The city of Hailey will be taken to task this summer over water rights claims dating from more than 100 years ago in Indian Creek Ranch subdivision northeast of town.
The city hired Twin Falls attorney Patrick Brown earlier this month to represent Hailey in a water rights case with the subdivision, stemming from a statewide adjudication of water rights claims begun in 1988.
City Engineer Tom Hellen said three separate water rights claims at the far end of Indian Creek provide 15 percent of the city's water supply in summer. During the winter months, the city gets almost 100 percent of its water from Indian Creek.
"We could run the pumps on our wells in town if we needed to, but why use the electricity if we have a gravity-fed system in place?" Hellen said.
The Indian Creek objection was made as part of a water rights adjudication process in the Snake River Basin. The process began in 1988 when Idaho Power Co. went to court with farmers and other water users in the Swan Falls area of Idaho over the rights to water being utilized by the power company. The case led to a comprehensive inventory of water rights claims and water usage within the Snake River Basin and its tributaries, an area that covers 87 percent of the state of Idaho.
"The Big Wood River Basin was the last basin reported under the adjudication," said Eric Wildman, staff attorney for the Snake River Basin Adjudication District Court in Twin Falls. "We will need to find a large venue to hold the initial public hearings."
More than 600 objections were filed at the Idaho Department of Water Resources against historical water rights claims within the Big Wood River basin and its tributaries. The Indian Creek objection is only one of those claims.
