Fountain Mutual Irrigation Company (FMIC) has owned and operated their own irrigation system since the late 1880's, which includes eight (8) water rights with the oldest originating in 1861. On April 3, 1920, Fountain Mutual Irrigation Company (FMIC) became incorporated as a business held together by a group of water right owners (Shareholders) who at the time were mostly made up of Irrigators. This group worked together to provide a mutual benefit with incorporating a canal system to transport water rights to Shareholders’ properties for irrigation. Today, FMIC is run by an elected Board of Directors and overseen by all FMIC Shareholders (including Irrigators and Augmentors).
FMIC’s water canal system used to extend approximately 60-miles long, which ran through Colorado Springs, El Paso County, and the City of Fountain to irrigate 6,000 acres of land. Upon sending their water rights through the State of Colorado’s Water Court, the company was issued 6,000 shares. Today, FMIC irrigates approximately 2,000 acres of land and the ditch (including laterals) which runs slightly less than 35-miles of open ditch with several segments of piped sections. Most Shareholders today are no-longer Irrigators, but Augmentors who run water to fulfill their augmentation plans as water providers.
FMIC’s water canal system used to extend approximately 60-miles long, which ran through Colorado Springs, El Paso County, and the City of Fountain to irrigate 6,000 acres of land. Upon sending their water rights through the State of Colorado’s Water Court, the company was issued 6,000 shares. Today, FMIC irrigates approximately 2,000 acres of land and the ditch (including laterals) which runs slightly less than 35-miles of open ditch with several segments of piped sections. Most Shareholders today are no-longer Irrigators, but Augmentors who run water to fulfill their augmentation plans as water providers.
Why were Incorporated Mutual Ditch and Irrigation Companies formed? Mutual ditch and irrigation companies, commonly referred to as "canal companies" or "ditch companies," were privately owned water stock companies. They were organized under state corporation laws, and therefore their legal status varies somewhat from state to state. There is no federal government involvement in canal companies, and very little state involvement. Yet, as an organizational sector, they manage the largest share of western water resources today. The following definition first appeared in the 1920 U.S. Irrigation Census. It is still valid today, attesting to the startling resilience of this organizational type. “The most common form of organization for cooperative irrigation enterprises is the stock company organized under the general incorporation laws of the state, with most of the stock owned by the water users. Water is apportioned on the basis of stock ownership, and the cost of annual operation and maintenance is raised by assessments on the stock. There is not, in most cases, any necessary relation between amount of stock owned and area of land owned or irrigated, although there is a tendency for the two to be proportional. In fact, stock may be owned independent of land ownership, and it may be, and is at times, rented, the lessee receiving the water apportioned to the stock rented. This renders the stock collateral for loans, and it is sometimes used in that way.”