Buying Farm Land in Big Horn County, Wyoming

One federal reservoir, four irrigation districts, real per-acre assessments

The Shoshone (Reclamation) Project, built under the Reclamation Act of 1902 and dating to a 1904 start, stores Shoshone River water behind Buffalo Bill Dam and Reservoir near Cody and delivers it through a network of canals across the Big Horn Basin. The federal Bureau of Reclamation owns the storage and delivery infrastructure but doesn't manage day-to-day water delivery to individual farms -- it contracts with four local irrigation districts that actually run the system: Shoshone, Deaver, Willwood, and Heart Mountain. At full capacity the project can supply a full irrigation water right to over 93,000 acres across the basin, but which specific parcels get water, and how much they pay for it, depends entirely on which district (if any) that parcel is enrolled in.

These districts aren't nominal -- they carry real, current per-acre costs that materially affect the economics of farming a parcel. As one example, the Shoshone Irrigation District's most recently proposed fiscal-year assessment structure includes a one-time landowner fee of roughly $340, an operations-and-maintenance charge of roughly $27 per acre, plus smaller per-acre charges for rehabilitation/betterment and equipment funds -- figures that have moved upward over time (the district's O&M rate alone rose from about $18 to over $20 per acre between 2011 and 2014, for comparison). The Deaver Irrigation District, drawing water from the Shoshone River and Buffalo Bill Reservoir via the Frannie Canal, currently irrigates roughly 15,545 acres serving about 205 individual landowners. Confirm the current assessment schedule directly with the relevant district before valuing a parcel's water access -- rates are set annually and have been the subject of public debate locally over fairness to smaller acreages.

Contacting the right district

• Shoshone Irrigation District -- serving the Garland/Powell area, contact through Wyoming Association of Irrigation Districts or the district office directly for current assessment rates.
• Deaver Irrigation District (Frannie Division) -- P.O. Box 205, Deaver, WY 82421, (307) 664-2351; irrigates roughly 15,545 acres for about 205 landowners via the Frannie Canal.
• Willwood Irrigation District -- 1306 Road 9, Powell, WY 82435, (307) 754-3831.
• Heart Mountain Irrigation District -- 1206 Road 18, Powell, WY 82435, (307) 754-4685.

Note that Willwood and Heart Mountain are both based in Powell in adjacent Park County, since the Big Horn Basin's irrigation infrastructure and the districts serving it don't track county lines -- a Big Horn County parcel can fall under a district headquartered in a neighboring county.

Verifying a specific parcel's water right before you buy

Water rights under the Shoshone Project are, by federal reclamation law, appurtenant to the specific irrigable land they were originally granted to -- meaning the right generally travels with the land itself through a recorded federal patent, rather than existing as a separate, freely transferable asset the seller could keep. That makes verification a real, necessary step rather than a formality: a listing description of "irrigated farmland" is not the same as a confirmed, currently-active water right attached to that exact parcel.

1. Contact the specific irrigation district the parcel falls under directly and ask for its water-right and assessment history -- this is the fastest way to confirm current, active status and the assessed acreage.
2. Check with the Wyoming State Engineer's Office, Division 3 office in Riverton, which holds the adjudication and water-right records for the Big Horn River system generally.
3. For Shoshone Project-specific appurtenance and delivery-contract questions the district can't answer, the Bureau of Reclamation's regional office administers the underlying federal contracts with each district.
4. Ask directly whether the parcel's water right, if any, has ever been severed, changed in point of use, or left unused for a period that could put it at risk of forfeiture under Wyoming's use-it-or-lose-it water law -- an irrigation district can typically tell you if assessments have lapsed, which is often the first sign of exactly that.

What this means if you're buying to farm here

Because the Big Horn Basin's productive agriculture -- historically centered on sugar beets, and today including alfalfa, malt barley, beans, and corn alongside beets -- depends on delivered irrigation water rather than rainfall, the single most consequential fact about a specific parcel is often not its zoning or subdivision history but whether it carries an active, adequately-assessed water right in one of these four districts. Two adjacent-looking parcels can have very different farming economics if only one is current on its district assessments and actually receiving water. Get the district's own record for the exact parcel, not a general description of the area's irrigation history, before treating a listing's farmland value as settled.