Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Water talk dominates Capitol

Stennett to introduce Big Lost water bill


By GREG STAHL
Express Staff Writer

Water discussions continue to dominate the state Capitol as the Idaho Legislature enters its third week this winter.

Senate Minority Leader Clint Stennett, D-Ketchum, said last week that water talk is dominating the halls, offices, committee rooms and cloakrooms of the Capitol.

"I am hopeful that we can reach a negotiated settlement for the administration of the Eastern Snake River Plain Aquifer," Stennett said. "Through some combination of curtailment, conservation reserve set-aside, aquifer recharge and mitigation, I am confident that we can keep Southern Idaho irrigation users in business and protect the agriculture interests in our area."

Who pays for the fix will probably be the sticking point of the legislative debates. Lawmakers are contemplating a combination of user fees and bonds to cover the costs of increasing the aquifer's flows. Costs could exceed $100 million to increase the aquifer's level by 600,000 to 900,000 acre-feet. The state's water woes surfaced in Feb. 2004 when Idaho's chief water manager ordered Magic Valley wells on the north side of the Snake River to shut down unless water users could come up with replacement water for a Hagerman-area fish hatchery that is suffering water shortages. The shutdown was scheduled to apply to wells developed after July 13, 1962.

Idaho Department of Water Resources Director Karl Dreher's order would have affected groundwater users on a large portion of the Eastern Snake River Plain.

The premise for the decision lies with the interconnected nature of the Snake River Plain Aquifer and the rivers and springs that feed it and rises from it. The problem is that ground water has been depleted to the point that it is detracting from springs in the Hagerman valley, where parts of the aquifer have historically dumped into the Snake River. Several Hagerman fish hatchery operators filed with the Department of Water Resources last year because the water they draw from springs had been diminished.

A call by Rangen, Inc., a fish farm with the most senior water rights of those who made a "call" for water, took center stage. Rangen's water right priority, July 13, 1962, is the date Dreher used as the proposed cutoff for the plain's irrigators.

But before ground water pumping was curtailed, the state of Idaho entered into an agreement with the Magic Valley Ground Water District, the North Snake Ground Water District and spring users in the Thousand Springs reach of the Snake River. The temporary solution the groups reached was to pump water and money into the Hagerman area this year, and to continue looking for long-term solutions, and that is what the Legislature is faced with this winter.

"It is on everybody's mind," Stennett said, adding, "it may not be settled this year. All that may be done is we buy another year."

Stennett said there is "nothing even close" to a draft bill yet. Various stakeholders are still seeking middle ground.

"The point is, how do we find a soft landing rather than a train wreck," he said. "If there's a win in it for conservation, I'm hoping to find it."

In tandem with the ongoing Snake River Plain Aquifer negotiations, Stennett said he is bringing back from the dead a bill he worked on several years ago that would allow people to buy water rights in the Big Lost River basin for the express purpose of leaving water in the river.

"Any water that's in the Big Lost and gets past the water users and into the desert obviously provides wildlife benefits, and once it's in the desert, it provides recharge for the aquifer," he said.

Either way, Stennett said it is important for the Legislature to find a solution that averts the courts or the water resources department from issuing a decision that could dry up thousands of acres of farms and cost Idaho's economy up to $900 million.




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