TWIN FALLS, Idaho — Surface water users and groundwater users have completed an agreementthat aims to make sure all farmers get their fair share of water.
- Demand for water continues to go up, as farming grows, water levels in the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer have continued to diminish.
- Surface water users with senior rights say they are often at risk of not receiving their allotment of water, due to diminishing aquifer storage
- After a curtailment order cut off water to groundwater districts in June, Gov. Little issued an executive order, and urged both sides to negotiate a new plan
(Below is the transcript from the broadcast story)
An agreement between surface water users and groundwater users aims to get both groups the water they need in Idaho's growing Ag industry.
"Nobody got what they wanted, and that's always a good agreement when nobody likes it," Rick Pearson told me. "In the end, I hope it'll work."
Pearson has been farming in Twin Falls County since 1985 and has seen his fair share of good water years, and bad water years.
On the new agreement - he feels everyone made concessions, a good sign of compromise.
This past June, the Idaho Department of Water Resources issued a curtailment order for a number of groundwater districts, the result of their failure to comply with a previous agreement.
This sparked outcry from many eastern Idaho farmers.
Pearson, a surface water farmer, said he and his neighbors have gone through similar water shortages.
"They use the word curtail, we just run out of water," Pearson said. "Basically, that is natural curtailment. So in the last 30 years, we've been curtailed 10 or 15 times."
Just about all the farming in south central and eastern Idaho is made possible because of the Snake River and the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer.
Burley attorney Kent Fletcher — representing surface water users for 30 years — says levels have been declining for decades.
"And that results in diminishment of the amount of water coming to the senior users, especially in our reach of the river," Fletcher said.
The mitigation plan provides for actions taken by groundwater districts to reduce 205,000 acre-feet per year.
A big change is enforcement - instead of punishing an entire district, individual groundwater users will become liable for their usage, punishable by individual curtailment
"There's a lot of users in this state that are both surface water users and groundwater users, so we're all in bed with this together," Fletcher said. "Nobody wants to see anybody take a huge economic hit over the situation."
"This isn't just a farmer issue or an irrigator issue: This is a this is an Idaho issue," Pearson said. "Because if that aquifer does continue to drop it's going to affect cities, it's going to affect domestic use. It's a way bigger than just the farmers, people need to realize that that this is something that we can use up, and then we're done."
