Across the Rocky Mountain West, ranchers are turning water hauling into a daily livestock chore after a winter with too little snow, leaving ponds, springs, and creeks running dry. Near Montrose, Colorado, one ranch crew made eight trips over nine hours to deliver enough water for 800 cow-calf pairs, a snapshot of how quickly a snow problem can become a cattle problem.
An Associated Press report published by WBAL NewsRadio found ranchers across Colorado, Utah and New Mexico cutting herds, buying hay, drilling wells and expanding their truck fleets to keep animals watered through the summer.
A Record-Low Snowpack Is Showing Up In Stock Tanks
The Upper Colorado River Basin, which includes parts of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico, experienced its worst snowpack on record this year. A new PNAS study found that the West's snow drought was about 4.4 times more likely in today's climate than before widespread human-caused warming, while the odds in the Upper Colorado basin were roughly 14 times higher.
The problem was not simply a lack of precipitation. Warmer conditions caused more precipitation to fall as rain instead of snow and accelerated the melt, leaving less water stored in the mountains for late summer. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service warned that a record-low April snowpack was likely to reduce water availability across much of the West.
Ranchers Are Shrinking Herds And Buying More Equipment
At Mex and Sons Ranch near Montrose, Scott and Monte Snyder have reduced their herd, purchased hay and moved cattle farther to find usable forage. Their water tanker holds 6,500 gallons, but even that capacity did not eliminate the need for repeated runs across rugged country, according to the AP report carried by WBAL.
Other ranchers are making similar calculations. Mark Ragsdale is hauling water for 45 cow-calf pairs, the Bray brothers now have three flatbed trucks dedicated to moving water for a 500-head operation, and Stanford Salazar has been hauling stock water daily for five years as most of his ponds have stopped holding water.
Federal Aid Can Cover Some Costs, Not The Lost Time
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency says its Emergency Assistance for Livestock, Honeybees and Farm-Raised Fish program can help eligible producers with costs tied to transporting water and feed during qualifying drought conditions. That may soften the financial hit, but it does not replace the labor, fuel, equipment wear or missed workdays involved in making multiple water runs.
In central Utah, Jeff Christensen is drilling two wells roughly 500 feet deep in hopes of ending his own hauling routine. Each well is expected to cost about $20,000, with half of Christensen's drilling expense covered through a grant from Utah's Grazing Improvement Program.
Utah And Colorado Are Turning To Grants And Restrictions
The Utah Department of Agriculture and Food describes the Grazing Improvement Program as a cost-share grant program that supports projects including livestock water developments, fencing and vegetation treatments. Hoodline previously reported that 13 Utah counties received federal disaster designations this spring as drought squeezed grazing conditions and ranch finances.
The water crunch is also reaching cities and river managers. Salt Lake City has urged conservation after an exceptionally dry winter, while Denver Water has limited outdoor use as managers confront a season in which mountain snow arrived early, melted quickly and left reservoirs facing a much smaller natural refill.
For ranchers, the immediate math is brutally practical: fewer animals, more hay, deeper wells and trucks that spend the day carrying water instead of doing anything else. The long-term warning is harder to ignore, because when snowmelt stops reliably filling the range, the cost of keeping a family cattle operation alive lands on the people already doing the hauling.
