It’s time to speak up for the ditches

“Snow starts on a mountain. The sun comes and it melts it away. Down through the valley to be collected in a waterway. It continues to travel for as long as it is needed. Until it gets to the end where the ocean is greeted. But maybe it stops in a town not far and travels through the ditches to water God’s growth. To give way to a means of life bigger than our own. I’ve grown up around these ditches. Been here my whole life. I’ve taken them for granted never realizing I played with mountaintops and sunlight.” -Caleb W., Gunnison High School student

United by our love for the historic Gunnison town ditches, the community came together on May 16 to celebrate them, learn about them, renew our commitment to them, and honor the blessing that they are in our lives and in our valley. A common theme was that our town ditches bring us together as neighbors, in partnership with city employees, to take care of this incredible gift of community irrigation water from the Gunnison River. 

These same ditches are also at risk. 

The next opportunity to gather is on Tuesday, May 26, 5:30 p.m., at City Hall, when results of an engineering firm’s “Ditch Study” will be presented to the public (that’s you and me) and the city council members we elected. This study will come with suggestions on how to change the town ditch system and city council will be asked to vote on whether or not public works can move forward with plans set forth in the study. One of the ditch study’s aims is to answer the question posed by Public Works Director Pete Rice: “How to improve the city ditch system to deliver to more people and efficiently?” That’s code for expand it, pipe it and meter it to pay for construction and maintenance. 

It is very important that city council members don’t cast their votes in an empty room with only themselves and the city manager and public works director.

If you love the ditch, now is the time to get engaged and get vocal and give our friends and neighbors on the city council the support they need to ask tough questions about proposed changes to the town ditch system. If we become engaged and vocal, the city council members who represent us can be the ones who will lead the city in the direction that we want it to go. 

The town ditch system is the tie that binds us, not just to each other as neighbors and caretakers of the ditch system, but also to those who loved Gunnison before us and those who will love it in the future. It is up to us, the people who live in Gunnison today, to renew our commitment to the ditches and do the good work of keeping them clean, using them wisely, and engaging actively with the mayor and city council to ensure they know that we want to partner with them in maintaining this 143-year-old legacy that is the lifeblood of the community.  

Too many of us do not understand the history and importance of the town ditches to everything that makes Gunnison the green jewel that we love. Before the ditches, there were no trees in town. The ditches were hand-dug in 1883. Cottonwood and pine tree saplings were given to residents to plant alongside them to beautify the town.  A 1915 newspaper story stated that “the foresight of those early citizens has born fruit” making Gunnison “a city of waving green foliage as pretty as any in western Colorado.”

And too many of us have come to take them for granted as if the trees that they water, the gardens they grow and the happiness they give will last forever without our constant caretaking and commitment. When we expect the City of Gunnison to take full care of our ditches, we should not be surprised if the city begins to think of the ditches as theirs to control and manage to whatever end they prioritize. And in 2026, this end is what the city calls “Full Build.”

Based on a 2020 Growth Study, “Full Build” is a Gunnison that is three times bigger in terms of people, water use, traffic, crime, noise, lights, pollution and houses. The city manager and public works are currently focused on putting in the infrastructure to support full build. No one seems to be asking themselves if “Full Build” is what the people want or if it’s even a practical reality in 2026 when high prices are driving people away from Colorado in droves.

To do “Full Build,” the ditches become nothing more than a means of conveyance to deliver water to new and future developments envisioned to the east, south, north and west of Gunnison. In other words, the ditch system that is the heart and soul of our community is at risk of a water grab. A water grab not from the Front Range or downstream, but a water grab from within.

If the city proceeds with current plans to pipe our town ditches and use them like straws to move water through the town from the Gunnison River to new development, then we will surely dry out our green jewel. The giant cottonwood and pine trees that have thus outlived the early settlers who planted them will die in turn and we will all be rushing to buy air conditioners in a hot, shadeless town of dried grass that knows no sound of living, moving, burbling water.

When the ditches were piped in Lake City, many big trees died. And a recent study done by Patrick Kenney, who earned a Master of Environmental Management from Western Colorado University, showed that if the city were to pipe the town ditches, it would similarly harm the trees that now line them.

The question the city should be asking is not how to change and expand the town ditch system for future growth, but how to maintain with minimal cost a historic legacy that has benefited the community for 143 years. And we, the citizens, should be asking what we can do to help. We need to be more involved in cleaning and maintaining the ditches in partnership with city employees. 

If you care about the historic town ditches and want to be part of the next wave of citizens who clean them, care for them, and tend to them so we can pass the green jewel of Gunnison on to future generations, then it is very important you attend the Tuesday, May 26, city council meeting at 5:30 pm.