What Does a Ditch Rider Do?

A ditch rider is the person a mutual ditch company hires to physically run the ditch during the irrigation season — opening and closing headgates, delivering water to shareholders in the order and amount they're entitled to, walking the ditch to find breaks and blockages, and generally making sure the water that left the river actually arrives where it's supposed to. It's a seasonal, often part-time job, and in a lot of Colorado ditch companies it's still done more or less the way it's been done for a hundred years: on foot, on an ATV, or in a pickup, checking headgates one by one.

The Job, Day to Day

• Delivering water in order. Shareholders typically call in or notify the company when they want water, and the ditch rider works through those requests according to the company's rotation or priority rules, opening and closing headgates to move water where it's needed.
• Running headgates and structures. Every diversion point along the ditch has a headgate or check structure that controls how much water leaves the main ditch for a given lateral or field. The ditch rider adjusts these constantly through the season.
• Walking and inspecting the ditch. Ditches wash out, silt in, get blocked by beaver dams and fallen trees, and develop leaks. Someone has to physically find these problems — often before a shareholder notices their water didn't show up.
• Smoothing disputes between shareholders. Water turns, timing, and who's "next" can be a source of real friction, especially in dry years. A good ditch rider knows the system, knows the people, and can usually settle a disagreement over a headgate before it turns into a call to the board.
• Reporting back. The ditch rider is often the board's eyes on the ground — flagging maintenance the company needs to budget for, noting which shareholders are shorting their turns, and keeping informal records of deliveries.

How the Ditch Rider Fits With the Secretary and the Board

It's easy to conflate the ditch rider with the secretary, since both are central to how a ditch company runs day to day, but they do very different jobs. The secretary handles the corporate side: the share ledger, meeting minutes, assessment notices, certificates — the paperwork that makes the company a functioning corporation. The ditch rider handles the physical side: the actual water, moving through the actual ditch. The board sets policy and levies assessments; the ditch rider and the secretary are the two people who carry that policy out in practice, one in the field and one at the desk.

In a lot of smaller companies, the ditch rider reports informally to the president or to whichever board member handles operations, while assessment billing tied to any special maintenance work usually flows back through the secretary and treasurer. On bigger systems, the ditch rider might be closer to a formal employee with defined hours; on smaller ones, it might be a neighbor with the right truck and a lot of patience, paid a modest seasonal stipend.

Is a ditch rider the same as a water commissioner?

No. A water commissioner is a state employee — part of the Colorado Division of Water Resources — who administers water rights across an entire water district, including deciding when a ditch's priority date entitles it to divert from the river at all. A ditch rider works for a single ditch company and handles delivery within that company's system once the water's already been diverted. The two often talk to each other regularly, especially during a call on the river, but they answer to different organizations.

Why hasn't this job been automated away?

Some larger systems have added remote-monitored headgates and telemetry over the years, but most Colorado ditches are still small, old, gravity-fed systems where the value is in local knowledge — knowing that a particular headgate sticks, that a particular field always needs water first on a hot week, that a particular shareholder's call means something's actually wrong versus just impatience. That kind of judgment is hard to replace with a sensor, which is a big part of why the role has stuck around largely unchanged.

A Seasonal Job With Year-Round Stakes

Most ditch riders work only during the irrigation season — roughly April through October in much of Colorado, depending on elevation and snowpack — but the decisions made during those months carry weight the rest of the year. A ditch rider who lets a headgate silt in, or who plays favorites with water turns, creates problems the board and secretary end up dealing with well after the ditch has been shut down for winter, whether that's a shareholder dispute at the annual meeting or an unbudgeted repair bill in the spring.

Because the position touches every shareholder directly, it's often one of the more visible jobs in the company, even though it isn't an officer role and the person holding it usually isn't on the board. A ditch rider who's fair, consistent, and willing to explain why a decision was made tends to prevent far more disputes than one who simply enforces the rotation without comment. That's part of why boards often hold onto a good ditch rider for years, much like they hold onto a good secretary — the job runs on trust built up over seasons, not just technical skill.

How does someone become a ditch rider?

There's no license or certification involved. Most ditch riders are hired informally by the board — often a neighbor, a shareholder, or someone recommended by the outgoing rider — based on availability, equipment, and a working knowledge of the ditch system. Pay is typically a modest seasonal stipend or hourly rate set by the board, reflecting the part-time, local nature of the work rather than a full-time wage.

Ditch rider duties, pay, and reporting lines are set by each company's own practice and bylaws, and vary quite a bit from one ditch to the next. If you're trying to understand a specific company's arrangement, ask the company directly or check with a Colorado water attorney for anything with legal weight.