Senators Michael Bennet (Colo.), Jerry Moran (Kan.) and Martin Heinrich (N.M.) introduced the Voluntary Groundwater Conservation Act, legislation aiming to provide family farmers and ranchers with more flexibility to protect groundwater resources while maintaining their agricultural lands. This act will establish a voluntary groundwater easement program within USDA’s Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS). It will take inspiration from Colorado Open Lands, which pioneered the first groundwater easement in 2022 for the Rio Grande River Basin.
The Act aims to:
- Set up a Groundwater Conservation Easement Program at USDA, encouraging voluntary reductions in groundwater use on agricultural land to meet local, regional, or state groundwater goals.
- Enable the NRCS to refund transaction costs up to 5% and mandate advance payment for limited resource producers for covering these expenses.
- Provide farmers with long-term management flexibility to continue farming, giving them the liberty to decide how to reduce water use, as long as they meet their annual commitment to conserve.
- Guarantee fair compensation for farmers, basing the payment on the market value of the water right instead of a per-acre payment.
- Proposes that easement funds should not affect a farm’s adjusted gross income, and producers earning an adjusted gross income above $900,000 should be eligible for a waiver to partake in groundwater conservation easements from the secretary.
Sen. Bennet emphasized that this legislation draws from the experiences of Colorado’s San Luis Valley inhabitants who first implemented voluntary easements to uphold groundwater conservation, thus sustaining local agriculture and wildlife habitats. This provides a fresh instrument for farmers to voluntarily minimize groundwater usage while continuing with farming operations.
