Turn the tap in Aurora and water flows. Most residents never think about what it takes to make that happen. But behind that simple act, Aurora has been quietly rewriting one of the oldest — and most contentious — stories in the West: the fight between cities and farms over water.

For decades, Colorado’s cities followed a pattern known as “buy and dry.” Urban growth meant purchasing agricultural water rights, diverting them to municipal systems, and leaving rural land to die. The cities thrived. The farm towns shriveled. But Aurora is doing something different — something that could become a model for the future.

Instead of permanently taking water away from farms, Aurora has begun entering into shared-use partnerships that allow farmers to keep working the land most years, while the city temporarily diverts water only in drought years. It’s called interruptible supply, and it’s a win for both sides. Farmers get a financial partner when times are tough, and the city gets a reliable drought reserve without destroying the communities that produce our food.

One such example is Aurora’s Catlin Canal partnership. Under the agreement, local farmers continue to cultivate their fields seven years out of 10. During the other three, Aurora takes the water it needs. When those fallow years end, the city helps re-establish crops, ensuring the soil stays healthy and the land remains productive. It’s an arrangement built not on extraction but on trust — a new kind of cooperation between the urban Front Range and the agricultural Arkansas Valley.

Much of this work is anchored at Rocky Ford, where Aurora’s water management team maintains thousands of acres of farmland and open pasture along the Arkansas River. There, city staff oversee grazing operations, irrigation improvements, and revegetation projects that keep the land alive while balancing municipal supply. What was once viewed as “foreign territory” for a Front Range city has become a living example of long-term stewardship — a partnership built on mutual respect rather than extraction.

The city’s staff and council deserve credit for recognizing that water, not land, defines the city’s future. Aurora is one of the fastest-growing communities in the state, yet its leaders are openly acknowledging that there’s a limit to how far growth can go. The reality is that Aurora’s water supply from the Arkansas River Basin is capped. Once that ceiling is reached, the city can’t just annex more land and assume the water will follow. Growth has to become intentional — designed to fit within the natural limits of supply.

That kind of realism marks a civic turning point. Aurora is no longer a city simply chasing expansion; it’s maturing into a community that understands the responsibility that comes with size. It’s learning that progress sometimes means knowing when to stop.

There’s also a moral dimension to what’s happening. In the past, city water projects often left rural counties with less water, lower tax revenue and empty storefronts. Aurora is working to avoid that. When farmland is converted for city use, the city makes payments in lieu of taxes to counties like Otero so they don’t lose vital revenue for schools and services. When Aurora buys water but not land, it helps farmers modernize irrigation systems and sustain their operations. The message is simple: urban prosperity shouldn’t come at the expense of rural collapse.

None of this is simple work. Aurora has to navigate a maze of state compacts, federal reservoirs, and local water boards — many of which don’t give the city formal representation, even as Aurora contributes financially. But the city’s water managers have adopted a posture that’s pragmatic, not combative: build relationships, keep promises, and find ways for everyone involved to benefit. In the world of Western water politics, that’s practically revolutionary.

Council members also understand that public education is critical. Most residents have little sense of where their water comes from or how limited it really is. That’s changing. The city is considering policies — like serving water in restaurants only upon request — not as mandates, but as conversation starters. Tours of Aurora’s treatment plants and trans-mountain projects are turning everyday citizens into advocates who finally grasp the complexity behind the faucet. As one council member put it, “We have to talk to people like they’re in second grade — because if they don’t understand, they can’t help.”

The deeper point is cultural. The old Western myth was that cities could grow endlessly if they were clever enough to move water from somewhere else. Aurora is quietly disproving that myth. Its leaders are showing that it’s possible to grow responsibly, to treat farmers as partners, and to plan for a future bounded by stewardship rather than conquest.

If Aurora succeeds in locking in a stable water portfolio while keeping the rural economies it touches alive, it won’t just secure its own future — it will have drawn a new map for the entire region. Other Front Range cities are watching. So are the rural communities that have long feared the sound of urban pipelines.

In a century when the West’s defining challenge is how to live within our limits, Aurora’s answer is refreshingly wise: don’t just buy water — earn it. Learn to farm, learn to share, and learn to grow only as fast as nature allows. That’s not just water policy. That’s what civic maturity looks like.

Michael A. Hancock is a retired high-tech business executive and a Coloradan since 1973. Originally from Texas, he is a musician, composer, software engineer and U.S. Air Force veteran whose wide-ranging interests — from science and religion to politics, the arts and philosophy — shape his perspective on culture, innovation and what it means to be a Coloradan.