricultural-led solution to the problem of declining reservoirs.”

 “Partially borne out of frustration, but I’d say more so out of my … eternal optimism that we can control our own destiny in the Colorado River Basin. I’m running around the state every chance I get, any person that’s in agriculture I can talk to about this, in the hope that a critical mass or chorus of voices can rise up and implore the state to act.”

The podcast is 39 minutes long, and it can be accessed here.