Session 1: Protecting the Benefits of Irrigated Agriculture

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Liz is a native of Colorado’s Western Slope, where the importance of water to agriculture has always been a constant in her life. Having spent her entire adult career in agriculture, she’s seen firsthand how closely the success of our communities and landscapes depends on reliable water supplies. As those supplies continue to diminish, she believe it is critical to deepen our understanding of base flows in streams and use that knowledge to guide wise, informed decisions about how we manage this most vital resource.

Melissa Wills is the Community Funding Partnership Program Manager for the Colorado River District – leading the District’s flagship funding program. Melissa oversees the distribution of about $4 Million in grants annually and works closely with partners to execute strategic initiatives. In leading the program, she works closely with landowners, community leaders, nonprofits, and organizations to strategically position communities to be able to better adapt to a hotter and drier climate. She has over a decade of nonprofit and philanthropic experience through work with the Vail Valley Foundation and the completion of the El Pomar Foundation Fellowship Program - a two-year intensive nonprofit and philanthropic executive training in Colorado Springs. Melissa has been with the District since 2022. She lives in Carbondale, CO and can be found backcountry skiing, mountain biking, and backpacking. text goes here

The Intermountain West does not have enough water. The result is a familiar math problem: too little water and too great of demand. Palmer Land Conservancy brings nearly fifty years of experience in land and water conservation in the Arkansas River Basin, where competing needs including agriculture, municipal and industrial use, the environment, and recreation strain limited water resources. Palmer develops and implements solutions that meet a wide variety of community needs. This presentation will highlight the Bessemer Farmland Conservation Project, the cornerstone of Palmer's Water for Life program. For nine years, Palmer Land Conservancy has led this water optimization initiative to mitigate impacts to the local community from a mass sale of water rights in Pueblo, Colorado. Lessons learned from this project translate to water scarcity challenges across the region.

Dillon, an Alabama native, joined Palmer Land Conservancy after working for the Salazar Center for North American Conservation. As the senior conservation manager, he is responsible for helping to advance critical agricultural, water, and community-building projects that are of local, state, and national importance. Dillon is a 2023 recipient of Pueblo's Emerging Leadership award by the Pueblo Latino Chamber of Commerce and received his Masters of Business Administration from Colorado State University. Dillon is an avid outdoorsman who enjoys exploring wild places with a camera, bow, or fly rod in hand, and when he does have cell service, you can find him in the kitchen connecting his experiences from the field to his table.