Bill Campbell, ditch rider for Boulder & White Rock Ditch & Reservoir Company

Bill Campbell has been a ditch rider, formally titled "water superintendent," for Boulder & White Rock Ditch & Reservoir Company (BWRD) since 2016.

Campbell said, "They call me a water superintendent, but I call myself a ditch rider because, in the old days, the person in charge of providing water from the ditch to the shareholders would ride their horses along the ditch to monitor the flows." During the irrigation season, a ditch rider controls and maintains ditches with the goal of efficiently delivering water to local farms and ranches.

His winter responsibility is to clear the ditch of obstructions, including maintenance, tree removal, and ditch bank protection using structural or bioengineering methods. He says, "I always hope for minimal winds, so trees are not uprooted and end up in the ditch during the winter." In the summer, Campbell manages the flow at the headgates and ensures that water orders reach the shareholders.

He loves water and said, "Water travels at one mile per hour, taking six hours to travel the six miles from the headgates off Boulder Creek to the Sixmile Reservoir."

Campbell explained that this is how Sixmile Reservoir derived its name. Sixmile Reservoir is unique as it is number two in the state for filling priority. The state's water rights system is administered according to the Doctrine of Prior Appropriation. The basis of this concept is that "senior" water rights are the oldest and have first priority in times of shortages, based on the "first in time, first in right" principle. The water leaves Sixmile Reservoir and takes a serendipitous eleven-mile route, traveling east to Panama Reservoir at the northeast corner of U.S. Highway 287 and U.S. Highway 52.

Campbell's two greatest challenges include fire and technology. Ditch maintenance requires burning every spring due to the accumulation of vegetative debris, which obstructs water flow in the ditch. To burn the ditches, they use propane torches to start the fire and pull a trailer with a large holding tank of water to extinguish the fire if necessary.

Campbell said, "Since the Marshall Fire, everyone has been on high alert and scared." Occasionally, people driving by will see the smoke and call 911 or contact the sheriff's dispatch, which can burden the Sheriff's Department. It is important to note that all entities preparing for an agricultural burn must contact fire dispatch before burning, and burn permits are now issued and managed by the Sheriff's Department.

Before technology, Campbell had to physically manage all four headgates at Boulder Creek and coordinate with Boulder Left Hand and North Boulder Farmer's ditch riders and the local water commissioner. In the old days, if the city released excess water, it typically took four hours for the water to arrive at the headgates, requiring him to drive to Boulder to manually open the headgate and intercept the excess water. New technology consisting of motorized headgates and telemetry now allows Campbell to manage the headgates and flows from an app on his phone, freeing him for other important duties.

Campbell thinks the same technology used on the Boulder headgates can be used for individual shareholders. The current process has him manually opening the shareholder's gate and locking it so they do not adjust the flow rate while irrigating. This can be problematic if the shareholder's water becomes unmanageable due to a major storm event as 58 storm drains flow into the BWRD ditch. This situation could produce flooding on an adjacent property. With technology, regardless of location, he could immediately close the headgate, thus mitigating the flood situation. With the declining cost of motorized headgates and flow meters, this is something that may happen in the future.

The part of the job he likes least involves dealing with non-shareholders who lack knowledge of his duties. BWRD owns 17 miles of ditch, four miles of which are either contiguous or winding through the private landowner's property and open space. BWRD has the right to enter a landowner's property to maintain the ditch and ditch banks, yet some landowners and open space users take offense to Campbell's presence and try to refuse him access, which can make his job challenging.

The part of the job he likes best is "being outdoors and working with the shareholders, who are some of the nicest people in the county" Campbell reflected.