Western Colorado water purchases stir up worries about the future of farming

Water Asset Management, a New York City-based hedge fund, is buying irrigated land on the western slope of Colorado as an investment in the future potential value of the water. Although the company isn’t doing anything illegal, its actions have rekindled deep-seated and long-held fears about water in the West—that it could hasten the death of agricultural communities’ way of life and create an unregulated market for water that would drive up prices and drive out family farms.