WATER USERS NEAR COMPLETION OF LANDMARK AGREEMENT ON EASTERN SNAKE PLAIN AQUIFER
BOISE – June 3, 2015 – (RealEstateRama) — Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter came away from a meeting with members of competing water user organizations encouraged and pleased by the progress of their negotiations to resolve a dispute over water drawn from the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer.
Idaho House Speaker Scott Bedke of Oakley and State Senator Steve Bair of Blackfoot – chairman of the Senate Resources and Environment Committee – have been leading negotiations between the Idaho Ground Water Appropriators and the Surface Water Coalition. The talks are aimed at avoiding a legal demand for delivery of water – or a “call” – from the senior water-rights holders of the Surface Water Coalition.
“Stewardship requires management, administration and immediate action to sustain the resource. By necessity that includes reversing the decline in aquifer levels with the goal of improving the sustainability of Idaho’s water resources,” Governor Otter said. “We all must be good stewards of the resource to ensure the opportunity for future growth, development and prosperity.”
The Governor agreed with negotiators that their objective must be maintaining the long-term health of the aquifer, which is a federally designated sole source of drinking water for about a quarter-million people in eastern and southern Idaho.
“This is a decade-long conflict that is about to be resolved,” Speaker Bedke said. “This is about sustainability of our water resource. Both the surface water and the groundwater users’ interests are for the big picture, and that is the health of the aquifer.”
The framework of talks also includes ensuring that senior water-rights holders are mitigated for any loss of access to water to which they are entitled due to supply shortfalls or excess demand, developing a “safe harbor” agreement for ground water users with junior water rights, stabilizing aquifer levels, increasing water supplies, minimizing economic impacts and increasing the reliability of measurement, compliance and enforcement of aquifer management rules.
“In the face of very difficult discussions the Surface Water Coalition and the groundwater users have been able to forge a momentous term sheet agreement,” Senator Bair said. “In the coming month the terms of that agreement will be fleshed out to provide more details.”
The talks began after the Idaho Department of Water Resources determined in mid-April that there would be a water shortage for irrigators along the Eastern Snake Plain this summer. Water Resources Director Gary Spackman gave water users until July 1 to work out an alternative to the Surface Water Coalition issuing a call for the water it is due – at the expense of the Idaho Ground Water Appropriators.
Tim Deeg, director of the American Falls Aberdeen Ground Water District and president of the Idaho Ground Water Appropriators, said the negotiations are crucial to the irrigators he represents.
“This gives the ground water users a great opportunity to participate in how ground water management can play out, given where we are with the water conditions,” Deeg said.
“We really appreciate the Governor’s leadership,” said Brian Olmstead, general manager of the Twin Falls Canal Co. and a member of the Surface Water Coalition. “I really think the State is behind this; I think everybody agrees the aquifer is in big trouble and it needs be made healthy.”
CONTACT: Jon Hanian
(208) 334-2100
