Western Landowners Alliance

2025 Master Irrigator Program: San Luis Valley
2025-01-06 - 2025-02-24 | CO
Colorado Master Irrigator is a comprehensive educational course available to irrigators.​
Colorado Master Irrigator’s goal is to equip producers with the knowledge they need to evaluate the potential pros, cons, costs, and methods to help pay for/recoup costs of implementing different tools and strategies to improve water and energy use efficiency and conservation, soil health, and profitability on their operations.
Start your registration for the 2025 SLV program!
3 Simple Steps:

Check that you are eligible! This program is for producers & farm managers irrigating in the San Luis Valley. If this is you, continue to #2!
Enrollment is on a first come, first serve basis. Pre-register by entering your info using the form below. ​
Seats are limited! The first 25 eligible people who enroll using the form below will receive follow-up email instructions by email from CO Master Irrigator program coordinator on how to complete and pay for their registration. The fee for this course is $100, which you will be able to pay by check or credit card. Once 25 seats are filled, additional applicants will be notified by email of their position on the program waitlist.

Please note: Enrollment is limited to one person per operation per year.
100 Level Class: January

Session 1 – January 6
Session 2 – January 13
Session 3 – January 20

200 Level Class: February

Session 1 – February 10
Session 2 – February 17
Session 3 – February 24

Spring 2025 Semester Low-Tech Restoration Workshop Series
2025-01-07 - 2025-04-22
The purpose of the Low-Tech Process-Based Restoration (LT-PBR) workshop series is to provide restoration practitioners with guidelines for implementing a subset of low-tech tools—namely beaver dam analogues (BDAs) and post-assisted log structures (PALS)—for initiating process-based restoration in structurally-starved riverscapes. Utah State University’s Restoration Consortium will describe ‘low-tech process-based restoration’ (LT-PBR) as a practice of using simple, low unit-cost, structural additions (e.g. wood and beaver dams) to riverscapes to mimic functions and initiate specific processes. Hallmarks of this approach include:

An explicit focus on the processes that a low-tech restoration intervention is meant to promote
A conscious effort to use cost-effective, low-tech treatments (e.g. hand-built, natural materials, non-engineered, short-term design life-spans) because of the need to efficiently scale-up application.
‘Letting the system do the work’ which defers critical decision making to riverscapes and nature’s ecosystem engineers

Spring LT-PBR Dates

Course #
Course Name
Dates

CEWA 5620
Introduction to LT-PBR
Jan 7, 14 & 21

CEWA 5622
Planning of LT-PBR
Jan 28 & Feb 4, 11

CEWA 5621
Science and Case Studies of LT-PBR
Feb 18, 25 & Mar 4

CEWA 5623
Design of LT-PBR
Mar 18, 25 & Apr 1

CEWA 5624
Implementation of LT-PBR
Apr 8 & 12*

CEWA 5625
Adaptive Management of LT-PBR
Apr 15 & 22

Registration opens November 14th.

Time: Tuesdays 1:30 – 4:15
Format: Online via Zoom (*April 15 9a-5p Saturday field trip in Logan, UT)
Cost: $315 per course (*$415 for CEWA 5624)
Courses can be taken individually or as a series.
Contact Ryan Thomas, restoration@usu.edu, with any questions.
