Collbran Conservancy District
A century-old irrigation system in western Colorado sustains farms, communities, and economies, but aging infrastructure mounting geological threats put its future—and the livelihoods it supports—at serious risk. This is the story of how Collbran Conservancy District is working to curb future losses by modernizing the system.
Collbran Conservancy District (CCD), like hundreds of irrigation communities around the west, provides water for farms and ranches, mostly via infrastructure engineered and built in the early 20th Century. The hundred-year-old systems were, for the most part, smartly designed linchpins that unlocked much of the arid west to highly productive agriculture that continues today. Collbran’s system is more complex than most; that complexity and changing conditions have led to great risk and great loss for CCD, as told by Bruce Michaelsen, CCD’s second-generation district manager.